Budget passed with no tax increase and increase to water and sewer due to Water Treatment Plant costs
Redvers town council
April 27, 2026, 3:07 pm
Nicole Taylor Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Redvers Town Council passed the town’s budget on Wednesday with no increase to taxes, but an increase to water and sewer rates that will take place in the third quarter of the year in order to cover the cost of the town’s new water treatment plant.
The town’s base tax will remain at $1,100 per property, the mill rate will remain at 5.7 per cent, and the mill rate factor will remain at 1 for residential and 1.4 for commercial and agricultural property.
Water and Sewer rates will see a jump from $50 a quarter to $200 a quarter starting on July 1.
The town applied for and received $4.5 million under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) for the new water treatment plant based on an estimated cost of $6.1 million for the project. However tenders came in higher than expected with a total project cost of $9.7 million.
“When we applied to ICIP and had our cost estimate, we changed the water and sewer rates in 2022 to reflect that and provided everything was to be on par,” says town CAO Tricia Pickard. “But when we went to tender, the tenders came in significantly higher and we had to make up the difference and acquire a loan for $4,767,300 million.”
The town has taken out a loan with CIBC to finance the additional cost of the water treatment plant. The town contacted ICIP to see if they could change the scope of the project and receive more ICIP funding, but were told there is no money left over in the program.
“We are exploring as many options as we can and will continue to do that,” says Pickard. “Also we did increase the minimum gallons every quarter from 6,000 gallons to 9,000 gallons so anyone that is a little bit of a higher user won’t see an extra charge.”
Construction has started on the new water treatment plant which is to come online in the fall of 2027 and will offer residents reverse osmosis water with a green sand blend.
Other budget items
Total taxation in this year’s budget $1,129,538.03. The town has budgeted a small surplus with total revenue of $4,810,420 and total expenses of $4,806,376.
One of the biggest expenses this year is $250,000 for the purchase of a new fire truck—the town’s portion of the cost.
The town has also budgeted $132,000 for street maintenance, and $45,500 for cement projects such as sidewalks.
Pickard says the town will only do spot repairs on streets this year, and will not be paving any new blocks, as they expect a few water main breaks when the new water treatment plant comes online in 2027 and don’t want to rip up new pavement.
Some of the repair work will include paving and crak filing on Broadway Street, and replacing a section of the street and sidewalk in front of the medical clinic.
There has been $11,000 set aside for beautification such as trees and flowers, and $68,200 set aside for sewer and water maintenance.
Mayor says goal was to hold the line on taxes
Redvers Mayor Brad Bulbuck says the goal going into this year’s budget was not to increase taxes.
“Last year we raised taxes, and our goal was to maintain taxes for this year. Last year when we raised taxes, we told people there would not be a tax increase this year,” he says. “So it’s very important for us to keep that commitment to the rate payers.
“Going into this budget with costs rising—fuel, wages, everything that’s rising—we knew it was going to be a tight budget.”
Bulbuck says an increase in provincial revenue sharing was helpful this year. The town is receiving an increase of $26,614 in revenue sharing this year for a total of $325,779
“On the revenue side, the biggest thing will be, from an operating standpoint, the revenue sharing, which went up roughly just over $26,000, so that helps with our budget,” says Bulbuck.
“Revenue is going to stay relatively constant when you take out the capital portion from loans and grants to cover the water treatment plant. There will be some transfers from our savings, which is infrastructure money we collected in previous years to go towards the water treatment plant. And we will be advancing that alone from CIBC as we start the water treatment plant, which will be our portion, in addition to what we’re collecting from ICIP.”
“On the expense side for repairs and maintenance for roads and streets, some of that will be covered with two grants. We received an accessibility grant of $12,000 that’s going to help with the cost of improving the sidewalk and some of the pavement in front of the medical clinic. Also, there’s an SGI fund for about $50,000 that we are going to use to put a sidewalk south from the Redvers Activity centre.
“If you take a look at our infrastructure, we’ve allocated $132,500 towards street maintenance, which includes dust control, paint, crack filler, street sweeping and repair of some bad pavement areas on the streets. And we’ve also allocated another $45,000 to concrete projects, and some of that will be used for the Medical Clinic and some of that will be used for the Redvers Activity Centre project. That will be our portion of that. We’re still allocating almost $180,000 to two projects, because we don’t want to see our surface infrastructure deteriorating to the point where it’s no longer usable or safe.
“We are continuing with our commitment to the beautification of the town. We have joined the Communities In Bloom competitive category this year. Last year we were in the evaluated friends non-competitive category, and if we were in the competitive category last year, we would have won it. So this is why we’re going competitive this year. We’ve got a really good committee behind us. There’s a lot of volunteers from the community that are helping out that.
“Money to the Rec Centre is the same as previous years. We’re still allocating another $50,000 to the Rec Foundation for capital improvements. And this is 50/50, funded between the town and RM. We put money in an account under the Rec Foundation, and that is to fund capital projects for recreation, arts and culture.
“At the library, our budget is a little higher this year because we’re doing some renovations of the library. So there is some extra money there for the library.
“We’re going to have a little bit of a surplus budget, but we’re going to have to manage it really tight, and we’re going to have to be careful. And when we get our quotes, in previous years, when would get an estimate and if a quote was a little bit more, we would just go ahead and do it because we had the funds we built the cushion into our budget. This year, we might have to take a little closer look at it and just make sure that it’s going to work from a cash flow perspective.”
Rising costs one of the biggest challenges
Bulbuck says one of the big challenges of putting together this year’s budget was dealing with rising costs.
“We’re dealing with quotes coming in higher than anticipated. Everything’s rising. Fuel is rising, so that filters down. Wages are rising, so that filters down. And it’s not just our wages, it’s wages for the contractors too. Insurance is going up—all those types of things.
“We’re trying to do the best with what we can. The bottom line is, we have to put money back into the community. Because if we don’t put money back into the community— take our water treatment project for example—if we don’t do that, we’re never going to attract new business or new residents.
“If you don’t put money into roads, streets, sidewalks, and things like that, they deteriorate to the point where people don’t even want to be downtown or in parts of town where things are looking worn out. When people are looking at communities, they’re thinking, ‘well, this community has done this stuff, and the other community hasn’t.’ And they’re going to go to the one that has been keeping on top of stuff.”
