Like many households and businesses, the City of Winkler has been unable to escape the added pressures of inflation. Council and administration are busing crossing the I's and dotting the T's on the City's proposed financial plan for 2023.
"Everything that we do is significantly more expensive than last year," explained Mayor Henry Siemens. As a result, he says they've been trying to mitigate that impact to the best of their ability while crunching the numbers. "Without robbing from Peter to pay Paul. We can't steal from the future to make this year work," he added.
Siemens says it was a struggle, but Council and staff were able to come up with a budget that funded the needs of the City while still saving for the future. However, that does come at a cost to local rate payers.
"We haven't got the number exactly where that will be yet, but there is an increase coming. It's simply unavoidable in an inflationary environment like we have now." That being said, Siemens says they tried to ensure any increases were as reasonable as possible.
Members of the community will have a chance to voice their thoughts on the proposed financial plan at a consultation event that is yet to be scheduled.
"We sure would love to have people come out and see in terms of where our work has gone, where we're planning to spend the tax dollars," said Siemens.
In previous years, the Mayor says only one or two people have shown up to take in the public hearing. As a result, staff and Council have been tasked with coming up with new ideas to engage the public on this topic.
"Whether we present it in a different way, maybe as an open house rather than in Council Chambers. I know sometimes that's intimidating for people," explained Siemens.
Details of such a consultation have yet to be determined.
Meantime, staff at City Hall are busy sorting all the details of the pre-tendering process as the City gears up to get going on its slate of projects for 2023.
"We have now mostly determined what we're going to do - whether it's road renewal, road patching or pathways - all of those projects need to be tendered," said Siemens. "So our staff are now feverishly going to work to get those documents together, to have them ready to roll as soon as our financial plan is approved so that we can hopefully get some better pricing. But just as importantly, maybe get the work done earlier in the year if we can release our tenders as soon as the budget is finally approved."