Cranbrook City Council is getting ready for another public budget meeting to discuss the proposed 2025-2029 five-year financial plan.
Council Member Norma Blissett says the city is trying to keep tax increases as low as possible this year.
“We’re going to have to review the budget and make some very hard decisions on how to move ahead and provide that balance in providing the services that Cranbrook citizens come to expect and keeping our taxes reasonable,” said Blissett.
“We’re going to have to really take a hard look at how we proceed and how we fund our operations.”
Initially, Cranbrook’s goal was to cap any municipal tax increases to five per cent, but the situation has changed.
“It’s going to be very difficult to keep it under an eight or 10 per cent increase in a lot of communities. I think going forward, that’s going to be the norm,” said Mayor Wayne Price.
“If people don’t want to see eight to 10 per cent tax increases, we have to look at economic development or we’re going to have to look at cutting services.”
The City will look to cut spending across the city to reduce any increases, but Price says this is not a sustainable strategy in the long term.
“If you want to go from that eight to 10 per cent down to five, then we need to cut five per cent of our service budget every year and we were trying to do that this year,” said Price.
“But if this isn’t changing any time soon, where is our community going to be in five years? You can only cut so much before you start to see a significant impact.”
The public meeting is set for Wednesday, January 29 from 3 to 7 p.m. in City Hall.
Residents can attend in person or watch the meeting online.
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