The District of 100 Mile House is having trouble completing its capital projects.
In 2023 the district budgeted $5.6 million to complete capital projects, such as long-awaited replacement for the Horse Lake Road Bridge. However, a recent audit of the 2023 fiscal year conducted by Binder Dijker Otte (BDO), an international network of public accounting, consulting and business firms, found that the district only ended up spending $2 million on such projects.
Mario Piroddi, a BDO partner based out of Kamloops, told council on Thursday, April 25 that this reality isn’t unique to 100 Mile House. He said municipalities across B.C. have been falling behind on major projects due to a mix of factors.
“This is something that we are again seeing across the province, that communities are falling behind on their capital projects because they cannot secure the contractors, they cannot secure materials like asphalt, painting lines on roads is an issue for a lot of communities,” Piroddi said.
Coun. Donna Barnett noted that for the District of 100 Mile House, “waiting for permits” is an issue that slows down their project. Mayor Maureen Pinkney said that residents should be worried about delays to public works projects.
“Cost of things have gone up, and it’s not our intention to fall behind on things, it’s obvious when you look at sidewalks and things like that.”
Pinkney stated that 100 Mile House needs a helping hand from both provincial and federal governments in order to fix those issues.
In the rest of his audit, Piroddi broke down the district’s revenue sources. BDO found that 36 per cent of the district’s revenue came from taxes, while 34 per cent of the District’s revenues came from government transfers. Other sources of funding came from the sale of services, investment and other sources of revenue not disclosed by BDO.
The audit found that the District had around $20 million in financial assets, around $2.4 million in liabilities excluding Municipal Finance Authority (MFA) debt, $13,337 in MFA debt, $17.9 million in net financial assets, and $40.9 million in tangible capital assets.
Notably, the District has $2 million more dollars in assets than in 2022, which Piroddi did not find surprising. Council accepted the report and approved it as presented.