Amherstburg council will reconvene Tuesday morning for day two of budget deliberations.
Last month, the proposed budget called for a 5.3 per cent tax increase for 2025.
Mayor Michael Prue says council was able to whittle it down, in the five hours of talks on Monday night.
"Most of the recommendations passed, a couple did not that staff had made. We've carved out a few points of a percentage and we're still going."
He says council made the decision to close to the Libro Credit Union Centre on holidays.
The centre on Meloche Road offers two NHL-sized ice rinks, indoor soccer field, walking track, meeting and banquet facilities and more.
"We've left it open it open on so many holidays, and it is sparsely used if at all, so a decision was made to close it on holidays. First item up today will be whether to close it later in the day when there's sparse attendance, or at least to pare back the staff, and I think that's probably going to pass as well."
Prue says council is finding ways to cut the budget down $20,000 to $30,000 one item at a time.
"The staff had done a pretty good job. We came in much lower than the rest, ours was around 5.3 [per cent] to start, mostly the others were up around 8 or 9, so they were able to find more cost savings than we did because the staff had already done a good job keeping it low. Our goal is to get it down further."
Prue says there's approximately 30 more budgetary items to be discussed, however he's optimistic the budget can be wrapped up later Tuesday afternoon.
If needed, council will meet again Wednesday.
