The first round of budget talks in Saugeen Shores have been completed.
Council started off the proposed municipal operating budget for 2018, approving the addition of three new positions, including a full-time fire training officer, a part-time community services position and an active transportation coordinator on either a part-time or contract basis.
Mayor Mike Smith says the community is growing quickly, and with that comes the need to hire more staff to keep up with the increased demand for municipal services.
"I'll tell you, one of the things that I get almost the most, I don't want to say complaints, but requests about is improved services to the waterfront," says Smith. "We want more raking, we want better service and I mean, it costs money and council recognized that today, it's a $40,000 hit to the budget for one more [community services] person that will help address that issue."
When deliberations wrapped up for the day, council had a proposed tax levy increase of 1.25% for operations, which equals about $25 extra on the average tax bill.
Council will move on to the proposed capital budget on December 5, and that's an area Smith feels needs more investment.
"I don't think we're committing enough money out of the tax levy to really maintain all the capital infrastructure we have," says Smith. "This may be the year that we get an opportunity to say guess what, we're going to take another half or three-quarters of a percent and commit it to capital."
