THUNDER BAY – It looks like the city’s long-awaited indoor turf facility is about to become reality.
A $32-million budget line for the facility is included in the 2025 capital budget, proposed by city administration on Monday.
The proposed $161.8-million capital budget for 2025 represents a 57 per cent jump up from last year's capital budget of $103.2 million.
The indoor turf facility is a major driver of that growth. It accounts for more than half of the $58.5-million increase.
Council approved the $42 million dollar indoor turf facility in June and now “75 per cent of the project budget has been included in the 2025 capital budget,” said Keri Greaves, commissioner of corporate services and city treasurer.
“Now that that project is being designed. It will go through the RFP process in the next few months,” said Greaves.
None of the $32 million budgeted for next year would come from an increase to the tax levy. A little more than half would come from grants, the rest from reserve funds.
Contributing factors to the capital budget increase include the reserve fund-supported temporary village project ($5 million) and projects within leveraged funds like the Housing Accelerator Fund ($6,516,900), Housing-Enabling Water System Fund ($4 million), and Building Faster Fund ($1.7 million).
Greaves and city manager John Collin presented a capital budget proposal that limits tax-supported increases to 3.8 per cent.
That’s in line with the mandate they sought from council in August 2023, when council directed administration to bring back both operating and capital budgets that would keep the tax levy increase to 3.8 per cent..
Council did discuss the possibility that the budget as a whole could still vary from that target.
Monday's budget presentation was just a first reading. The 2025 capital budget was not up for debate and still has yet to go through consultation, debate and ratification.
Coun. Brain Hamilton noted that 3.8 per cent is “not necessarily going to be the final number” once the capital and operating budgets are debated and ratified by council.
Coun. Shelby Ch'ng said that capital and operating budgets tend to overlap and the 3.8 per cent mandated tax levy could fluctuate.
“The risk you highlight is a real risk,” said Collin, “that we could approve something in capital and then council would choose during the operating budget discussions to say no.”
“In that case, we would as administration point out the conflict and council would need to decide whether they need to revisit the capital budget or adjust the operating budget. I think the chances of those sorts of arguments happening this time are minimized,” he continued.
“The reason I say that, is council gave a very clear mandate to administration of 3.8 per cent. We're coming in at 3.8 per cent or less in terms of the increase,” Collin added.
Coun. Rajni Agarwal expressed concerns about the city’s reserves.
“Are we in any way depleting our reserve funds?” asked Agarwal.
The only reserve fund at risk of being depleted is the indoor turf facility, said Greaves.
Greaves told Newswatch he is closely monitoring the city’s reserves to ensure they stay healthy.
“The city does have a strong reserve and reserve fund policy,” said Greaves.
“When we go to construction, we have those funds available. Other reserves and reserve funds generally are for the projects that they are being used for,” he said. “There is a capital general reserve fund for those projects that are kind of unexpected. We haven't tapped into that very much this year.
“We want to try to build that because we know that with the infrastructure deficit, we do have some obligations over the next few years to consider and we want to make sure we have reserves and reserve funds available for those,” he added.
The city is looking for public input into the 2025 proposed capital budget through a budget survey from Oct. 30 to Nov. 12.
The results will be presented to council on Nov. 25.
