Canora town council approved a $4.16-million general operating budget for 2016, which includes a half-mill increase in the municipal taxes, during its April 19 meeting.
The mill rate is now 17.25 mills.
The budget also allows for a $25 increase in the minimum tax structure, making it $475 for vacant land without improvements and $800 for land with improvements.
The biggest expenditure will be about $145,000 plus the sale/trade-in of the town’s grader to buy a new one.
Also included in the public works budget is $16,000 to replace the town’s largest mower.
Re-shingling the Sports Service Centre and upgrading the kitchen at the Civic Centre is also included in the budget.
The town is planning to replace the water mains from Main Street to the highway on First, Second and Third avenues, said Michael Mykytyshyn, chief administrative officer. That project is being estimated at $600,000 but because it is being done as a local improvement project the cost will be split with one third going to the town and two-thirds going to the property owners.
About $88,000 was budgeted for replacing computers and controls between the water well field and the pumphouse, he said.
The town is estimating that it will spend about $50,000 on lagoon dredging and $20,000 to clean the reservoir.
The only other major cost in the budget is $106,000 which was pledged last year for the Collaborative Emergency Centre (CEC) project at the hospital, said Mykytyshyn.
The town’s total taxable assessment now stands at $77,091,450.
