CitySSM City council will have plenty of suplus funds to work with as they sit down Monday night to finalize the 2015 municipal budget.  City staff is even recommending that council use the bulk of the 3.5-million dollar surplus to reduce the tax levy.  The budget report recommends using 1.9-million to reduce the tax burden, using 1.1 million of surplus funds for additional road resurfacing, over 325-thousand dollars to cover the city’s remaining balance for the Heritage Discovery Centre and 140-thousand dollars for railroad crossing upgrades.  Allocating surplus funds to reduce the tax levy would bring the average residential tax rate from 4.6% down to 2.2% .  A 2.2% increase would cost the average residential ratepayer an extra $51. The city’s long term debt as of the end of 2014 is 10.2-million dollars.  That’s 2.3-million less than the year before and is the lowest debt level since 1996.
There will be a number of supplementary items for city council to consider when budget deliberations take place on Monday night.  One item involves the M.S. Norgoma as council will be asked to consider reinstating 15-thousand dollars in annual funding for the toursit attraction.  There are also supplementary items that would increase the budget to city operations on both a one time basis and ongoing basis.  The requests total over 277-thousand dollars in one time costs and over 222-thousand dollars in ongoing costs including providing snow removal on the Rowswell Hub Trail, golf netting for the Northern Community Centre and ongoing funding for the Emerald Ash Program..