SaltWire E-Edition

Kings to live within its means

KIRK STARRATT VALLEY JOURNAL-ADVERTISER kirk.starratt@saltwire.com

Holding the line on tax rates may help save Kings County property owners from having to dig deeper into their pockets during a time of financial uncertainty.

Kings County council approved the 2021-2022 operating and capital budgets at a recent special meeting. The balanced operating budget totals $49.56 million and the balanced capital budget, which involves 36 projects, totals $13.45 million.

Mayor Peter Muttart said council made it a priority to hold the line on property tax rates, keeping the residential and resource rates at $0.853 and the commercial rate at $2.287 per $100 of assessed property value, unchanged from last year.

“Fortunately, this year, we were able to do it without any tax increase, having in mind always that this is not the time to be increasing people’s costs if we can avoid it,” Muttart said.

The mayor and council considered fallout from the pandemic in making all decisions regarding the budget. Muttart said it takes several meetings and staff presentations on the proposed budgets to arrive at the final document. Staff proposals are refined as councillors ask questions, debate and deliberate before giving approval and setting the tax rates.

According to the municipal budget document, mandatory payments including transfers to fund education and policing account for 47.2 per cent of overall budget expenditures. This amounts to $23,407,300, an increase of four per cent over last year.

Muttart said the municipality made a major capital expenditure for improvements to J-Class (subdivision) roads in 2020-2021, investing almost $4 million. This was part of a provincial-municipal 50-50 cost-shared program.

He said it was “an extraordinary year” considering that the municipality never before had an opportunity to match a provincial contribution of this magnitude. Taking advantage of it has somewhat restricted what can be spent on other projects, but Muttart said the roads had to be done.

“On the other hand, we had to continue to maintain our flexibility to make grants to volunteer organizations that had not been able to fundraise during the pandemic and see that they got a fair supplement to their monies,” he said.

Last year, largely by reducing contributions to capital reserves, council created a

Fire Department Operations — 5.2 per cent

Debt and Transfers to Reserves — 5.6 per cent Provincial Mandatory Expenses — 5.7 per cent Purchased Services — 5.7 per cent

COVID-19 operating reserve. The municipality enters the 2021-2022 fiscal year with $1,139,568 of the original COVID-19 reserve uncommitted.

This money is available to offset cash flow shortfalls relating to the pandemic; institute relief measures or eventually repay capital reserves. Annual contributions to capital reserves will return to the levels recommended in municipal policy this year.

Muttart said they are still able to carry on with intended capital projects based on the timelines to bring them to fruition. Examples include working toward the development of a solar farm and a wind farm to generate green energy.

“Those projects are far enough out on our radar that we would feel that it wasn’t an undue incumbrance on us in this particular year financially,” Muttart said, pointing out that expenditures this year would relate largely to feasibility studies.

Other projects include the ongoing expansion of the fibre optic broadband network to communities on the North Mountain; continued construction of the net-zero energy engineering and public works garage next to the new municipal complex in Coldbrook; and the installation of solar panels on the new municipal complex.

Muttart said they weren’t able to fund a fully net-zero administrative building at the time that they built it, but with the assistance of funding that is available for green energy initiatives from other levels of government, they are now able to install the photovoltaic array. This will bring the building as close to net-zero as can be achieved.

Other projects of note include the greening of the inter-municipal public transit fleet; a feasibility study for a regional recreation facility; initial activities relating to the construction of a new production well for the Greenwood Water Utility and major sewer infrastructure renewal projects.

Muttart pointed out that inflation has been relatively flat and the normal consumer price index or cost of living increase that we would have historically seen did not occur last year, largely due to the pandemic.

Now, largely due to the pandemic, the real estate market in Nova Scotia is becoming increasingly active. This could act to boost assessed property values. As a result, municipalities could conceivably bring in more property tax revenue next year without increasing rates.

Unlike many other municipalities, the County of Kings currently doesn’t have a deed transfer tax. Muttart said that before he entered politics, he lobbied strongly against such a tax.

He said it was his opinion that being an area of the province where it costs much less to purchase a property would give the municipality a competitive advantage. Whether or not the lack of a deed transfer tax has created as great of an advantage as he had initially hoped is open for debate.

Muttart said implementing a deed transfer tax is something that council could consider in the future as opposed to increasing the general tax rate, for example. He said it’s a topic that usually comes up for discussion on an annual basis.

MUNICIPAL BUDGET

en-ca

2021-05-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281543703789482

SaltWire Network