Bonnyville residents can expect a two per cent residential tax increase in 2025, as the Town passed the interim budget on Tuesday night.

This includes a roughly $32.7 million operating budget and $11.3 million capital budget, as well as a transfer of just under $780,000 from operating reserves in order to balance the budget.

After two previous versions, and a budget open house the previous Tuesday, some minor changes were made, including added project deferrals and community requests, to finesse the budget to balance.

“We feel good. As mentioned it’s been a long road,” said Mayor Elisa Brosseau. 

“Like any another business there’s the cost of inflation going up, and we’re responsible with the decision in that we keep the tax increase low every year. This is a nominal increase…I think two per cent is quite fair.” 

This follows previous years of two per cent increases. Some other increases include a four per cent increase to multi-family and non-residential tax, as well as a two per cent increase in the utility and garbage rate.

Municipalities are seeing increases in costs of utilities, insurance, and often RCMP contract costs.

The Town wants to invest in safety, and has decided after years of pushing it down the road, will hire a second Community Peace Officer, to work in tandem with CPO Wanda Tomm.

“We feel it’s time and it’s necessary to have that position filled this year, so that line item stays in the budget, along with anything they need for equipment or tools for the job,” said Brosseau. 

Some of the true capital costs for projects, such as back alley streetlights for the downtown core, downtown revitalization, Jessie Lake improvements, and sports tourism strategy initiatives.

Once those costs are known, then they can be figured into the final budget, which passes in the spring once assessments are known, and items like the mill rate are set.

A series of items have been deferred, such a library expansion, the southeast sanitary force main inspection, and some other infrastructure items.

Main street and Highway 28 intersection improvements have been approved by the Government of Alberta, with provincial dollars. More information to come there soon.

Just over a million has put into the new aquatics centre fund, contingent upon federal grant funding.

“We’ve got so many projects and many of them we had to defer them…

“We continue to talk about the pool. We put a million dollars from our capital budget just for the pool. That eats a chunk of our budget. Our public works manager is amazing and is very real with some of the things…the infrastructure under the roads is very old, if we don’t keep up with it, we can get into a position where we have a lot of work to do with no budget.”