Perth East Mayor Rhonda Ehgoetz says the new Strong Mayor Powers from the provincial government didn't deter her and council from doing their budget as a team.
Ehgoetz says despite the onus now falling on the mayor to present the final budget, she and council had a visioning session in the summer, and the process was very collaborative, like in the past. That helped Perth East land at a 5.33 per cent levy increase, or $92 dollars for the year on a median assessed household.
"The visioning session that we have in July, that's a great time for council to tell staff where they're at, what they're looking for in the budget to come, what they're comfortable with in terms of increases. Our staff does a great job with all of that, considering the challenges," Ehgoetz emphasized.
Cheif among those challenges are rising costs for things that council has no control over.
"Like the policing costs, conservation authorities, there's different things in our budget where we're told what the price is going to be, so that accounted for 2.75 per cent of the increase," Ehgoetz explained. "And then the balance was in insurance, our drainage costs, and any township requests, and that represented about 2.58 per cent of the budget."
Ehgoetz adds that this year, the biggest accomplishment was significant expansion and upgrades to deal with a local water issue.
"We built a new pump house in the Village of Shakespeare. We had an iron and arsenic issue there, and the old pump house was too small. So, council is looking to the future there and if we get more housing in Shakespeare, this new pump house can handle that growth," she shared.
Also, Ehgoetz says she's pleased with the continued growth of the municipality, from housing and businesses, to farm operations. That includes the Percon Industrial Park in Milverton, that continues to grow.
"We can't thank Percon enough. They are head of the industrial park and there's businesses coming there all the time. Farmers are expanding, building new barns, whether it's hogs, dairy, chickens, egg producers, they're all expanding. The housing market is still there, and building in Perth East is booming," she said.
As far as 2026, Ehgoetz says council doesn't have any major projects coming up, but they look forward to watching further growth.
"We will continue to track businesses and bring them into Perth East, where our doors are always open. We try to help accommodate them whenever we can. Also the residential side, we have have companies that want to come in and build in Perth East that never have before, and we welcome them all," Ehogetz concluded.
