CBRM won't be getting any new money from the province to help with its budget, for now

Cape Breton Regional Municipality will not be getting any more money — for now — from the provincial government.

Facing a multi-million-dollar draft budget shortfall, CBRM officials met with the minister of municipal affairs and his deputy last week to see if the province would increase the municipality's operating grant to run its services.

The department has offered municipalities some capital funding to help build infrastructure, but CBRM officials say that won't help with their everyday expenses.

Coun. Steve Parsons was in the meeting and said it went well.

"We just made the case to the minister that we've cut, cut, cut where we can [and there are] some positions that we were looking at hiring that we're going to put on hold for now," he said. "So in my opinion, I thought that we presented a case whereby we need some extra help from the province."

However, the minister's short answer was no, Parsons said.

'There's no new money'

"At the end of the day, he basically looked at us and said, 'There's no new money,' over and above the $3 million that they just reallocated to us about three weeks ago."

Parsons said Municipal Affairs Minister John Lohr and his deputy, Paul LaFleche, promised to send some department officials to CBRM to meet with municipal staff, hoping the recent capital funding can somehow help CBRM's bottom line.

"We're going to do that and see ... where that comes out," he said.

The draft operating budget for the coming year projects spending of $173 million.

CBRM staff started the budget process this year with an $8-million shortfall in revenue, which was whittled down to $4.2 million after a workshop with council, Parsons said.

Following three days of public budget talks earlier this month, council cut more expenses and raised some fees to reduce the draft budget deficit to $2.4 million, before suspending talks to await clarification on funding from the province.

The PC government made an election campaign promise to double the municipal financial capacity grant in its first year in office, while negotiating a new service agreement with municipalities that would offer them predictable annual funding.

CBRM expecting an increase

The government doubled municipal funding last year on a one-off basis. It has yet to finalize a new deal with municipalities, which are now back to receiving the amount of funding they got before the grant was doubled.

In CBRM, that meant an additional $15 million from the province.

Parsons said the minister and his deputy did not drop any hints about when a new deal would be worked out, but CBRM is expecting an increase at some point.

"They did say that they're still working towards that and hopefully sooner than later," Parsons said.

"If they come up with a new formula, then hopefully that will be positive for CBRM in terms of what we should get, deserve to get, based on our per capita, our population."

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