The Town of Amherstburg will spend almost twice as much on capital projects this year without increasing the already announced tax increase.
When councillors signed off on the operating budget a few weeks ago, the increase was 2.36 per cent including the county and education levies. They approved the capital budget on Tuesday night.
The increase works out to another $38.82 on the average tax bill.
Mayor Aldo DiCarlo said the town spends between $8- to $10-million a year on infrastructure, but this year will shell out $19.7-million. Last year's capital budget was $10.5-million.
That includes cash for a new dog park, a new skate park, upgrades at Malden Park, and replacing the bridge on 5th Concession Road North.
Fixing roads will cost about $5-million, while culvert and bridge repairs will cost another $4.1-million.
DiCarlo said the town needed to invest more in capital spending because the infrastructure had been neglected.
"The lean years of reducing debt and increasing contributions to reserves have paid off and resulted in the delivery of some needed infrastructure improvements," he said. "Repairs to Angstrom, Concession 2 and Riverview Roads, as well as improvements at our parks, are just a few investments our residents will appreciate this year."
The town split deliberations on its operating and capital budgets this year because of vacancies in key departments.
Spending on the operations budget rose too, by $7.4-million to 53.9-million.
DiCarlo said at one point, there were ten to 12 vacancies. Before he left, acting CAO Tony Haddad filled most of those before the town hired its new CAO, Peter Simmons, earlier this month.
