Sault Ste. Marie City Council will learn tonight that its Public Utilities Commission is providing special, one-time dividends to the city totalling $400,000 – very welcome news during ongoing budget deliberations.
"The city will budget this money as one-time funds," says Mayor Christian Provenzano.
"We will not allocate it to ongoing expenses," the mayor said.
"These special dividends are in addition to the regular annual dividend of $610,000 and will result in a total dividend of $1.01 million this year," said Jim Boniferro, chair of the city-owned PUC Inc. and PUC Services Inc.
"It is important to note that this dividend is not the result of an increase in either distribution or water rates, or generated from those rates," Boniferro says in a letter sent Friday to the mayor and City Council.
"We were able to declare this special dividend because PUC has specialized on or created other income streams. We intend on doing more of this work and passing on that success to our community through the shareholder [the city]."
"In that respect, although we aim and hope to continue to increase our revenues and distributions, the city should not assume that we will be able to declare a special dividend next year. For the city's budgeting purposes, the city can and should continue to count on the usual annual dividend," Boniferro said.
"This is a team achievement and one that reflects well on all levels of the organization," the mayor replied.
Today's budget meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m.