Bluewater Council Passes 2024 Budget

by Bob Montgomery

Bluewater council adopted their 2024 budget at this week's council meeting.

Mayor Paul Klopp says in approving a budget, council carefully considers the services they provide to the community, the cost to provide those services and the impact of any tax increase on Bluewater residents. “While we’d like to see zero increase to the tax rate, that isn’t realistic with inflation and current interest rates where they are and our obligation to provide important services to our community and maintain all of the critical assets we own. I’m confident that this budget balances community asks with service delivery needs in a fair and sustainable way.”

Klopp says the tax rate increase this year is 6.7%. They didn't take money out of reserves to get to that figure, but Klopp says they did tip into the funds they get from the wind energy companies in the municipality. But, Klopp says that money was there to be used in difficult times and those times have arrived. He also points out they were planning on putting money away but one expense they hadn't anticipated was the closing of Stanley Dump. It will cost about 800-thousand dollars to close the dump so they're going to spread that over two years, but that still represents about four percent of this year's tax increase.

Klopp also congratulates staff for the work they did in putting the budget together. “Creating a budget that promotes sustainable growth and meets the needs of our community requires collaboration between Council and staff. Keeping these themes in mind has allowed us to work together to create a budget that is fair, responsible and forward looking.”