NORTH BATTLEFORD - Budget deliberations have wrapped up in North Battleford and now it is time for some final fine tuning to be made.
The 2023 budget will now go to the Dec. 12 council meeting for adoption, with final decisions and adjustments to be made that night.
At this point, the indication from Thursday’s discussions is that council is looking now at a property tax increase somewhere around 5.06 per cent, which is down from administration’s initial ask of 6.57 per cent.
They are also looking at a 4.3 per cent increase for water and 5.5 per cent for sewer. There is an increase proposed for UPAR, but council indicated they wanted to see more information on that. There was also an administration ask of one per cent for capital, but council had indicated a desire Thursday to possibly hold off on that for at least this year.
Council and administration are still looking for adjustments and further efficiencies by the Dec. 12 meeting and will set the final tax increase numbers at that meeting.
The third and final night of deliberations took place at Don Ross Centre Thursday night. The extensive discussions focused on a range of topics including the North Battleford Library, planning and development, the UPAR, and third party grant requests.
