Water budget passed with a 1.84% increase

There’s not much wiggle room and the reserves are depleted but the water and waste water budget is moving ahead with an increase of 1.84%.

That’s how Chair of Engineering and Works Tanya Vrebosch describes the $21-million 2016 water and wastewater budget, which was approved at Monday’s council meeting.

Vrebosch says there wasn’t going to be consensus on anything over 2-percent, but she’s saying they will need to be cautious with this being the first year of water meter usage.

Meantime, she adds they are still going to debate what projects move forward within this committee.

She says “if councilors don’t like one project we’ll move onto a different one (when we discuss them on December 8th) there’s lots of them to choose from.  But overall we’ve lost half a-million dollars in capital to get down to the 1.84%”