Council Approves $19.9 million Budget for 2022-23

The budget was approved during a council meeting Monday which also included keeping the tax rate similar to the previous year.

The residential property tax rate will be 0.815 per $100 assessment for residential and resource property and $1.825 per $100 assessment for commercial property.

The MOPC is expected to collect $18.1 million in property taxes while its largest expenditures continue to be protective services and education, both of which will be over $5 million each.

MOPC Warden Robert Parker said the 2022-23 budget is good news for many rural taxpayers and for many non-profit organizations that rely on our municipal government for funding to keep their communities alive.

"The budget is balanced and tax rates for both residential and commercial remain the same despite some extreme cost pressures," he said. "High among those are the RCMP protective services that have increased by 11 per cent this year for the same level of service."

He said one of the reasons council was able to maintain the same level of service and maintain tax rates was a large amount of new construction in our municipality over the past year along with the high sale of properties with the resulting lifting of the CAP, leading to increased assessment.

He said council had requests for more than a million dollars in council grants this year and was only able to commit to $450,000 and still balance the budget. The warden said many valuable projects will get done in communities but many will need to apply next year and hope for better results.

"A huge challenge for our rural municipality is the funding of rinks which are very important assets to our rural residents but very expensive to maintain. Council juggled some dollars this year to keep our rinks financially stable but we must week a better arrangement with other municipalities in order for these critical pieces of recreational infrastructure to survive and be there for future generations."