GUYSBOROUGH: After increasing three out of the last four years, the Municipality of the District of Guysborough (MODG) has held the line on municipal tax rates.
Councillors passed the $20,587,191 budget, that includes a $8,686,302 capital plan, during their regular municipal council meeting on March 16. A capital plan that’s increased approximately 150 per cent from last year.
Following the meeting, Warden Vernon Pitts told The Reporter while the pandemic is not over yet, he thinks they’ve done a phenomenal job.
“Given what we went through with regards to the pandemic and the programs that the municipality has laid out in previous years, it was kind of hard at times to complete them,” he said. “Our office stayed open throughout the pandemic, which most municipalities ended up closing; we retained services 24/7, we did the basics, plus a little bit, and we got a lot done, considering everything with the pandemic.”
The proposed tax rate for 2022-23 is $0.77 for residential and $2.74 for commercial property, and for properties containing seasonal tourist businesses, the tax rate has been reduced to $2.06.
“If council had to expend more money to get over that hurdle, we certainly would have done that,” Pitts said. “But we have some fantastic staff; council, we changed the way we do business, in regards to in-person meetings but we got through it, and I think we got out the other end fairly well.”
Pitts indicated the municipality is no longer dealing with the $3-million shortfall from the loss of the Sable Offshore revenue.
“I’m most proud of that in this particular year, as we are now fully through the fallout of the loss of approximately $3 million in tax revenue from the offshore gas industry,” he said. “Over the last number of years, we’ve been able to make up for that in our budget and we didn’t have to cut back on projects.”
To bear the cost of additional services, the tax rates in District 8, the former Town of Canso, are different from the other seven districts in the municipality with a residential tax rate of $1.5126 and a commercial rate set at $1.347.
Last year, the municipality saw a six-cent increase to their tax rates, there were no changes in 2020-21, and in both 2019-20 and 2018-19 there were five-cent increases to the tax rates.
District 8 Councillor Fin Armsworthy was the lone vote against the budget.