Review for Downtown Business Improvement District revenue runs by council
When property reassessment in 2017 led to a significant drop in taxes for many downtown property owners, it also cut deep into funding for the Prince Albert Downtown Business Improvement District (PADBID).
Alongside a grant from the city of $22,000, PADBID receives a majority of its funding through a four-per-cent levy on businesses in the downtown area. The funds raised from that levy dropped from $82,000 in 2016 to $46,000 in 2017, though it increased slightly to $50,000 in 2018. PADBID was initially told to budget for around $90,000, but it was recently discovered that number would instead be $72,000. The $20,890 shortfall for 2018, coupled with another $5,482 shortfall in 2017, left some at PADBID scratching their heads, concerned about future planning and operations.
“It will really impede us from moving forward,” PADBID Board Chair Stacy Coburn said during a presentation to city council Monday. “We will have to dip into reserves and that only gives us a year and a half that we can operate.”
Coburn’s comments sparked the curiosity of a number of councillors, including Ward 2’s Terra Lennox-Zepp who asked for a report from the finance department to provide options on how the city could provide the originally-budgeted funding in 2017 and 2018 and into the future. Lennox-Zepp suggested the city could redirect some additional funds from parking metre revenue to the PADBID.