Wallaceburg’s elected officials are happy with the outcome of the 2016 Chatham-Kent budget.
Both Carmen McGregor and Jeff Wesley said there were some good wins included for the community.
“We did get some funding to go to the high school to the track, which was a big win for us,” McGregor told the Sydenham Current.
“Originally that motion came before budget and it wasn’t just our school, it was a number of schools that were doing projects. It was win for us. Jeff (Wesley) put a lot of work and a lot of research into that money and what the (Lambton-Kent District School Board) and the Ministry of Education has already put into the school.”
Wesley said there were no direct cuts in services specific to Wallaceburg this year.
He said another positive for Wallaceburg was preserving public works funding for community events such as WAMBO, the BIA Christmas lights and the K of P Christmas parade.
However, McGregor said she believes this item may come back to the table sometime in 2016.
“I don’t know that that won’t be looked at again… it didn’t look like it was thought out very fairly,” she said.
“I know we all have to understand that there is cost to all the work that gets done and especially when you a 0.0% one last year, you just don’t have the money or the funding to do some of those services. They have to look at other creative ways to match our budget needs. I’m very happy that this got pulled, but I’m convinced that I’m not going to see it coming across my desk in a different study.”
Along with the overall $700,000 increase for infrastructure funding for roads and bridges, Wesley said Wallaceburg will benefit from capital project money for repairs and repaving of McNaughton and Dufferin Ave and funds to repair and repave the downtown Liquidation World parking lot.
“Chatham-Kent wide we continued funding support for the Hospice and provided new support for Ridgetown College, which benefits our farming community which continues to be a big economic driver in Wallaceburg and C-K,” he said. “While doing this we also removed an ongoing surtax that was on tax bills for previous community projects, which was about $675,000 per year.”
Wesley said, unlike previous years, the community of Wallaceburg didn’t have to defend itself this year.
There were “no direct attacks on community services in Wallaceburg… unlike previous years when we had to fight for our pool and our downtown walking bridge,” he said. “I felt empathy for the Bothwell community for what it had to go through.”
Overall, Chatham-Kent council approved a 1.99% tax hike – this results in the average Chatham-Kent household (approximately $165,000) paying an additional $53 on their property taxes.
