Bruce County Council has approved the 2025 Budget.
The budget will have a tax levy increase of 4.92%, which is below what council had directed at previous discussions.
Council had said that they didn’t want to see a levy increase above 5% at their previous meeting on November 7th, 2024.
CAO Christine MacDonald said that when council gave the direction to come up with something that worked for less than a 5% increase, staff got to work.
Staff from each department had to go through their budget wants and needs and work to find solutions for delaying or deferring some items, paring down how many new staff to hire, or finding other ways to fund necessary services.
“We took that to heart, and we made sure that we came back actually a little bit lower than the 5% because we were able to do that,” MacDonald said. “[With] the list of items that we worked through, there were some reductions from the new [programs] and the new [proposed] staffing.”
Warden Luke Charbonneau was pleased with the new 2025 Budget as presented.
“I would say that staff and council have done a pretty good job here of coming forward with a restrained budget in terms of keeping the inflation of our operating expenses pretty well in line with actual inflation in the real world.”
The 4.92% tax levy increase works out to an average of $59 per household.
County staff will bring forward the Budget by-law to be approved at the council meeting on January 23rd.