Region of Queens misses budget deadline, approves special spending

Region of Queens Municipality administration building. (Rick Conrad photo)

The Region of Queens hasn’t approved its budget yet, so councillors had to vote this week to approve interim spending limits so that the municipality’s bills will still get paid.

Council is supposed to have a budget approved by April 1 of each year.

That didn’t happen this year, so director of corporate services Joanne Veinotte asked councillors at Tuesday’s regular meeting to approve an amount of $7.59 million to provide “spending authority and business continuity” as the fiscal year begins April 1.

Veinotte said other municipalities follow a similar process.

These are operational funds and don’t apply to capital projects.

No reason was given by staff or councillors for why the budget hasn’t been presented or approved yet. Mayor Darlene Norman was not available for an interview Thursday. 

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, CAO Cody Joudry presented a tentative schedule for the region’s budget deliberations.

Under that timeline, councillors were supposed to receive a draft budget after their meeting on Tuesday, with April 2 as the deadline for councillors to submit budget questions.

The draft budget will be available publicly by April 5 at 4 p.m. in the council agenda. It will be presented at council’s regular meeting on April 9. Two special meetings to discuss the draft budget will be held April 11 and 16, with the final draft budget presented at council’s April 23 meeting for a vote.

Under Joudry’s proposed schedule, councillors would vote on the final budget at their April 23 meeting. 

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story had the incorrect date for the Region of Queens final draft budget to be presented and voted on by councillors. The story has been updated with the correct date.