Steinbach’s five-year debt policy saving the City money

The City of Steinbach has a five-year debt policy, which they started sometime in the late 1980’s. 

Deputy Mayor Michael Zwaagstra explains that means every single project that the City of Steinbach undertakes will be paid off in five years, including the Event Centre.  

“I don't know of any municipality anywhere in the country that is building an event centre like what we have that will be debt free in five years. That is something that I think we should be very proud of.” 

He says finding the money to pay for it has been a big task. 

"But we've had good support from the private sector and from other levels of government, and we've been able to find the money to make that work.” 

One of the advantages of their five-year debt policy is that the City is paying less interest. 

Zwaagstra explains, “because if you do it over 20 years, you're obviously paying interest over a much longer period of time and that significantly increases the cost.” 

Councillor Damian Penner says sticking to the five-year amortization is something council prides themselves on, and they don’t want to have to start deviating from that. 

He says raising says raising property taxes is a hard decision, but a necessary one. 

“Sometimes that will mean the hard decisions of temporary increases to then find the benefit later. This is a budget that it's a hard pill to swallow to have to look at an increase, but it is a necessary one in my opinion.”