On October 24, Council was given a sneak peek at the 2017 draft budget.

The draft budget is released four weeks prior to budget deliberations and this year Cochrane administration says they have done their best to contain costs.

Paige Milner, Town of Cochrane, Senior Manager, Corporate Services, says this year they are proposing a less than 1% municipal tax increase.

"It is exactly 0.88%, and that translates to about $1.53 a month or $18.36 a year. There are a number of things council is looking for in the 2017 budget that we hope are funded to their satisfaction."

Milner says there are some key projects in 2017 that are of importance to Cochranites.

"Roads are a concern to our residents so there is money in the capital budget to do road works as well as to move the bridge ahead. The new aquatic and curling facility is a big deal for Cochrane to have that $48 million dollar facility open in 2017, there's funding for that transition in there as well. The new organic curbside program that comes in place in 2017 is pretty exciting for Cochrane especially because it's being able to be rolled out with no rate increase."

The town is also looking to fill 5 full time equivalent positions in 2017 including a Deputy Fire Chief, and an Economic Development and Tourism Guide.

Milner believes there is not a lot of negative components to the proposed budget.

"With user fees overall there is almost no increases recommended anywhere in the budget except building permit fees and it is 4%, the reason for that is to match more closely to what all the other communities around us charge."

While Cochranites may indeed see a small tax increase, Milner reminds us that when they say 0.88% tax increase it is just an average.

"That is taking into account everything that increased as well as everything that decreased, those are the assessment results that come out before you levy the actual taxes against those assessments. So every years there's properties that increase higher than the average property increase and then there's ones that actually decrease more than what the average was."

Assessment results in 2017 are based on July 1 of this year, assessors look at all the real estate information which is made public to determine if your assessment will go up, down, or stay the same. 

Milner adds, early indications look like the average assessments will go down this year, but that does not mean it is across the board.

"Even if the average assessment goes down that does not mean everyone's assessment is going down. So some people will have increases more than what the average is and then there's people that will have decreases, so no one person is going to agree. This year was zero (percent), a number of people had a zero but not everybody has zero because the assessment itself determines whether you are going to pay more, pay less, or pay zero.

If people feel they are being assessed unreasonably anyone is welcome to appeal. Out of approximately 9300 residential tax bills in 2016, about 30 went through a formal appeal process.

You can see the full proposed 2017 budget here. A public engagement open house is being held November 19 from 11 am to 2 pm at the Downtown Visitor Centre, and you can always reach Milner at paige.milner@cochrane.ca with any questions or concerns. Council will hold budget deliberations on November 25 and 26 which will result in the finalized budget being handed down before the 2017 fiscal year.