PORT HAWKESBURY: Amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Port Hawkesbury town councillors expanded their plan and approved a two-month deferral on utility and tax payments.
The plan moves the deadline for utility and tax bills for the months of March and April to the first of June, and will waive any interest.
During a virtual council meeting held on April 7, Brenda Chisholm-Beaton, the town’s mayor, said the move would be a temporary measure until a province-wide plan for taxes can be worked out.
“From my perspective, it’s being proactive by allowing citizens a little bit of leeway with regard to being able to make their payments,” she told reporters following the meeting. “It’s uncharted territory – there’s a whole reason of gambits why citizens may not being able to make that payment the next month or two.”
Erin MacEachen, the town’s finance director, said that during a recent pandemic preparedness update, staff discussed the challenges the pandemic has been forcing on their ratepayers, highlighted by their inability to make payments as usual because of the closure of the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre.
“The town will continue to review our situation and make adjustments that we deem necessary in relation to deferral interest,” MacEachen said. “Where this is short-term relief, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities was recommending the deferral be applied broadly as opposed to specific groups or specific accounts.”
Municipal officials across the province are working as a team on a plan which would require support from the provincial government, but MacEachen said the details aren’t available at this time.
When asked about a province-wide deferral plan during a media debriefing on April – noting contrasting reserves and cash-flows in different municipal units – Premier Stephen McNeil had few answers.
“Minister Porter has been working with Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities on what programs or things they can do to support them,” he told The Reporter. “But to this point there is no detail on that.”
Chisholm-Beaton said senior staff is waiting on what comes forward from the province and other municipalities, as well as recommendations coming forward from Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities and Association of Municipal Administrators of Nova Scotia.
“We want to make sure citizens in the Town of Port Hawkesbury have the same kind of treatment with deferrals,” she said. “We definitively don’t want a scenario where citizens living in neighbouring municipalities [are] living differently.”