SUDBURY – Budget deliberations in the City of Greater Sudbury are about to head into overtime.

It's taking city councillors on the Finance Committee longer than usual to go through the upcoming year as they try to determine what kind of tax increase homeowners will be facing.

The deliberation continues after a marathon three days with the current proposed tax increase now at 3.2 per cent.

One Sudbury resident said, "it would be nice to hold the taxes where they are, because especially when you're on a fixed income. I keep track of my costs since 2012 and every year I see it going up, and up, and up."

"The thing that I would mainly like to see is council stop wasting the money, not spending it. I don't mind paying taxes," said another.

Councillor Mike Jakubo says they've heard the concerns but says there is a lot that has to be factored in such as collective agreements, costs for things like asphalt and an infrastructure deficit.

"When you talk about fixing potholes, there's a budget for that and if we don't increase the budget for that, we're going to be in the same increase as present," he explained.

"It's a struggle. We want to keep the tax rate down below three to five but we still have to deal with the services," commented Robert Kirwan, Sudbury City Councillor. He adds that the city can no longer be blind to the fact that we have to start repairing our roads. "We'll never see a zero per cent increase in any near future. The costs of providing services are what drive taxes."

Councillor Michael Vagnini, however, sees it differently. He believes there could have been cost savings had council decided to do a zero-based budget and looked at expenditures line-by-line.

He says he will vote no when this goes to council and added, "I believe that we could have worked with a zero per cent increase. I believe there is more than enough money coming into the city to do all the things that we need to do."

Jakubo says when you look at the increase year-over-year, it breaks down to about 40 cents a day for the average household.

Budget deliberations resume on Monday. If the council sticks to its 3.5 per cent target and approves a proposed one-time capital levy, it'll mean taxpayers could be facing an increase of five per cent.