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Jasper Municipal Council is looking at ways it can cut costs in town to deliver a zero per cent property tax increase this year.
Council was set to approve an operating budget last week with a 2.9 per cent increase to taxes.
But with the COVID-19 pandemic and our uncertain future, councillors postponed the decision to look at ways to help the community.
Councillor Jenna McGrath saud: 鈥淲e are experiencing dramatic times that are very uncertain but if we are talking about service levels being cut, let鈥檚 think what that looks like and how this process will go.
鈥淗opefully we will come to decisions that will assist our entire community.鈥�
Administration gave council a list of possible ways to cut costs, including delaying capital projects, reducing services, not hiring new staff for vacant positions and cutting all non-essential travel and training.
鈥淲e have to be asking the hard questions and there have to be some decisions made,鈥� said councillor Rico Damota:
鈥淲e have to discuss what is essential in our community and what is going to be essential in the next couple of years.鈥�
Possible service reductions looked at by council were removing compost bins, accepting cardboard only at the Operations yard, and cutting grass cutting of public spaces.
They also discussed not increasing funding to outside bodies like the museum, library, Habitat and Jasper Artists Guild.
Richard Ireland, mayor of Jasper, said: 鈥淲e need to look seriously and firstly at our community鈥檚 ability to pay, the residents and businesses.
鈥淲e have to keep the lights on - we have to maintain a level of service and we may have to discuss what that level is going to look like.
鈥淲e have to do what we can to prepare our community to recover.鈥�
After much discussion, council asked the finance to prepare a zero per cent increase budget to be brought back for approval at their meeting next week.
Councillor Paul Butler said: 鈥淚 think we should choose zero per cent increase, get the tax notices out, then sit down with administration and look at cutting our operations back to a skeleton level until we can get an understanding of what recovery might look like.鈥�
Council also discussed payment deferrals for property tax. A decision will be made at their next meeting.
