Rhineland Reeve Don Wiebe has confirmed residents will see a municipal tax increase on their bills this year, but the question remains how much that may be? After council's annual planning session, discussions around the 2024 budget began and have continued.

"The budget process has started in earnest, and after the annual planning meeting the budget discussion was underway," explained Wiebe. "The Finance Committee and the administration had several meetings, and are in the process of reviewing drafts and reporting to council. After feedback from council, the committee will provide a draft budget for consideration, and ultimately for presentation to the public hearing, which is later this month."

Similar to our monthly budgets at home, Rhineland council is also struggling with inflationary pressures.

"This year's budget stressors include inflationary costs, in particular the large cost of municipal equipment and capital costs," he said. "That impacts our reserve funds, and so the reserve funds need to be looked at. Given all those things, there will be a tax increase. We'll just have to see, in weighing projects, what that is."

The public hearing for the budget is set for March 20th.