"It's a very nice budget, I'm very proud of it."

Tache Mayor Justin Bohemier made that comment one day after his municipal council give final reading to its 2021 financial plan.

Bohemier says council and administration worked hard to maintain all of its services without having too much impact on ratepayers. He notes it works out to basically a zero tax increase. For a home assessed at $300,000, Bohemier says ratepayers should see an increase in taxes of no more than about $30 this year. He notes some ratepayers might even see a drop in taxes by that same amount.

"We're hoping everybody is okay with it," says Bohemier.

This year's tax levy is approximately $17.6 million, with more than half of that going towards education. The Seine River School Division will be getting about $6.7 million, with Hanover receiving $2.1 million and the Sunrise School Division taking approximately $412,000.

When it comes to planning the budget for the year, Bohemier says they examine all of the demands and then see what they can pull off within that scope.

"We really don't want to see (taxes) going up tremendously," he adds. "What we don't mind seeing is small increments, I know I don't mind seeing my taxes remain the same or going up slightly. It's always one of those things where you want to maintain that service."

He notes the goal is to spread the money out equally and be as fair as possible to the entire municipality.

"We do have a lot of villages, we do have a lot of demand, it's a very large area, so we're trying to keep a lot of different people happy," says Bohemier. "We have a lot of farms, we have a lot of people who live rurally. We have a lot of people who live in our LUDs and we want to make sure that we're fair."

He notes they have a very ambitious list of projects this year for their Public Works department.