It's a busy time for staff and council in the Municipality of Glenella-Lansdowne, as they work to prepare their 2016 budget. Reeve Richard Funk says they're not anticipating any major challenges with this year's budget, as there are no major projects on the horizon that haven't already been started. Funk says the only real change in expenses will be the purchase of some new equipment to improve their grass cutting operation.

"We have to buy a little bit of machinery of a grass mower to do the top cut. We were using our heavy mower to do that up until this year, now we're going to switch to a light disc mower to cut the top off, then go with the heavy one to mow the ditch from fence-line to fence-line once we start doing that in August. The first cut will just be on the edges of the road to keep the deer out of the grills of the car."

As for taxes, Funk says they'll likely have good news for their citizens. He says the status quo budget, combined with municipal growth and increased assessments for property mean they'll likely not be presenting a tax increase in the budget.

"There's no increase in taxes on the table whatsoever. Our municipality is growing enough with the assessment continuing to grow that we don't need to do a rate increase. I can see, the way I'm looking at it, there will be no tax increase, but if there is it would be an adjustment of about one per cent or however that works out."

However, he says the reassessments occur many citizens will still have to pay more, due to the ongoing increases in assessed values.