Council has approved the 2014 budget. The blended tax increase is 1.56%; for the average assessed property ($711,902) this amounts to an increase of $108.84/yr ($9.07/month) over 2013. The Township portion of this is 2.59% increase ($61.18/yr); the Region’s increase is 1.54%.

There are a couple points about this budget which I would like to hi-light:

• if we had not made any program changes (i.e. new initiatives), or to say differently if we planned to do in 2014 what we had done in 2013 the operating budget would increase <1%. This says to me that Township Staff are not just doing the job; they are doing it more efficiently.

• we have continued to add funds to our reserves; very specifically we added $786,000 to the infrastructure reserve; this is $174,000 more than we did last year. This reserve is still far too small to be comfortable when you consider that with the 2014 contribution it will be $1.5 million and current replacement costs of our assets is $450 million. But we have established the habit.

• we are also continuing to fund capital projects. This was not done for several years and hence we have the huge backlog of roads & sidewalks requiring maintenance. In 2014 we are adding $1.5 million from the operating budget for capital projects. As our total operating budget is $28.3 million this is significant. (The remainder of the capital budget comes from development charges, grants,debentures, reserves.)

It is really great that we have approved this budget in early January. It is the earliest yet. It is very beneficial to the tax payor; Staff now know what the work is for the year and they can make plans to be most efficient in delivery and cost.

There are projects and maintenance that need to be done; I know that there are roads which need to be resurfaced and sidewalks that should be replaced.  My acceptance of not doing everything at once is  helped by remembering  the reality that spending another $192,000 translates to another 1 point tax increase. We are making progress and I believe the tax increase is fair for the times. Here is link to budget and business plans.