KAWARTHA LAKES-The City of Kawartha Lakes is on track for a 4% property tax increase in 2019.
Jennifer Stover, the Director of Corporate Services provided the figure during a proposed Budget Overview at council on Tuesday.
The estimated Capital Budget will be 48.5 million dollars. Almost $3million higher than the long range plan accounted for. The Capital Budget is a budget allocating money for the acquisition or maintenance of fixed assets such as land, buildings, and equipment.
Stover said three things are anticipated to push the Capital Budget above projections. The Bobcaygeon Beach Park upgrades at $2 million, Electronic Document Records Management System at $400,000 and and the Net impact of adjustments to projects in the long term finanical plan costing $200,000. 49% of the Capital Budget is projected to come from Capital Reserves.
The Proposed Operating Budget it $200.4 million dollars with 114.2 million of that coming from tax revenue, 53.9 million from grants, 4.8 million from other revenue and 27.5 million from licenses, fees and user charges.
An Operating Budget show’s the City’s projected revenue and associated expenses for the year. It includes sales, overhead and Administrative Budgets. Overhead, or fixed expenses not related to volume, include utilities and taxes. Administrative labour costs, such as salaries also are included in the operating budget.
The City expects for spend $67.8 million on salaries, wages and benefits in 2019 and another $38.6 million on contracted services. An increase of 5.9 million over last year. That’s about 35% of the budget. Stover says the average for municipalities is approximately 40%.
Winter Maintenance and Waste Management are both expected to be about $600,000 higher than projected. That will push rates up by about $40 year per household. Stover told council that the price of disposal of recycling has gone up drastically over the past year.
The proposed budget and business plan will be available on November 30th. Budget deliberations will begin in January.
