Whitehorse city council passes $65M budget

Whitehorse City Council approved this year's $65 million operation and maintenance budget Monday night after two amendments to review the spending were voted down.

Both amendments proposed taking a second look at the budgeting process, and were aimed at cutting down the 3.83 per cent tax hike.

Mayor Dan Curtis said he was surprised by the proposed amendments, especially after $600,000 was cut from the budget to keep the tax hike down.

"I'm very proud of this budget," he said. "I think at 3.83, looking at an inflation rate of 2.1 and having evening service for transit, we worked really, really, really hard to address the concerns of citizens of Whitehorse."

Council did undertake to start work right away on a new way of budgeting that will limit tax increases to the annual rate of inflation.