By Chad Ingram

Published March 8 2018

Algonquin Highlands council is poised to pass the municipality’s 2018 budget with a tax levy increase of just more than four per cent.

Councillors had another round of budget discussions during a March 2 meeting and it’s expected that barring any last-minute changes the budget will be approved as it sat at the end of that meeting.

With some $5.5 million in total spending approximately $4.9 million of that will come from property taxation representing a 4.21 per cent increase over the 2017 tax levy.

Of that increase 0.63 per cent is attributed to growth 1.35 per cent is for the township’s own purposes and 2.23 per cent is to cover the increase in the township’s OPP bill.

More than $1 million is budgeted for Algonquin Highlands’ OPP bill an 11 per cent jump from last year. This year is the final year of a phase-in of a new OPP billing formula for Algonquin Highlands. That formula counts seasonal residences as households so cottaging communities such as Algonquin Highlands and Haliburton County’s other lower-tier townships have seen their policing bills skyrocket since the phase-in began in 2015.

For residential properties the lower-tier portion of the tax bill will increase by $3.40 per $100000 of assessment. The increase for commercial properties will be $5.04 for every $100000 of assessment.

At the upper-tier level Haliburton County council passed the 2018 budget on Feb. 28 with a 2.91 per cent tax rate increase.