Collingwood Mayor Chris Carrier says budget discussions will begin soon. Prior to the budget process, the Town of Collingwood has been installing a new computer system to replace the outdated, 20 year old system. Mayor Carrier says the last quarter of 2007 saw the installation of the new computer system followed by the large task of transferring data from the old to the new system. Staff training continued on the weekend of February 9th and 10th. Town Treasurer Marjory Leonard now has all data transferred to the new system and has been producing trial documents in advance of budget talks.

Mayor Carrier says he is now ready to begin budget discussions with the hope of meeting with the budget committee before the end of February. Last year, the Town of Collingwood budget was finalized with a 1.87 percent increase. Mayor Carrier said the increase was going to be closer to 6 percent, but 4 percent was absorbed by growth. “We had more people sharing the bill” said Carrier.

Mayor Carrier said town officials are working on getting a good understanding on what this year’s increase might be. “We wanted to know how much the policing component was really going to be. We’re in negotiations with the fire service as well, so there are some things that we want to see and have a feel for how they will impact the budget” Carrier added.