Delays in capital projects needed to ease debt load, Surrey mayor says
Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum came to the defence of the first budget of his term in a news conference Tuesday, calling it “one of the best budgets that I’ve seen.”
But the deep capital cuts the financial plan contained left some questioning whether it could be justified in a rapidly growing city.
The proposed budget includes a 2.9-per-cent tax increase and cuts to planned community infrastructure projects that total nearly $136 million. Set to be put on pause are ice rinks in Cloverdale, plans for community centre and library expansions, a child-care project, policing infrastructure, parks and cultural amenities, among other things.
The capital projects have been “proposed for postponement to future years for Council’s consideration,” according to the city’s budget documents. “We need to live within our means in Surrey,” McCallum said.
McCallum questioned the need for high-priced projects like a $44.5-million ice complex in Cloverdale and a $58-million community centre and library in Grandview Heights. “We campaigned in South Surrey very strongly that we were going to slow down growth out (there),” McCallum said.
After the draft budget was made public, the Cloverdale Community Association said whatever projects were approved by past councils should move ahead as planned. “We will continue to push for it,” Mike Bola, the community association president, said on social media. He couldn’t immediately be reached Tuesday.
McCallum said he had been clear with voters during his election campaign that he would limit tax increases in the city to the consumer price index. That index reached 2.9 per cent in July and remained there through October, according to B.C. Stats. Surrey’s 2018 tax increase was 3.8 per cent.
Last week, McCallum said he was “shaken to the core” when, after being re-elected, he learned the city’s debt was $514 million. That $514-million figure isn’t the current debt load, according to the city. Instead, it’s the projected debt that the city would incur under the existing five-year financial plan, which was approved in December 2017, if that plan were to be allowed to proceed to completion.
McCallum’s proposed capital plan would set Surrey’s debt requirements at $378 million.
Kin Lo, an accounting professor at the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business, said he thought McCallum’s assertion that the city’s debt levels were too high couldn’t be justified.
He said it’s common for a city to take on debt to build needed infrastructure “especially for a growing city like Surrey.”