With the final budget meeting finished, North Perth is looking at an increase of 2.3 per cent over last year’s figures.
The 2010 budget chair Ed Hollinger said it wasn’t overly a challenge to trim the initial budget of 4.7 per cent down to the current number, and credits staff for keeping their own budgets reasonable.
“The staff came in at a reasonable number to start at 4.7 per cent, rather than being 7 or 8 per cent,” Hollinger said. “At 4.7 it wasn’t overly difficult to get down to where the rest of council thought it was appropriate.”
Areas that were trimmed down were listed as the fire department, libraries, and public works to a degree. Hollinger said that at 2.3 per cent, council expects to maintain the same level of operations. 
However, residents may see an increase based on their property values.
“That increase may not specifically be 2.3 per cent, it may be higher or lower,” Hollinger said.
Hollinger also noted that money had to be taken out of the municipal reserves in order to keep the budget increase to a minimum.
“We have taken some money out of reserves to keep that increase at 2.3 per cent, rather than make it higher and not use our reserves,” he said.
In light of the three major municipal projects the new fire hall, administration renovations and Northeast sewer and water projects, - Hollinger said the budget is manageable with those particular projects getting two-thirds funding from the federal and provincial governments.
“What we have to make very clear is that those projects will be financed long-term because they are long-term projects,” Hollinger said. “As well, they are 33-cent dollars on projects that we would have had to do sometime at a 100- cent dollars.”
With the municipal budget all but finalized, Hollinger said it now depends on what the Perth County budget ends up being after starting at a 2.6 per cent increase that may go either way.
“They have some facility concerns that they have to deal with, it could maybe cause a slight increase over that 2.6 per cent,” he said.
North Perth’s budget will be approved by bylaw on April 26, with staff given the authority now to start working on projects.
“In the meantime, we’ve given direction to our staff to be able to tender and get a good price at the time they need the product,” Hollinger said.