The District of Sechelt has a long way to go with regards to its budget deliberations yet.
With all the requests for funding in, the 2019 proposed tax increase is sitting at 12 point 9-5 per cent.
But Doug Stewart, Director of Corporate Financial Services said it’s very early in the process.
“On the operating side, we prepare a budget that essentially keeps the service levels the same. And, we need a fairly large tax increase to do that. I included three new positions that we are recommending to allow us to maintain our levels of service. There’s also a number of additional requests that have come forward, things that we are proposing that are of a lesser priority but council may want to consider. So, all those put together, yes, it’s a significant tax increase.”
The three new positions are a facilities coordinator, a development engineer and a building inspector.
Stewart said the council has gone through the initial list, Stewart is working on some costing and then the document will come back to council and cuts will be made from there.
The tax increase last year, when the process was finished, was 5 point 4-1 per cent.
