Perth South Mayor Sue Orr says she and council decided that she would not enact her given Strong Mayor Powers to determine the budget for 2026.
Orr says that she, council and staff wanted to maintain the collaborative efforts of everyone to get the budget done, something that will be finished in the new year.
"I'm going to wait until February, and the first meeting in February, we will have our budget discussion, and then the second meeting we will probably vote on it. This works for us only because we are such a small municipality," Orr pointed out. "We're going to stick with trying to do the cooperative, inclusive approach with keeping my council engaged fully, alongside staff."
Mayor Orr says Perth South doesn't have any huge capital projects on deck next year to worry about, so they can take their time determining what the numbers need to be.
Orr points out that despite being a small municipality, building in the area this last year was very busy.
"We have an incredible building department and we exceeded values of $62 million in growth. That has touched every sector of our community, including industrial projects which resulted in job creation," she said.
With Orr recently being named Deputy Warden of Perth County, she says the current discussions among some municipalities regarding a new transit system are encouraging, but Perth South currently isn't part of those talks to potentially replace the now-defunct PC Connects.
"It would make sense for us to have transit in a location potentially like Sebringville, because then it would be in a partnership going up that highway towards Mitchell. Now, we have not been a part of the conversation for this new system that we are speaking about," she shared.
However, Orr says if the provincial government came forward with some money to help get a transit system going, Perth South would obviously be interested in being part of a county-wide system like that.
Going into the new year, Orr says she continues to be encouraged by growth in the area and the numerous programs they have with local partners.
"We are still working with partnerships like the Upper Thames (River Conservation Authority) on tree days, we have a great summer pool program up in Kirkton. We also recently gave some money towards the mobility bus to help in their efforts to purchase a new vehicle," Orr concluded.
