The province's education requisition is making a difference to taxes in the Foothills MD.

Mayor Larry Spilak says councillors were proud of the work they'd done to keep the increase to as small as possible.

"We're actually able to keep our mill rate down to about a 1.6 per cent increase," Spilak says. "We were striving to get it to zero or even a minus for this year, you know what, it's a challenging time for a lot of people, we we're trying to accommodate any way we can, a few dollars here or there is certainly good for anybody to save."

Spilak says the mill rate comes in at 3.4 to 3.6 per cent.

The province has come in with a 10.6 per cent hike in the education requisition which municipalities have to collect and then turn over to the provincial government.

He says even with just a modest increase the MD will be very busy this year.

"Because we now have our arena paid for over at Heritage Heights, it's freed up some dollars for additional road work so we'll be doing some paving for the first time in a couple of years and some resurfacing as well, so you'll see our road crews out more active than the last few year, more so this year than ever," Spilak says.