CBRM budget remains on hold while council debates tax hikes, service cuts
Tom Ayers | CBC News | Posted: May 31, 2023 4:59 PM | Last Updated: May 31, 2023
Mayor, councillors will soon decide whether to fund summer programs
Cape Breton regional councillors have been struggling since last month to find $2 million to balance the budget for the coming year.
They took another stab at it on Tuesday and were unsuccessful again, but this time there's no chance of last-minute help from the Nova Scotia government.
CBRM staff say they have trimmed every possible expense and the next step is either service cuts or tax increases.
After more than three hours, councillors couldn't find agreement on how to proceed, so the budget talks are on hold again.
In an interview afterwards, Mayor Amanda McDougall said council is facing tough choices and will have to try again in the next week or so.
"We need to spend a little bit more time," she said. "We need to make this as amenable as possible to the public and I'm afraid to say I do believe it's going to hurt one way or another."
The latest round of budget talks was the third attempt by council to bring in a balanced budget as required by legislation.
The draft operating budget projects spending of $173 million.
CBRM staff started the budget process in April with an $8-million shortfall, which was later whittled down to $4.2 million.
Following three days of public budget talks, council suggested cutting more expenses, hiking transit taxes and adding a tipping fee for residents at the dump to reduce the deficit to $2.4 million, before suspending talks to await clarification on funding from the province.
The Municipal Affairs Department gave CBRM $3 million at the end of March, but restricted its use to capital expenditures which cover physical assets such as buildings, land and equipment.
CBRM has already set its capital budget and met with department officials, but has since confirmed that it cannot use the money to help with its operating budget for day-to-day municipal services.
On Tuesday, CBRM staff presented council with two options, both of which included tax hikes.
One would have cancelled its annual heavy garbage pickup, saving about $330,000 in costs and keeping the proposed tax increase to just under two per cent.
The other included heavy garbage collection, but the tax hike would have been about three per cent.
Council rejected those options and discussed using reserve funds to cover the shortfall, but eventually dropped that idea, as well.
McDougall said no one wants to burden taxpayers, but the lack of increased funding from the province is making that likely.
'It really puts us in a hard place'
"We really don't have a choice," she said. "You see in our budget. Our capacity grant that comes from the province is frozen.
"It's been frozen for nine years ... [and] our mandatory payments back are skyrocketing. A million dollars alone in increase for education. It really puts us in a hard place."
Several councillors said a tax increase seems inevitable, but they wanted to find a way to let taxpayers know it's not their fault.
Coun. Darren Bruckschwaiger, who led the charge last year to cut the tax rate by five per cent, said he doesn't regret that, but increasing taxes seems like the only way forward.
"I don't consider this a municipal tax increase," he said. "I consider this a provincial tax increase."
According to provincial legislation, the budget does not have to be approved until September.
McDougall said staff will now draw up a list of summer programs requiring funding that have to be approved soon.
Those items will come before council in an online meeting, likely next week, she said.
After that, councillors will have to have another workshop to go through the rest of the budget in greater detail.
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