Cuts upon Cuts have been proposed for the Williams Lake 2025 Budget.
City Council has approved and is urging City Staff to dig deeper and cut more to reach their targeted goal of a “zero” per cent increase, not including the increase to assessments.
“I, like my colleagues, am not going to support anything higher than zero per cent,” says Mayor Surinderpal Rathor. “Anything of the highest priority, anything with grants can go ahead. Whatever we have to cut back we will cut back.”
“For clarity… the potential assessment increases is looking to be around five per cent,” says Councillor Joan Flaspohler. “That means there’s still a five per cent increase to all sectors in the community. So it is not a true “zero”, we are trying to be responsible, but not increase so much to gain more revenue, other than the assessment increase.”
An estimated $579,000 has already been cut, with another $690,000 must be cut to reach the Council’s target.
Five major projects have been removed from the 2025 budget, and another six have been modified, most projects were deferred to future years.
Councilors and the Mayor made their budget decisions to “keep money in residents’ pockets” while the municipality watches with uncertainty at what happens with the United States’ proposed tariffs and Canada’s own economic uncertainty.
“Let me be honest, I’m not done cutting,” Councillor Scott Nelson cautions. “If we lose Atlantic Power, we have big problems. If we lose a mill gets shut down we have even bigger problems. We need to be cognisant of what people have got in their pocket books right now.”
The second review was not approved and City Staff will be going back to the cutting board.
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