Sundre council was expected to debate a tentative tax increase of 5.64 per cent for residential and 4.33 per cent for commercial properties for the 2014 tax year, during yesterday's council meeting.
Budget deliberations were held on Nov. 23, where councillors made decisions on whether to maintain, increase or decrease service levels for the year of 2014. Council was expected to complete deliberations on a proposed $8,216,529 operating budget during yesterday's meeting.
It includes $8,760 going towards street improvements, according to the minutes of the budget deliberations meeting.
Taxpayers will also be on the hook for the purchasing of benches, picnic tables and garbage and recycling receptacles for $7,600. These will be placed along the Highway 27 corridor.
Centre Street intersection enhancements were approved for $23,075, with $13,700 coming from taxpayers and $9,375 from the town's sponsorship programs.
As well, $10,000 is planned to be put in reserves for the purpose of downtown storefront improvements.
A business retention, expansion and attraction program is budgeted for $46,000, which is to be covered by grant money and Mountain View County.
Council chose to increase volunteer firefighter honorariums, budgeting a total of $60,742. Half of the funds are to be covered by taxpayers and the other half by the county.
A $65,428 salary has been approved for the hiring of a second operational services operator.
Mayor Terry Leslie plans to write a weekly article to be distributed through the town's utility bills, the town's website and the Sundre Round Up. Council added a line for $1,000 to cover the cost of the article.
There was a salary decrease to all staff members in the community services departments and some in the operational services departments, saving the town $66,158. This is related to having one less staff member in community services.
As well, $79,450 has been budgeted for planning services such as updating the land use bylaw and the fee schedule.
Council decided to establish a cost of living allowance of one per cent, effective Jan. 1, 2014, for all town staff and council.
It was also decided that the use of town surplus to offset taxes would decrease by $10,000 each year until it is no longer required.
Final approval of the budget is planned for the council meeting on Dec. 16, according to Wanda Watson-Neufeld, the town's director of corporate services.
Items up for discussion during budget deliberations were available for the public to review at the town office during the week of November 12 to 15.
“What we've provided is people could come in here and talk to me about the budget. It's a way to get people to come in and talk about the budget,” said Watson-Neufeld.
“We had a big sheet up of items that we were giving to council to discuss, related to the budget, and people could put dots on that to determine what they thought council should cut.”
There were about 30 items on the sheet, she said.
Twelve people went to the town office that week to discuss the budget items and the majority of those people were interested in recreation.
There are no further public consultations planned at this time. However, it is the decision of council whether there will be any more public consultations before final approval of the budget, she said.
“Last time I spent a lot of time on the budget open house and one person showed up and they didn't even come to talk about the budget.”
