Essex County Council has approved the 2017 and 2018 Essex-Windsor Solid Waste Authority budgets.
The $11-million 2017 budget comes with a 0% increase while the 2018 budget has a 2% hike.
The authority dipped into a large $16-million reserve by $400,000 to balance the 2018 budget but is being warned by county politicians about too much dipping due to future budget impacts like green bins to discard organic household waste and a landfill debt of $65-million.
County CAO Rob Maisonville says the reserve is there to guard against big-budget jumps but Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara says the reserve can be quickly swallowed up by future costs.
Windsor still needs to approve the budgets.
