Casselman’s council meeting for the 2025 budget leads to a proposed 8.63% tax increase before further revisions

The council of Casselman discusses the financing and cuts for the municipality's 2025 budget. Certain topics such as the reserve funding, and the digitization of documents create debate amongst council members as they try to lower Casselman’s tax rate.

Jade Laviolette – Local journalism initiative

Certain subjects such as the municipalities reserve fund was brought into question during the 2025 budget. The mairess of Casselman’s plan to increase this reserve was not put into effect following the reductions to the municipalities budget, she explained that: “right now we have 50 thousand [dollars], and I wanted to bring the reserve up to 100%, which is 100 thousand [dollars], but I’m willing to cut that”. Seeing the opportunity to decrease municipal spending and lower tax rates, council member, Paul Groulx, officially proposed to cut the additional 50 thousand dollars. 

To continue, a series of additional cuts were suggested during this municipal meeting, such as council member Sylvain Cléroux stating that: ”I would like us to reconsider the following items: the 2,000 dollars related to the recognition policy, the 2,000 dollars related to the training center and the 7,000 dollars related to the digitization of documents for the time being”, [translated from French] effectively lowering the municipalities spendings.

Lowering the tax rates
Near the beginning of the meeting, the council faced a high tax rate for its citizens : “so this is what we have on the table, right now with all these additions our tax rate will be at 10.66%” said Geneviève Lajoie, the mairess of Casselman. However, unsatisfied with the 10.66% tax rate, the council voted to keep cutting from the budget.

In an attempt to further lower the tax rates, topics such as the budget for reserve funding, the digitalization of the municipalities documents and the recording of council meetings were brought into question. Following a series of cuts to the municipalities financial plan, the mairess proposed: “let’s put it to vote, all in favor of accepting 8.63%”, ending the meeting with a vote of yes across the council and a proposed tax rate of 8.63% for the 2025 budget.

Revisions were made to the budget following the meeting of November 26. The budget in full is now available on the municipality’s website.