Village of Hussar council held a special meeting on Friday, May 6 to pass the 2022 Operating and Capital budgets.
There have been ongoing discussions regarding the 2022 budgets, and included input from village residents in March.
Based on discussions held at the regular Thursday, April 28 council meeting, amendments were made to the 2022 Operating budget that included changes to the Fire Association and Wheatland Housing Management Board (WHMB) requisition amounts.
Council was presented with two options for the 2022 Operating budget. While both options amounted to $176,699.78, one option included an additional $4,000 to the Roads Contracted Maintenance line, which would allow dust abatement to be completed along several roads within the village.
To support the proposed additional expense, municipal property taxes would need to increase from a proposed $185,814.22 in Option 1 to $189,814.22 in Option 2.
Council discussed whether the dust abatement was necessary, especially considering the budgeted $4,000 is only estimated to cover two full streets.
Despite some concerns about budget overages from the previous year and continued declines in municipal tax revenue, council adopted Option 2 as the approved 2022 Operating budget. It was discussed, if the full $4,000 is not needed for dust abatement, any remaining funds can be transferred to reserves.
Following the adoption of the Operating Budget, council consented to hold all three readings of the proposed 2022 Property Tax Bylaw.
According to a report, there has been a decrease of $69,850 in assessed value since 2021. Despite this, residents within the village will actually see a slight reduction in their municipal tax rate-from a total Residential mill rate of 14.9646 in 2021 to a total mill rate of 14.4721.
Council also passed the 2022 Capital budget of $1,059,657.88; they noted there are no projects planned for this year and the only expenses will be a $10,000 commitment to Operating Reserves and a $2,300 cost for the Palliser Webmap.
