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BridgeNet may provide “lightning fast internet” but it’s a little lower to beak even on the financial front.
In 2016, the City of New Westminster launched BridgeNet, a city-owned open-access fibre optic network. The idea behind the dark fibre network was to improve connectivity for residents and businesses and to provide a “fertile field for connectivity, innovation and economic growth” by offering affordable access to broadband fibre.
“BridgeNet is the City of New Westminster’s dark fibre utility,” says the BridgeNet website. “BridgeNet’s open access to dark fibre network means more choice for New Westminster residents and businesses for their digital services. BridgeNet offers access to lightning fast internet at competitive prices and creates increased employment and investment opportunities in the city’s knowledge sector.”
At its Sept. 23 meeting, council received a report on the 2024 operating and capital budgets, as well as accompanying reports about major purchases, status reports from some city departments, and capital spending.
Coun. Daniel Fontaine questioned staff about the status of BridgeNet.
“I think I'm reading this correctly but can staff confirm that BridgeNet is forecast to lose $677,000 this year?” he said. “Is that accurate?”
Shehzad Somji, the city’s director of finance, confirmed that is what’s budgeted for BridgeNet. He said there’s $324,000 of revenue coming into the annual budget and $800,000 in expenses and another $200,000 in interest expenses, a large part of which has to do with amortization of the equipment for BridgeNet.
“But there is a budgeted annual loss of $677,000,” he told council.
Fontaine questioned when BridgeNet would break even.
“Do we know when it'll stop losing money or is there a forecast as to when this will stop bleeding cash?” he asked.
Somji said he didn’t have that information in front of him at the meeting.
“We can take a look and see if there was a forecast done on this and report back to council,” he said.
It’s not the first time Fontaine has raised BridgeNet as an issue in council chambers. While considering New Westminster’s 2023 budget, he had recommended cutting a number of things from the budget, including a $2 million expenditure for BridgeNet.
Downloading costs
Fontaine also questioned the city’s chief financial officer about the status of a report council about costs of projects being downloaded on to the city from senior levels of government.
Somji said staff are starting to work on that report internally. He said he’s spoken with officials in Vancouver and Kamloops, who did some analysis on downloading costs and reported to their councils on the issue.
“We are embarking on that work now in conjunction with the 2025 budget work,” he said. “We hope to present ongoing reports to council as we work through the budget for 2025.”
In January 2023, Fontaine and Coun. Paul Minhas presented council with a motion stating the city is facing “unprecedented” downloading from senior orders of government and has taken on the financial burden of operating a number of programs and services, as well as investing in capital infrastructure, that would normally be funded by the provincial and federal governments.
After making several amendments to the councillors’ original motion, council unanimously approving a motion to have staff to report back to council with an itemized list of expenditures and senior government revenues that the city has incorporated into its operating and capital budgets that are typically considered outside of municipal jurisdictions and are not part of the city’s “core services.”
When Fontaine questioned staff about the status of the downloading report in December 2023, staff said the amount of work required to do that work was not something the finance department staff had the capacity to do at that time and would need to contract out the work or hire additional finance staff to get that work done.
