By Pauline Kerr
Kincardine council passed its 2022 budget Feb. 15 after sending it back to staff for a bit more work.
Initially, the budget came in with an increase of 7.11 per cent. Council found that unacceptable and asked staff to see if they could reduce that increase by a couple of percentage points.
Staff did as requested, and more, through use of reserves, strategic paring back of programs, and increasing revenue. However, council opted to leave several items in the budget, including funding for festivals and community grants, seasonal bylaw enforcement, and two yard waste depots.
Council discussed the possibility of generating additional revenue by raising the price of garbage bag tags by 25 cents, and increasing the cost of recreational programs by one per cent, but ended up deciding against both.
Council also decided against paving Goderich St. after receiving a deluge of calls from the public who wanted it to stay the way it was.
The final budget shows a 4.94 per cent increase and includes an ambitious program of capital projects such as the KIPP Trail. Among the reasons for the increase is Kincardine’s administrative restructuring that is still underway, and the fact that MPAC (Municipal Property Assessment Corporation) has frozen assessments at 2016 levels.
Read more details in next week’s edition of The Kincardine Independent.
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