BANFF – The Town of Banff is expecting an $843,000 unrestricted surplus for 2024.
The 2024 operating budget forecast for the 10 months ending Oct. 31 was presented to council in December, but officials say there are still two months of the year to be reported before year-end “so keep that in mind.”
Palki Biswas, finance controller for the Town of Banff, said the total year-end net surplus is forecast at $5.8 million, due to approximately $8.6 million in excess revenues and approximately $2.9 million in additional expenses.
“Of this forecasted surplus, $5.7 million is restricted for specific uses leaving $843,000 as the current estimated unrestricted surplus,” she said in a report to council.
The final surplus will be determined when the annual financial audit is completed. Administration will come back to council with the 2024 year-end financial results in March 2025.
The sale of goods and services is forecast to be approximately $777,000 higher than budget, primarily due to an increase in service charges to Roam transit for bus maintenance mechanics hired, which is offset by an increase in wages, benefits and contracted services.
Business licences are expected to be roughly $2.7 million higher than budget, but are fully offset by the transfer of these funds to Banff and Lake Louise Tourism, the organization contracted to market the tourist town.
Paid parking revenues are expected up by an additional $1.8 million at year-end as a result of increasing hourly rates and the number of paid parking stalls in the Bear Street parkade. This will be completely offset by a transfer to the visitor pay parking reserve.
As for wages and benefits, Biswas said the forecast analysis shows a projected Town-wide net decrease of wages and benefits to the tune of $1.6 million compared to budget.
She said this is partially due to the duplicate wages and benefits’ posting error in 2023 – $389,000 total impact and $248,000 impact on the net surplus – which mainly impacts the operations department, as well as staff vacancies, turnover and temporary or new staff hired at a lower rate than budget.
“This variance also includes the anticipated $358,000 of wages and benefits savings incorporated into the base budget and allocated across the departments,” she said.
While many of the decreases in wages and benefits are paid by municipal taxes, Biswas said some are funded by revenues, utility rates, donations, and grants and, therefore, have a lesser or no impact on the unrestricted surplus.
Although the overall picture is a decrease in wages and benefits compared to the original budget, she said there are some areas where wages and benefits increased.
“These include additional mechanics hired for bus maintenance, offset by additional revenue; enhanced community services programming, offset by additional donations, and increased visitor experience special events during the year,” she said.
