It isn't just individuals being hit hard by higher expenses.

Reeve of Foothills County Delilah Miller says they've set the mill rate and taxpayers are going to have to pay more.

"Our percentage is going to be 6.69, 1.21 per cent of our mill rate is going to school tax increase, we had a huge tax increase of over $700,000 which kind of took us by surprise a bit and then our seniors, ambulance, recreation, fire, library and the RCMP, that went up by 1.86 per cent and overall County operations went up by 3.62 per cent."

Miller reiterates the County's portion of the hike is 3.62 per cent.

She points out not all ratepayers will see the same increase.

The rate of increase depends on the assessed value of individual properties, so some won't be impacked by as much as others.

Miller says the council and administration did what it could to keep the increase low but a lot of the requisitions, like education which comes from the province, are out of their control.

"We're now paying $2.3 million a year for RCMP policing in Foothills County and we are lobbying the province with our displeasure of that. We just don't think we're seeing the coverage that we need in the county, and we would like a huge bump up with boots on the ground for us and be more visible for rural crime because that's still an issue in the county."

She says all the downloading of costs from the province are leaving the county taking a hit.

Miller says a mail-out will be included in tax notices to explain the reasons behind the increases.