Williams Lake city council has asked staff to strive for a zero per cent tax increase in 2021 while developing next year’s budget.
“We prioritize items in a hierarchy of one to five and at a special budget held meeting Monday, Nov. 23, council told staff to remove all the ones, which are the lowest priority,” said chief administrative officer Gary Muraca. “That alone will be a savings of about $850,000.”
Muraca said the good news is the city received the $2.6 million in COVID relief funding from the province that will help deal with some shortfalls.
Read more: Williams Lake receives $2.6 million from province’s COVID-19 safe restart grant
Grant-in-aid funds are paid for mostly with gaming money and with the gaming centre closed the city has lost out on about $570,000.
The city is also anticipating an increase in property assessments which will generate revenue for the budget.
As for the Williams Lake Community Forest, Muraca said the city will expect to receive only about 10 per cent of the revenue that it has in recent years.
Previously the city had an audit done of all its buildings and has already addressed the most pressing issues, Muraca added.
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