WATERLOO REGION - The Region of Waterloo is reporting a $3-million surplus for 2014 despite deficits in the airport, Grand River Transit and fewer provincial offences fines.

Department surpluses and deficits pretty much covered each other off and politicians attribute the remaining surplus to supplementary taxes.

Supplementary taxes are the result of new properties and improvements to existing properties.

But after hearing about the surplus at a regional committee meeting Tuesday, some politicians said it isn't enough.

In an interview, Coun. Tom Galloway said citizens shouldn't be upset that they're property taxes were hiked in 2014 and now there's a surplus.

"If you're not running a small surplus, you're running a deficit," Coun. Tom Galloway said in an interview. "A $3-million surplus is really, really small. In fact, I'm not happy with the size of the surplus.

"I would much rather it be closer to $7 to $10 million dollars."

Regional Chair Ken Seiling agreed.

"To run basically right on the line, most business people say you shouldn't be doing that, you should have some flex in there," he said during the meeting.

The provincial offences budget, including about $810,000 less than expected for red light camera fines, had a combined deficit of about $1.6 million, leading the list of deficits.

Several red light cameras weren't working last year due to a combination of damage from bad winter weather and the removal of some during construction projects, which meant fewer tickets were issued.

Weather also wreaked havoc on the region's transportation budget, which includes snow clearing. It had a $1.4-million deficit.

The local airport made about $414,000 less than expected after Bearskin Airlines cancelled Ottawa flights in April.

Galloway said 2015 should be a better year at the airport.

"Well they're looking for new sources of revenue, we won't have budgeted for Bearskin this year, WestJet is increasing their loads - there's some other positive signs," he said.

Grand River Transit also reported a deficit of about $806,000 due to lower than expected ridership growth after many local high school students started taking school buses instead of regional transit when schools changed bell times.

The region also collected $1.5 million more in water rates from residents and $600,000 more in wastewater fees than expected.

In a refreshing first in 13 years, the region's waste management department posted a $900,000 surplus thanks to higher than anticipated recycling revenue and tonnages from the commercial sector.

The past few years, waste management struggled financially in large part due to lower revenues from those two items.

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Housing services and children's services reported surpluses of $574,000 and $787,000 respectively.

The surplus will be transferred to the region's tax stabilization reserve fund.

In addition to the regional surplus, Waterloo Regional Police reported a surplus last year of about $3.4 million from a budget of about $141 million. About $2.2 million has been allocated to the police information technology equipment reserve and the rest to the general police reserve.