In a unanimous decision on March 7, Wellington North council passed the municipality’s 2016 budget.
Wellington North is raising $6.75 million of its total $14.4-million budget through taxes.
That represents an increase of about four per cent over last year, but growth in assessment brings the tax levy impact down to about 2.74%.
An “aggressive” $7-million capital budget includes accessibility upgrades to the Kenilworth municipal administration office ($263,500), Rick Hopkins bridge reconstruction ($500,000 for the town’s portion of the total $1.5 million), three other bridge projects and numerous street reconstruction projects.
CAO Michael Givens said the budget bylaw reflects the same information presented at the open house on Feb. 18.
“There’s been no changes based on the comments [during] the open house. We felt it was well received,” he said.
For an average single family home valued at $227,000, taxes are going up by 2.1%, but for an average farm property valued at $518,000 the tax increase is 10.55%.
An average industrial property (valued at $1.1 million) will see a 5.27% increase.
The budget also includes the second year of the Louise Marshall Hospital renovation special levy, which is $250,000 each year from 2015 to 2018 and raised through tax dollars.
Givens noted some projects within the budget are contingent on funding, such as the Queen Street project between Durham Street and Sligo Road West in Mount Forest, as well as the King Street West, Elgin Street South project, also in Mount Forest.
“If our Connecting Link(s) application is not successful, staff will be coming back to council with it and saying ‘Okay we didn’t get the 90 per cent funding we were looking for, do we still want to proceed with that project?’ and looking at funding alternatives at that time,” said Givens.
With no comments from councillors, Mayor Andy Lennox asked, “(With) all the work that’s gone into this at this point, everybody satisfied?”
The budget was passed unanimously.
