Board members with the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority have received a preliminary budget for 2017.
General Manager Brian Horner says staff presented a proposed budget with an increase of about 5.7%.
Horner says board members realize from their own municipal budgets that the increase in the initial budget is usually higher than the final figure.
Last year, member municipalities asked the Authority to keep the increase to two per cent, and they were able to do that.
Horner adds getting down to two per cent again this year will mean cutting some projects, so it becomes a matter of which projects can be put off for a year or two.
