By Clark Stork

Nipawin council trims tax increase

Feb 22, 2018 | 11:00 AM

Nipawin town council was eyeing a tax increase of close to four per cent, but residents won’t be hit that hard.

Wednesday during a special council meeting to discuss the 2018 finances, the group was able to drop the tax increase to 2.5 per cent. Mayor Rennie Harper said after the meeting that council didn’t want to strap taxpayers.

“The goal was that we didn’t want to go higher than four per cent. If we could go lower we wanted to do that,” she said.

A large reason the number could drop was over $93,000 in savings generated by the fire department. The department altered weekend on-call staff requirements and altered other categories in their budget to decrease their funding needs. Harper said she’s proud of the work the department performed.

Council at one point had the number down to 2.1 per cent, the members decided to add in the 0.4 per cent which equals $17,700 and create a reserve account for future infrastructure improvements including sidewalks. Harper said council wants to plan for future years.

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“We wanted to start some longer-range planning and start to put money away so we don’t always have to dip into savings,” she said.

Regional landfill development, a new payloader for the public works department and new boards at the arena highlight the larger expenditures for the year. Council will also hire another finance staff member and purchase $40,000 in finance software to streamline efficiencies at town hall. Harper said the upcoming provincial budget could also have an impact.

“We don’t know yet what the effect of the provincial budget will be but there very well could be an effect,” she said.

Council will vote on the proposal Monday, Feb. 26 at their regularly scheduled meeting.

clark.stork@jpbg.ca

On Twittter: @ClarkStork