Penhold council got out the axe during the last public budget deliberation meeting of 2012 that was held Dec. 10. "We chopped a ton," said Mayor Dennis Cooper. "We redirected and chopped probably a million dollars.
Penhold council got out the axe during the last public budget deliberation meeting of 2012 that was held Dec. 10.
"We chopped a ton," said Mayor Dennis Cooper. "We redirected and chopped probably a million dollars."
Council was tackling the task of trying to take about $1.5 million out of the draft budget to keep tax increases to a minimum.
"Council's trying to make a zero-increase budget," he said.
He noted they nixed items like requests for more staff, expensive equipment like trucks and a $60,000 electronic sign.
During the Dec. 10 meeting council considered rather than spending $595,000 on the pumphouse upgrades in one budget getting a long-term loan to pay for it.
"We are going to look at a debenture," he said. "We thought it better to look at long-term finance on that rather than using up all our reserves," he said.
He noted low interest rates are available, as did council during the meeting.
During the Dec. 3 meeting, council heard presentations from the planning and development department, the public works department, the community services manager and the Penhold and District Public Library.
During the Dec. 10 meeting, the multiplex was the budget topic. Council also discussed requisitions, such as the education tax requisition from the provincial government. The education tax is collected by the municipality on behalf of the provincial government and the town has no control over how much it is.
"You will probably see an increase in your school taxation as well," said Chief Administrative Officer Rick Binnendyk.
He said rumours that the incoming high school means Penhold will have to pay more are untrue – that's not what causes an increase.
"We really don't know what it's going to be," he said of the requisition.
The mayor said they should try and take a good guess to anticipate an increase.
"I don't want to be on the light side this year," he said, noting about 2.5 per cent of the tax increase in 2012 was caused by the education requisition increasing.
After hearing the presentations, on Dec. 10 council started going back through the notes and issues they'd flagged throughout the meetings on Nov. 19, Dec. 3 and Dec. 10 and debating what would be going or staying in the budget.
"We're going to have a new budget and it's going to look a little different," Cooper said at the meeting.
The budget is not finalized and Cooper said another public meeting would be held before it's voted on.
"It was great to see citizens coming out," he said of opening up the deliberations to the public.
