The Reeve for the RM of Ste. Anne says residents will notice that the amount they pay in municipal taxes this year will be about even to what they paid last year.

Art Bergmann says assessment is up by 8.8% this year in their municipality, so council decided to lower the mill rate accordingly. He notes the ones who will be most affected by the rise in the assessment are farmers.

"The assessment went up quite a bit and so the people that are going to feel the pain of the assessment are owners of farmland. Farmland, the prices have climbed very rapidly and with the way assessment works is assessment is set by the province and we then taxes are set according to that assessment."

Bergmann says the mill rate for the RM of Ste. Anne will be reduced from 8.72 to 8.37 which is a 4% decrease. He notes the reason for such a drop is because assessment went up significantly so council wanted to balance things out.

"We run a tight ship and the taxes are set by the amount of money that we’re going to spend on various projects that we’ve decided on and that being the case, we are going to be raising as much money as we need and so we will not raise the taxes beyond what we require."

As for capital projects, Bergmann adds they will be looking at replacing a grader in 2018 as well as continuing the Loewen Boulevard project with the RM of La Broquerie, a road repair on Road 48N with the RM of Tache and repairs to Kropp road near Richer.