Despite the current inflationary context, the Lehouillier administration in Lévis is getting off lightly. It anticipates a budget surplus of $5.7 million by the end of 2022.
Although this surplus is well below the record surpluses of $28 M (in 2021) and $32.9 M (in 2020) for the past two years, the City of Lévis is pleased, this time, to succeed in closing its budget at green ink in a context where expenses have exploded and everything is more expensive.
By way of comparison, its neighbor on the other side of the St. Lawrence, the City of Quebec, anticipates a lower surplus of $2.4 million, while its budget is five times larger.
Mayor Gilles Lehouillier praised the “rigorous and responsible” management of his team in a press scrum on Monday afternoon, before the city council meeting in the evening. For him, the $5.7 million surplus illustrates a “return to normal” after years of exceptional surpluses thanks to the ad hoc government assistance granted to deal with the pandemic.
“We must not forget that the government (Legault) had injected a lot of money into the municipalities,” recalled the mayor of Lévis. Too ? No, he assures. The surpluses of the last few years have allowed him, he says, to pay unforeseen expenses for energy consumption, to “bail out the financial reserves” related to snow removal or self-insurance, and then to develop the territory and the industrial parks.
Increase in transfer taxes
Breaking down the figures for 2022, we see an additional revenue forecast of $2.7 million. Combined with a reduction in spending of $3 million, this results in an operating surplus of $5.7 million, which represents 1.7% of the total budget of $333.3 million.
The City’s revenues were inflated, in particular, by an increase in transfers from higher governments (+$2.5 M), transfer duties (welcome tax) higher than expected by $1 M, as well as additional revenues $1.1 million from the Transport and Sustainable Mobility Department. Add to that higher-than-expected bank interest income (+$835,000).
On the other hand, income from aquatic activities took a nose dive by nearly $800,000. Animal management also brought in $247,000 less than expected.
In the expense column, the City saved $2.1M in salaries, $1.2M in interest on pension plan liabilities and saved $1.1M in debt servicing. Maintaining its fleet of vehicles, however, cost it more (+$350,000), as did horticultural and arboricultural maintenance (+$265,000) and waste collection (+$224,000). Mayor Gilles Lehouillier will comment on the report at the end of the afternoon.
By-election in February
The elected officials of Lévis also confirmed the date of the by-election in Christ-Roi in order to fill the position left vacant by the former councilor Andrée Kronström, who resigned recently in order to privilege his career as a coroner.
The by-election will take place on February 19. The budget needed to hold this partial is estimated at $281,000. The mayor’s party, Lévis Force 10, has not yet announced the name of who will try to succeed Ms. Kronström.
The opposition party Repensons Lévis, currently represented by only one elected official (Serge Bonin) at city hall, will hold a nomination contest in the coming weeks. At least three candidates would be in the running. The leader of the party, Elhadji Mamadou Diarra, could launch into the race but he has still not confirmed his intentions.