By Sue Tiffin

Published Feb. 22 2018

Budget discussions are underway in Algonquin Highlands with two meetings held last week on Feb. 13 and 15 and one planned for the first week ofMarch.

At this point in discussions the municipal levy increase is about 4.12per cent. This year is the last of the OPP billing reform phase-inwhich is showing the annual increase to be 2.2 per cent (about $106500) rather than higher increases of about five per cent ($223000) lastyear.

“The 2018 budget as presented was prepared with the 2017 Municipal Levyplus the OPP cost increase of $106448.00 plus the growth related taxes of $30028.00” wrote Tammy McKelvey Algonquin Highlands treasurer in the first draft of the budget. “At this point an additional levy of$43952 is required. This is an additional .92% which is below the 1.5% that Council provided as a target. The additional Ontario MunicipalPartnership Funding certainly provided the much needed revenue increasethat was required to protect the taxpayers from a substantial taxincrease.”

Carol Moffatt Algonquin Highlands mayor used her social media page toencourage the public to be interested in budget discussions.

“Budget discussions are pretty dry but they're the most important meetings of the year” she wrote.

“There's lots to discuss and determine: what stays what goes; what getsapproved what gets deferred; how to do more with less and still meetthe ever-changing rules regulations and requirements.”

The next budget meeting will be held on Friday March 2.