Meaford council has taken a final look at the 2020 budget before a public meeting on January 27th.
Currently, the budget sits at a 4.12% tax levy increase, down below the original 4.5% requested by the council.
This new lower tax levy increase will see a tax increase of around $84 for a single dwelling family home appraised at $260,000.
Despite council getting the increase below their desired number, some of the frustrations from the process became apparent during Monday night's meeting.
Councilor Ross Kentner voiced his dissatisfaction over not being able to scrap other non-essential projects to reduce water and sewer rates saying “So the budget is ours and flexible, but we can't do anything with it?”
Other Councilors expressed frustration with some reminding the room that blame for any issues with the budget should not be placed on either staff or council alone.
Treasurer Darcy Chapman addressed council questions about presetting rates on budgets in the future with a blunt response, “You can't give us an arbitrary number and expect us to hit it,” Chapman says, “You tried that for the tax budget at 4.5% and we didn't hit it because we don't have control over the operations.”
CAO Rob Armstrong addressed the frustrations believing there are lessons to be learned from this experience, “The process of developing a budget is complex,” Armstrong says, “we are looking to improve the method of developing the budget going forward.”
Staff will now produce a final draft budget package to be presented at the January 27th public meeting.