There's not doubt that the cost of living is on the rise. In the past number of months, we've seen higher grocery prices, higher fuel prices, and various other increases to costs of living.
Fusion Credit Union's Mike Csversko was at Tuesday's State of the District to speak on trends he sees in the Parkland right now for businesses and taxpayers. He said input price increases continue to be especially concerning to farmers and agriculture-related business. But it's not all bad, land equity is also going up.
"On the flip side of that we're also seeing an increase in land prices as well, so not all doom and gloom. The equity that is built into the farms, and lot of them are multi-generational farms, large number of acres, so that helps offset the pressues when it comes to financing and lending, just because of that balancing act between the equity and the operating costs as well," said Csversko.
RM of Dauphin Reeve Ernie Sirski, who was also there to speak, said he's had to increase fuel budgeting for his own farm by $10 per acre, leading to a $60,000 projected fuel cost increase this year for just his farm.
Some of the better news, Csversko said business in the Parkland are much less volatile than agriculture right now, and the data he sees backs that up.
"When it comes to businesses, we're quite steady in the Parkland area. It's not a boom and bust area of the country," said Csversko.
One of the things Fusion Credit Union does to help put money back into the community is their Full Circle Fund. The April intake is closed, but there is another intake set for this fall.
"It's great, I think off the top of my head we had 28 applicants come through the Full Circle intake that closed April 1st, we'll be making decisions on those coming up by the end of April, with announcements coming out shortly after that, so mid May," said Csversko.
At the government level, The RM is helping to save taxpayers money amid rising living costs with a projected tax increase this year lower than 3%.
