Langley City’s 2022 Financials Received a Clean Bill of Health

As provincial law requires, all BC municipalities must have an independent auditor review their financial statements for inclusion in a municipality’s annual report. At last night’s meeting, Langley City Council heard a presentation from Kristine Simpson, our independent auditor. She gave the City’s finances a clean bill of health. This bill of health means that the City’s 2022 financial statements are accurate, internal security controls are adequate, and financials had no signs of mismanagement.

As such, Council approved our 2022 Consolidated Financial Statements. In 2022, Langely City received $66.6m in revenue and had $54m in expenses. The City had a resulting surplus of $11.7m in 2022. Now this money isn’t all cash in the bank. $10.4m of this surplus includes tangible capital assets the City acquired in 2022, resulting from projects such as repaving streets, upgrading parks, putting in bike lanes, and renewing water and sewer infrastructure.

The actual “cash” surplus is rolled into our capital work account to help accelerate projects to help chip away at our infrastructure debt.

At the end of 2022, Langley City had $51.5m in reserve accounts. The City has earmarked this money for projects in our capital plans. The City also had $33m in developer cost charges acounts. This money is collected as part of the redevelopment process and is restricted to specific projects by provincial law. The City also earmarks this developer cost charges funding for projects in our capital plans. All that being said, while the City had $84.5m in the bank, the City isn’t putting it in the Scrooge McDuck Money Bin. The City has assigned this money for specific projects.

As per BC law, Langley City Council must amend our 2022 – 2026 Financial Plan to reflect the 2022 year-end consolidated financial statements. Langley City Council gave first, second and third reading to amend the financial plan.

The amendment also included updating our 2022 Capital Plan to reflect grants we received from ICBC as follows:

• Traffic Signal Upgrade at 48 Ave and 200 St - $43,000
• Traffic Calming 53 Ave near Brydon Lagoon - $8,000
• Various Traffic Calming - $2,000

Tomorrow, I will post about our 2023 Financial Plan, including how we will allocate the $7.2 million we received from the provincial government.