Budget Talks Start at Oxford County

Friday, 15 November 2019 11:25

The proposed draft budget for Capital and Operating costs at Oxford County calls for over $260 million dollars in spending and would mean a 5.8% increase on the levy, however those numbers can still change.

OXFORD COUNTY - Budget talks have started at Oxford County Council.

The total cost of the proposed draft Capital and Operation budget right now is over $260,000 million, of which, $156 million would be raised through taxation. Warden Larry Martin explains what this would mean for property taxes.

"Well the increase in the proposed draft budget, I believe is 5.8%, which is higher than we would like to see. Now some of that is because of downloading and cuts and in all fairness to the Provincial Government, they are doing what they have to do in terms of balancing their books. About half of that, I'm going to say is due to downloading and cuts the Province has made, in order to balance their books as well."

Martin says no major additions or deletions happened during the first two days of budget deliberations.

"At the end of the day, there were very few surprises as far as that goes. Now I now that roads is a big number but then there are a lot of miles of roads that we have to maintain and look after, as far as surprises, no, I don't think there were any big surprises."

Martin says they had two budget meetings this week.

"Wednesday afternoon, we had a high level overview of it, after our council meeting. Thursday morning we met at nine o'clock, we went through the entire budget, with all the department heads, with their wishes, wants and needs I guess is a good way of putting it and as far as additions and deletion, none were made at that point in time, so it is still as presented originally."

County council will have more budget talks on December 3rd and then the final budget discussion is scheduled for December 11th and that is when we will find out if any members want to add or delete items from the budget. You can find more information on the Oxford County Business plan budget and provide input online here.