With the 2017 Budget finalized the Town of Okotoks is ready to act on their plans for the new year.

Council approved their $54 million operating budget on Monday which included a 1.7% increase in taxes along with an increase in water and sewer rates by 4%, but the budget does increase the amount of services provided to residents.

Okotoks Town Councillor Tanya Thorn

Councillor Tanya Thorn says with a poor economic 2016 the Town did its due-diligence to plan ahead with future projects.

"Water and annexation definitely are a piece of it," she says. "It's all growth orientated and we are very much are trying to have growth pay for growth. We've got a huge work load in front of us here for next year just to deal with some of things that require us to change, a new municipal development plan, land use by-law and that is a resource thing."

The Town has said the budget is a fiscally responsible one with a number of capital projects on the table for 2017 Thorn expects even more growth business wise in the new year.

"Right at the moment our growth has slowed and we're seeing some big increases in our commercial and industrial base this past year. We've also managed to add other pieces to factor in there. We've added another facility that's into the 2017 Budget in terms of an expanded operations centre, we've added Champion Park and Pason Centennial Arena."

Thorn says council and administration have been able to accommodate to inflation quite well.

"Our costs have obviously gone up, a big chunk of that 1.7% is dealing with this new carbon tax environment that we're in. Carbon tax impacts us at about $75,000 that's half a percent on our increase and our services levels aren't changing so we're still going to continue to deliver the service we've been delivering to our residents."

Budget Highlights can be found here.

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