Vauxhall capital budget discussed

Posted on April 30, 2026 by Vauxhall Advance

By Nikki Jamieson
Vauxhall Advance
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Further changes are being made to Vauxhall’s capital budget for 2026.

During their regular April 20 meeting, Vauxhall town council reviewed the proposed capital budget for 2026-31.

Town CFO Clark Holt started off by noting that while the ice rink upgrades was the big project for 2025, they still had a few things “to trickle in” and had allotted about $352,000 from reserves to pay for it in 2026. Holt noted the county grant had made a huge difference in funding the project in 2025. Additionally, the town was able to utilize funding from the Canada Community-Building Fund (CCBF) grant, formerly known as the gas tax, for the upgrades. According to the draft budget presented in the meeting, about $815,000 was used from the grant to fund the rink upgrades.

“You guys hadn’t spent it in so long it’s changed names a few times,” said Holt. “So, the government was riding us a little bit the last couple of years to spend that money, and I’m happy to report we’ve done so.”

Holt stressed to council that while the budget looked ahead for five years and helped them plan, “we are not locked into anything beyond 2026”.

“In fact, we’re not locked into anything in 2026, you can always amend the budget,” said Holt. “For 2027, we’re just doing our best to put projects, equipment, et cetera, where it counts so it is prioritized.”

Any further expenses from the rink project would need to be funded from reserves, according to Holt. 

Servicing new lots had been allocated $750,000 for 2026. In response to a comment it was too low, town CAO Cris Burns said that in addition to connecting a new subdivision, the town needed to upgrade the town’s sanitary lines. Holt noted that funds had been allocated in 2029 and 2030 for the Main Lift Station Upgrade and Sanitary Force Main project, which was quoted at $1.586 million. However, if that was a priority for council, they could move some projects around.

“The only issue if we did it all this year, I’m not saying it’s an issue but we’ve got roughly $200,000 of CCBF funding available, and about half a million dollars of a LGFF grant. So we’ll have about $700,000 of grant funding available, which would leave about $800,000-$900,000 to be taken out of reserves,” said Holt. “Which I’m okay with, as long as council’s okay with.”

Holt said he didn’t like to see reserves going under a million just so the town can operate and not worry about cash flow, but there was some room. In the fall, when discussing the 2027 budgets, Holt said they should really “hash things out” and nail down what projects they are doing when.