Rhineland Municipality will hold the line on spending this year, but municipal taxes will rise slightly.

Council has approved spending 7.6 million dollars on its operations for 2021 which is about the same as 2020.

However, Reeve Don Wiebe says the mill rate is increasing slightly overall which means ratepayers will see an increase in municipal property taxes across the board.

"Rosenfeld, on a house assessed at $200,000, their taxes are rising by about $36.00. In Gretna, the same house would rise by $13.00 and Plum Coulee would rise by $37.00. That's the increase on residential and the rural area is $22.00."

Taxes on commercial land with an assessed value of $450,000 will also rise this year by about $70 in the rural area, about $118 in Rosenfeld, $41 in Gretna, and about $120 in Plum Coulee.

There are a couple of reasons for the tax increase this year. Interest revenue generated on the municipality's reserve funds has declined due to a drop in interest rates. The municipality also needed to purchase some security protection at a cost of about $24,000 and will use reserve funds to purchase new radios for the fire department.

"Those are the budget stressors we're dealing with and out of that we came up with a new mill rate that is up a little bit."

The mill rate will increase .24 mills in rural areas, .39 mills in Rosenfeld, .41 mills in Plum Coulee, and .13 mills in Gretna.

According to Wiebe, Rhineland derives 60 per cent of its tax revenue from farmland, 26 per cent from residential property, and 8 per cent from commercial property.

Also, the municipality is trying to grow its infrastructure fund for large equipment purchases and capital projects and has earmarked about $72,000 for that purpose in this year's budget.

"We know that we have bridges that are aging and roads as well, and we started doing that and we're adding to that. We've been trying to build these reserve funds so that we don't have to borrow money. By creating reserve funds we need fewer debentures."

Rhineland also has a number of capital projects on the books that will either start up this year or are underway. The municipality is planning a reconstruction of the Altona drain, an expansion of the GNS pumphouse is underway and Valley Fiber is expected to complete the installation of its high speed network this year.