Grey Highlands council has lowered a projected 2024 property tax increase to less than double digits.
Council held its second all-day budget committee of the whole meeting on Tuesday. By the end of the proceedings, council had trimmed close to $450,000 from the proposed 2024 tax levy, lowering the increase by 3.2 per cent. After new growth (estimated to be two per cent), the draft increase is at 9.5 per cent or a total of $1,613,096.
Council spent the past two meetings going through a lengthy list of proposed operating and capital increases in the budget. The full list can be found on the agenda here.
Council will resume budget deliberations on Wednesday at 9 a.m., with a third committee of the whole meeting.
During that meeting, council will consider a long list of potential new projects/spending staff did not include in the municipality’s base budget.
Mayor Paul McQueen said the work on the budget has just begun.
“We have a long way to go,” he said in an interview after the session on Tuesday. “We have started our process. There will be opportunities for us to knock that down some more.”
He said the municipality faces “challenges throughout the budget” with inflation pushing up the cost of everything.
The mayor also said, at some point, council may have to consider structural changes to its operations.
“I personally feel we need to look at that base budget,” he said.
McQueen said he looks forward to getting public feedback on the numbers, once the budget process has reached that stage.
