Battleford Council during a previous meeting. (battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Town financial

Unfilled jobs help Town of Battleford post $2 million surplus

Jul 2, 2025 | 1:57 PM

Several jobs remaining open for longer than expected last year helped the Town of Battleford post a $2 million surplus last year.

Town council was presented with their 2024 audited financial statement at a special meeting last week, with their auditor commending them on their numbers.

“Overall, your total revenues for the year was just over $10 million, budgeted revenues was $9.6 million, so you exceeded expectations.”

That’s according to Ryan Deis from L&A Chartered Professional Accountants of the standard audit conducted for the Town of Battleford 2024 Approved Audited Financial Statement.

During his presentation to council, Deis called it a standard budget and said the records were in good shape.

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“There’s no long-term debt of any kind so, there’s no big obligations, anything like that,” he said.

Mayor Ames Leslie said both the revenues are above budgeted amount and expenses.

“It’s never the intention to have either but it’s a nice combination to see that that the financial statements are healthy, and they came into support the balanced budget and actually we have a little bit larger surplus than what we were hoping to have.”

The town had a $2 million surplus because their expenses were limited to $8 million. According to Leslie, the surplus was nearly doubled because of vacant employment positions including the delayed start for the new CEO and lack of deputy fire chief and as a result, there were savings.

Another item that popped up for a number of councillors was $600,000 in outstanding taxes, although in years past it has been much higher than that.

“It’s less than it has been,” said Leslie. “It was $900,000 a couple of years ago. Once (Chief Administrative Officer Todd Francis) gets caught up; it will be his priority.”

According to Leslie, there is a positive note on the taxes – there’s been a 20 per cent increase year over year on the amount of prepaid taxes.

“We have a contingent of people who are paying earlier, and we have a larger contingent of people who aren’t paying at all,” he said of the $98,000 in prepaid property taxes.

“A little bit of a ying and yang there so, that was nice to see.”

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