Estevan City Council, along with Mayor Roy Ludwig and City Manager Jeff Ward, discussed the city's budget all day Monday at Estevan City Hall.

Police Chief Rich Lowen and Fire Chief Dale Feser both gave reports on their departments.

Lowen gave some numbers from his department, which included legal expenses that were up slightly from the previous year and are now at $32,000. Lowen said investigative overtime was also increased from $20,000 to $40,000.

Communication technology for the police service, such as cell phones, also increased from $20,000 to $31,000.

"Those are never going to go down," Lowen said. "Cell phone uses will probably go up through out the years."

Lowen also added that many of the service's computer systems are becoming outdated which will create new costs going forward.

There was also a dramatic drop in the canine unit, from $50,000 to $5,000.

"I can only imagine why it was at that level," Lowen said. "The only thing I can think of is it was there for a legal perspective in the event of a dog bite or something like that, which is why we increased the legal fund."

Lowen also said the service removed fuel costs from the vehicle maintenance budget so that his team can accurately assess how much fuel is being used by the service on a yearly basis going forward. He said they've allocated $45,000 for fuel costs which allowed them to drop the vehicle maintenance budget from $101,000 to $56,000.

Feser also touched on fuel costs in his report. He said the fire department has budgeted $8,000 for their fleet. Feser said he hoped that would be enough given the unpredictability and fluctuation of gas prices.