As everyone gets back into the grind after the holidays, the City of Estevan has an important task ahead of them. Budget Deliberations sees how Council will divide municipal funds to various services around Estevan. 

"As usual, what we like to do, alongside our City Manager Jeff Ward and City Controller Trudy Firth, is to gather all of the requests and post them ONLINE. This sees what each department is working on, what they are asking for and great things that came out of 2016," expressed Mayor Roy Ludwig. 

For this year's budget, two increases are proposed for property taxes and water. A 3% increase is proposed to be added onto the property tax fees, while water charges is looking to get a 5% bump from what it is now. 

In the report, the reason outlined for the property tax being increased is to partly cover the cost of some of their upcoming capital projects like the King Street Rehabilitation and the Pathway Plan. On top of that, water rates are rising to "cover capital work, operations and maintenance of the utility". 

"Now that will be totally up to Council on their decision of what to do with that number. At this point that's a proposed number, so we're looking forward to hearing from the public about the topic," Mayor Ludwig added. 

With that, Councillors asks the public to comment on the following decisions before January 30th, which is when they will be discussing how the Budget will be doled out. The community can head to City Hall to voice their opinions.