Annual report shows Vernon’s financial results, capital projects, and more from 2023

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“The introductory section covers off a number of different items such as the make-up of the city, the council mission statement, as well as specific annual messages from the mayor, the CAO (Chief Administrative Officer), and the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) pertaining to 2023,” Martens told council at its meeting Monday, June 10.

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“It also provides information in regards to overall services that are being performed, community profile, Council’s strategic plan, the actual council plan as a result of that strategic plan. So a number of pieces of information for that.”

“As well, the statement of financial information components are there. The financial section is strictly the audited financial statements that council has already seen, and the emails for those financial statements and the auditors report.”

“The statistical section provides a variety of statistics ranging from financial results, cumulated surplus, revenue, items such as capital spending and sources of capital, and debt. A number of those types of statistics, most of which are presented in a five-year trend,” Martens explained.

The document showed the city’s revenue increased by roughly $15-million annually to over $123-million in 2023. However, expenses also increased by a similar amount to $103-million, resulting in an annual surplus of $20-million.

The report stated the accumulated surplus, which includes the asset values, totalled nearly $730-million as of the end of 2023.

The city had almost $8.1-million in debt as of the end of 2023, up approximately $500,000 from the year prior.

Taxation was recorded at over $53-million in 2023, up about $3-million from 2022’s total. Residential tax attributed to $35-million of that total.

As per the 2022 B.C. Statistics report, Vernon’s population was estimated to have grown by 3.8 per cent to 47,265 people in 2023. Approximately 39,230 of those people were believed to be voting age.

Speaking to Vernon Matters, Mayor Victor Cumming said having these figures and reports available to the public is important.

“It gives a list of completed projects; it gives people an idea on how we’re doing financially; it gives the idea that people get to learn that our debt has been steadily decreasing. We don’t have much debt here in Vernon, we’ll see debt for the very first time in 2024 because we’re going to begin to borrow for the Active Living Centre, but otherwise we have very little debt relative to our revenue and our expenses,” Cumming stated.

“So the annual report has got good stuff to flip through, a quick, good list of the things we intend to do and the progress that’s been made on them, that’s the Council’s Strategic Plan, and a good sense of where our finances are.”

Council accepted the draft report for information without discussion at Monday’s meeting.

It will be presented again at a public meeting on June 24, 2024, for citizens to ask questions and make submissions regarding the report.

Click here to read the 2023 annual report.