The Community
Press Telling your story
Volume 112, Issue 41
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
New Ways to Connect
PHOTOS COURTESY COVENANT HEALTH
Rosalie Auburn and Darren Hill found a creative way to connect with their dad, Maynard Hill, who is a resident of Killam Long Term Care. Staff of the facility found a window where Maynard could visit with his children. See more Pg 2.
Flagstaff County Council closes discussion on regional governance Leslie Cholowsky Editor
Flagstaff County Council held its regular meeting on Wednesday, April 8, via live stream, with all councillors taking part. Council welcomed Peggy Weinzierl, Auditor from Gitzel and Company of the 2019 Financial Statement. Reeve Don Kroetch commended the county’s departments for preparing their budgets well and sticking to them through some hard times. Weinzierl reviewed some highlights of the financial statement with Council. Before her presentation, Kroetch asked her if there were any potential issues or landmines identified during her audit. Weinzierl responded, “Collection of taxes is an issue, as you’ll see, as well as roads and bridge inventories, with some bridges at or near the end of their useful life span. “A good number of them are fully amortized or at the end of life.”
Weinzierl went over the county’s reserves with Council, showing just two items in Operating reserves in the negatives, pointing out that one figure represented initial funds spent towards a future project that has not yet been fully started, but for which funds have been put into reserves for, and the other for cemetery funding, where $5,000 in excess funding was approved in 2019. Large transfers into capital reserves included $1.3 million for future road projects, from which $119,000 has already been paid for engineering, and another $870,000 put into bridges budget. A further $114,934 was collected in 2019 on hamlet utility bills for reserves to cover future infrastructure repair or replacement. The county had budgeted that $165,000 be set aside for the mill rate stabilization reserves, but due to bad debt, was not able to be done. Weinzierl pointed out that during 2019 bad debts expense in the amount of $2,981,241 was recorded relating to management estimates of uncollectable taxes. In See COUNCIL P9
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Premier addresses weekly newspapers in teleconference Leslie Cholowsky Editor
In a special teleconference with Alberta Weekly Newspaper Association (AWNA) editors and publishers, Premier Jason Kenney thanked community newspapers for delivering news to areas of the province not served by other media. “Thank you so much; as weekly newspapers, in many communities you are the only source for local and regional news.” He also announced an increase in Alberta’s advertising budget committed to supporting weekly newspapers and getting messages out to their readers, especially for reaching those shut-in due to COVID-19, or those who aren’t online, or don’t participate in social media. “You continue to be a very important voice in your communities.” Since that conference, held Thursday, April 9, COVID-19 cases in Alberta increased by nearly 420, with the number of deaths attributed to the virus rising from 29 to Tuesday’s count of 48. Kenney said, “We are early in the curve, we expect our numbers to get significantly worse, with a midMay peak in infections, and peak hospitalization rates in late May.” He pointed to Alberta’s slope of infection, calling it “quite gentle” and adding, “I believe we are in as good as place as we reasonably can be.” He praised Alberta Health Services (AHS) for having created a lot of excess capacity. “Our emergency wards are seeing the lowest volumes in quite some time.” He commended efforts to increase capacity, and for innovations utilized by health care providers. “What keeps me awake at night is the combined economic impact of this virus.” Kenney referred to the release last week by Stats Canada on the March labour force. “Stats show our unemployment rate has jumped 1.5 per cent to 8.7 per cent.” “I believe those numbers massively understate the true picture.” He pointed to people presently in isolation but still technically employed, and says a growth in employment in oil and gas in early March may have skewed the average-weighted results for the month. “Later this spring I expect to see unemployment in the high teens or north of 20 per cent.” He said this is a triple whammy for a province already enduring hardships due to the past few years of low economic growth, historic low prices for oil, and a global pandemic. Kenney said that is what prompted the province to See PREMIER P9 Funded by the Government of Canada