Centre Hastings sets 2024 budget

Residents in Centre Hastings will see a 5.3% increase on their municipal tax bill this year.

Centre Hastings Council passed its 2024 Budget on Wednesday.

Mayor Tom Deline says the tax increase will likely be on the lower end compared to other municipalities but some slightly higher tax increases in other years has helped keep this year’s number down.

“You know, one per cent’s about $60,000 in revenue for us. Well, that’s not a lot of revenue when you’re operating a municipality, so, but on the same instance, council didn’t want to go, you know, overboard even though it would be nice to do a couple more roads. We didn’t want to go overboard because everybody’s got a tough time right now.”

Deline says the $5.17 million capital budget includes $2.45 million for roads, water and sewer infrastructure, $846,000 for bridge rehabilitation and more than $1.4 million in equipment replacement.

It also includes design work for the full reconstruction of St. Lawrence Street East in 2024 with construction scheduled to begin in 2025.

In addition, the Budget contains a seven per cent Cost of Living Adjustment for staff.

Deline says it was necessary to retain staff as only three staff members were being paid above the provincial average.

Overall he believes it is a budget they can be pleased with.

“We want to thank our staff because, I’ll tell you they worked hard and we did push them pretty hard to try to keep it as tight as we could this year. And, you know, I think we’re all relatively satisfied with it, that we’re doing the best that we can for the people in our municipality, particularly in these tough times.”

The 2024 budget will be up for final ratification at a future meeting of council.