Kamloops City Councillors are getting a first look at the 2023 municipal budget.

Corporate Services Director Kathy Humphrey told the Committee of the Whole Meeting this morning that the city is currently looking at shortfall of just over $7 million.

“The City needs just over $7 million more money this year than we did last year,” she said. “That translates to approximately 5.6 per cent. Most of that is changes in expenditures, a little bit of it a loss of revenues.”

Part of the hit comes from the massive increase in inflation – which is adding an estimated $1.3 million to the budget, while the other is increases in wage contracts.

“The materials that are required for fleet and a lot of our civic operations stuff, just of cost of that has significantly increased,” Humphrey said. “Fertilizer has increasesd, which is causing problems in parks.”

“Road-marking paint, now that we can actually get it, is significantly higher as well. We’ve increased these budgets to try to reflect the same service levels that we need to provide but at the higher prices that we’re seeing.”

Part of the hit, she said, comes from the RCMP.

“We’ve added three members,” Humphrey added. “We were at 129 last year, we’re not funding the equivalent of 132, which adds about $432,000”

City council has yet to consider supplementary requests from city departments or find other sources of revenue to cover the shortfall, both of which would impact the burden to taxpayers.

Through the budget process, the new council will now have to decide whether home owners are going to absorb the 5.6 per cent hit, or whether it can be made up elsewhere through either spending cuts, savings, or increased revenues.

Kamloops taxpayers saw a 4.92 per cent property tax increase in 2022 – the largest in recent history – thanks in large part to the new national RCMP contract.

In 2021, residents saw the lowest property tax increase in decades – 0.93 per cent – with the average increase in Kamloops over the past decade hovering around two per cent.

The 2023 budget will not be finalized until early in the new year.

– With files from Victor Kaisar

NEW – It is still very early in the process, but #Kamloops is looking at a proposed 5.6 per cent average property tax increase. pic.twitter.com/klCrLJZjVX

— Victor Mario Kaisar (@supermario_47) November 22, 2022