By Cecilia Nasmith

Having been deputy mayor himself for a term of council, Mayor John Henderson commended his successor Suzanne Seguin on completing the 2020 budget process.

It had been especially challenging this year, since the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation had hit the town with an adjustment in its assessment that amounted to a $250,000 budget item.

Seguin thanked council and staff for two long days of hard work on the budget last week that capped off a long series of public meetings and consultations.

The 1.9% cap on the municipal-tax increase that she'd hoped to enforce in the end proved to be impossible with the news from MPAC. And that very night, she'd learned of a $108,000 increase in one item, as council voted to increase the staff salary beyond what they'd agreed upon at last week's committee-of-the-whole meeting.

It will all be before council as a final draft Feb. 3, she said, offering figures that took everything into account except the last-minute salary increase.

As of the end of their meeting Friday, she said the capital budget stood at $8,982,728 and the operating budget at $24,761,992. This would have been a 3.2% increase over 2019 but, after allowing for new-assessment growth of 1%, the increase worked out to 2.2%.