Cranbrook council has wrapped up another two days of budget discussions and Mayor Wayne Price says there is still a lot of work to do.
He says discussions are going well and everyone on council has been well prepared.
“I was really pleased with the process. we’ve been trying to refine the process over the years and every year we tweak it to try and make it better,” he said.
“I think this is one of the best years I’ve seen where council came in with a full understanding of the process and all the elements of the budgeting.”
The city is looking at a possible tax increase of 8.85 per cent.
The Mayor says a lot of work has been done to get it down to that number and more work is underway to try get lower than that.
“I would caution people not to react, it’s preliminary and we’re in the really early stages,” he added.
“Our staff were dealing with a 12 per cent increase when we started and they’re down to 8.85 per cent.”
Council had advised staff earlier in the year to try for a five per cent tax levy, however, Price says that is looking less and less likely.
“I know there are people throwing the five per cent number around and we’re going to see, but I don’t know if we will be able to guarantee that,” Price added.
“It was something we were shooting for.”
A recent survey found 67 per cent of residents would be against a tax hike that high.
Price says the problem is residents also don’t want any services cut.
“I like the statistics and statistics are great, but we also got about 800 comments back. I’ve gone through all the comments at least two or three times and everybody likes the five per cent, but they don’t want a reduction in service,” he said.
“If we are not going to look at services that would be staffing, but I can guarantee you we are so lean right now that if you eliminate staffing it will affect your services.”
He’s anticipating some more tough discussions before a final number is hammered out.
“I’ve been saying this for the past two years, but this year is going to be the most difficult year council has had in a long, long time with the budget.”
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