The mayor of Bluewater says his council has made significant progress on a budget that started with an increase of a little more than 33% over last year.
Tyler Hessel says they still have a lot of work to do and after three budget meetings, they've reduced that 33% figure to just under 17%.
Hessel says they've now asked staff to take another look and see if they can find reductions of about 8% in either the capital or operating budget.
Hessel adds that they're looking very carefully at any capital projects that can be put off for a year, or staffing efficiencies they can find in their operations. However, there are some costs such as the OPP billing increase of 3.5% that are beyond their control.
At the last budget meeting council approved a motion to hold the cost of living increase to staff at 0.9% and Hessel suggests if staff can find another 8% in savings, a final figure of about 7.5% might be a realistic target.
Hessel says everyone knew going into the budget deliberation that to maintain services and roads, they would be looking at a significant increase in the budget, but they didn't think it would be as high as it is at this point.