The 2017 RM of Portage la Prairie budget received first reading this morning at Council's regular meeting.

It's a $19,148,000.00 document, and includes a 0.9% over-all tax increase, which translates into an annual increase of $22.95 on a $100,000 residential property.

Councillor Roy Tufford explains how they arrived at that number.

"That's the result of education tax going up by about 5%, us (the RM) reducing by 1.5%," he says, "So although the total tax bill was going to go up by $29.00 per $100,000, our reduction brought it down to $22.95, and 100% per cent of that increase is due to the educational levy, not for municipal services."

The mill rate also dropped, from 9.97, to 9.82.

Tufford says they have a lot of projects to fund this year.

"So we're drawing a lot of that 19 million out certain reserves," he says, "Like development of the Poplar Bluff Industrial Park, and a lot of that money's going to be recovered through tax incremental financing, once Roquette is in place. Delta campground, we've been setting aside money for that. We're getting some DFA money to augment that, so we'll be able to re-do that campground this year."

You can read the budget here.