Jon Michaud, Director of Finance for the City of Weyburn, recently announced that City Council has approved the 2013 operating budget.
"Thanks to our city's economic growth and the very significant increase in Provincial Municipal Operating Grant (MOG), the only tax increase we are imposing is a $45 increase to the base tax," said Michaud.
"The main cause of this increase in the base tax is associated to labour costs with police and fire protective services," he added.
Even with this 2.38% increase in overall taxes; it is still a very productive budget with the main operating departments receiving over 10% increase in net spending from last year.
"No one likes paying higher taxes," said Mayor Button. "Throughout my time as mayor, I've been committed to keeping city taxes as low as possible. But to be fiscally prudent we need to strike a balance between keeping taxes low, avoiding deficits, supporting growth, and future sustainability. Our city finance officials deserve a lot of credit for maintaining zero tax increases for the previous two years. I also want to thank Jon for his diligent efforts in keeping this increase as low as possible. I'm confident that with our finance department's continued efforts we will continue to propose low to zero-increase tax operating budgets."
