Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Kincardine Lowers Budget

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Kincardine
by John Divinski    

Kincardine council continues to whittle away at its operating and capital budgets and the increase is now in the single digits.

Deputy Mayor Laura Haight says after Monday's  session the increase is somewhere between 6 and 7 per cent.

They started the night looking at a 10.09 per cent increase.

Haight says councillors have now been through the complete operating budget once and are about half-way through the capital expenditures.

She says they were able to reduce some of the costs through re-allocations and finding additional revenues.

Haight says no matter what the increase in taxes will be this year, she hopes they end up getting the right mix of services for the tax dollars they spend.

She notes that she heads into this budget session with a number of new challenges thrown at the community -- the most obvious being the major cutback in the Ontario Municipal Partnership Funding.

But Haight also points to the drop in return from Bruce Municipal Telephone Service and the first year of the Medical Clinic loan coming due.

She says it means they started budget deliberations 1.3-million-dollars in the red.

Another look at the budget will take place on Tuesday, March 23rd with the hopes of completing the task and getting a budget bylaw before council in early April.