Village welcomes residents to budgetary open house

The Village of Nakusp welcomed residents to its open house to compare the 2015 budget to the 2016 budget, which will beadopted in the coming months.

“We don’t adopt the budget until part way through the year,” said Laurie Taylor, chief administrative officer for the Village ofNakusp. “The purpose of the open house is to let people know what previous years budgets were, so they can make a comparison, and get some input from them as to what we figure going forward are the important issues that we should bespending our budget money on.”

There are no new projects or services on the 2016 budget. The only major thing the village will be spending money on this year is the roof of the Nakusp and District Sports Complex, but that’s only if they get the grant funding from Columbia Basin Trust.

The operating is pretty much the same, but taxes are going to have to go up because costs are going up.

“For example, we spend almost $30,000 a year on street lights, so hydro is going up,” said Taylor. “We’re going into union negotiations this year, so there may or may not be wage increases, so we have to look at that when we’re budgeting. Taxes haveto go up to cover it. That’s our major source of income.”

While taxes are the village’s major source of income, it gets less than 50 per cent of the tax dollar.

Only 43 per cent of what is collected goes to the municipality. The balance of it is collected for the province in order to pay forthings like school tax, and police. Another portion of it will go to the regional district for regional district administration,regional district services, and the hospital.

“People see a tax bill, say of $1,000, and they figure it’s all going to the municipality — it isn’t,” said Taylor. “Only $430 of thatis coming to the municipality.”

The 2016 budget for the Village of Nakusp is set to be formally adopted in May.