Dear Editor:
Re: Criticism of politicians, not staff, Letter to the Editor, Burnaby NOW, Oct. 5
Mr. G. Bruce Friesen did not adequately research his facts prior to writing a letter wherein he explained his (and presumably his Green colleagues') perception of Burnaby's capital reserve funds.
It is true that Burnaby's reserve funds are reported at $293.5 million on December 2000 versus $798.3 million on December 2010 and, yes, these funds include a mix of cash, Canadian government securities, city real estate and real estate held for future resale.
What the president of the Greens doesn't point out is that during this tenyear period, a major change to generally accepted accounting principles - known as PSAB 3150 - was adopted by the Province of B.C. and was mandated for all municipalities.
These new public sector accounting rules changed the way cities, including Burnaby, were required to report their assets. Prior to the change, if the city built or bought something, it was required to be expensed as a cost of doing business.
The change to PSAB 3150 now requires the city to create an inventory of all its useful assets, including roads, buildings, parks and land, and to add them as increased assets to the balance sheet.
When our assets were increased, it automatically increased our reserves by a similar value. Some examples of items we were required to add to our balance sheet included: Burnaby City Hall, our garbage trucks, the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, Eileen Dailly pool, Bonsor recreation centre, Bob Prittie library, Tommy Douglas library, our seniors centres-the list goes on.
One of the major reasons the province adopted these new rules for municipalities was to ensure the sustainability of a City's capital reserves. The rules include amortization to ensure that reserves grow at a sufficient rate to ensure a community can remain sustainable in the future. This means Burnaby will have sufficient resources to ensure its capital assets, such as roads, community centers and utilities can continue to meet the needs of the community they serve in good times and in bad.
Burnaby's reserves continue to assist the city's growth. The city is debt-free and continues to have one of the region's lowest tax increases.
Our strong reserves have ensured that as our population grows, our infrastructure can grow too. Burnaby enjoys some of the best facilities and services in Canada, in part due to the fact that our Burnaby Citizens Association Council has ensured that Burnaby is strong and will continue to be so.
Dan Johnston, Burnaby city councillor and finance liaison
