PUSLINCH ‒ The township's tax increase might be higher than initially presented in 2024.
Originally presented at 3.78 per cent, the township's director of finance Mary Hasan said the second draft of the 2024 budget has landed closer to 4.89 per cent during a council meeting last week about the proposed base operating budget and grant applications.
To reduce the budget, council chose to direct no money to its insurance contingency fund this year while a $25,000 contribution was proposed.
"I'm not a fan of going backward on the levy part because it's so hard to make it up," said Mayor James Seeley, during the meeting. "But I think on this one, we can do it because at the end of the day ... we can just deal with it."
Several councillors also suggested removing the third full-time staff member proposed for the Puslinch Community Centre but the idea was not followed through on.
“We don’t know the impact of the changes," said Coun. John Sepulis, during the meeting."There are too many unknowns to swallow this extra person right now.”
Earlier in the meeting, council allocated approximately $16,000 in grant funding and directly impacted the proposed levy increase.
In 2023, the township saw a 4.5 per cent tax levy increase.
A budget public information meeting will take place in early January.
The final budget is expected to be approved in February.
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
