Huron County councillors have tentatively approved a budget for this year.
The budget was approved at a special council meeting Thursday and will now come back to council for final approval.
Warden Jim Ginn said three items generate some discussion at the special meeting.
“One was a surplus from roads, one was a paving project for bike lanes and dollars for child care expenses. And in the end, we decided that the surplus from the roads, that we could deal with moving that forward to this year because it was saved money from last year,” said Ginn.
Ginn said the original draft budget called for an increase in spending of eight and a half per cent and councillors weren't happy with that so the budget they approved included a 5 per cent increase in spending. Ginn explains two per cent of that will be new growth, which means more people paying towards the taxes, so that leaves about a three per cent increase.
Ginn says the tax rate will actually be lowered by about 1.5 per cent and there was a cut in provincial funding of about 2.5 per cent.
