Huron County council began preliminary discussions on the 2025 budget at Wednesday's meeting.
Treasurer Micheal Blumhagen walked council through an outline of the budget, that could be over $58 million for the upcoming year.
"The initial draft, I feel its a good starting point for us to have some fruitful discussions," he said. "We are proposing a draft levy increase of 8.39 per cent, so that's an increase of $4.4 million, and that would be a total levy of $57 million."
When including supplemental taxes and payment in lieu of property taxes, the number settles at $58.3 million.
Blumhagen told council that growth in the area will help reduce the impact on everyone's tax rate.
"The assessment roll that was returned by MPAC (Municipal Property Assessment Corporation) at the end of 2024, that actually increased by $182 million. So we had some excellent growth last year," he said. "If we were to maintain exactly the same tax rates as 2024, we would see 1.52% increase in the levy, or an increase of $814,365. This helps shift some of that burden from existing taxpayers to new growth."
As a result, the proposed levy increase for residents is 6.75 per cent.
Overall, the draft budget includes $42.8 million in capital expenses and $119.2 million in operating expenses, with the cost of labour making up more than half of that.
The Home for the Aged has been a source of increasing staffing costs in recent years, as they've had to rely on agency staff to cover additional shifts due to a nursing shortage.
However, Homes Director Dana Mellor told county council that it should see a reduction in this cost shorty.
"We are seeing a bit of a decline in agency use," she told council. "We are currently in some negotiations with them in our contract, and looking to reduce the amount of agencies that we have partnerships with. In that, we have seen some of those staff members come over to the home as well, so we are seeing an increase in some of our recruitment."
More discussion of the final tax rate will be had at the special budget meeting for county council, which takes place February 12 at 9 a.m.
