ANTIGONISH: The warden of the Municipality of the County of Antigonish says with lots of activity happening the past month-and-a-half, senior staff will look to table their 2022-23 budget around the end of May.
Owen McCarron indicated they’re waiting on a few details, but right now staff are closing out the books from last year, while building the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
“No big surprises, but there are some big ticket items that are more expensive,” McCarron told reporters following the regular monthly council meeting on May 10. “Insurance for example, is probably about a 25 per cent increase in our insurance costs, so that’s a significant cost.”
The warden also highlighted the increasing costs of fuel prices, which is another direct impact to their municipality
“Those are things we have to put into the mix when projecting what the upcoming year is going to look like,” McCarron said. “The good thing is we’ve been pretty steady in terms of development and housing starts in our community over the past year as well.”
McCarron suggested they don’t know at this point if it’s going to be a perfect offset, but by the end of May they hope to be in a position to table a budget and strike a tax rate.
The municipality will be sending a letter to both their provincial and federal counterparts in relation to the ever-climbing fuel prices.
McCarron told reporters every community across the country is impacted but the feeling is their community is in a pinch.
“Talking to people, home heating oil is in the neighbourhood of $2 a litre,” McCarron said. “Where does that leave people when we head into next winter if the prices stay elevated?”
It’s a big cost item for a lot of people, the warden said.
“So we just feel it’s important to send a letter off and see if some relief can happen from government,” McCarron said. “But also, the big oil companies are making a lot of money and it’s on the backs of a lot of people who’re just on the borderline of surviving economically.”
It’s certainly going to cause people to reflect on how they heat their homes and how they can conserve energy, McCarron said, as everything travels by road, air, train, or by boat.
District 7 Councillor John Dunbar told council it affects a lot of people in the county from everyday citizens to farmers, to the fishing industry, to trucks taking groceries to the store, to Canada Post sending parcels across the country.
Deputy Warden Hughie Stewart advised he received a call from a contractor who told him he filled his 2,100 litre tank for $4,000.
District 9 Councillor Harris McNamara, who lives in Havre Boucher said it now costs $10 to come to Antigonish.
District 8 Councillor Gary Mattie, whose family has a construction company, indicated he was talking to his brother, and they fill their fuel tanks up every second day at a cost of approximately $5,000; the last fill up ran them $7,800.
Three recommendations came out of the committee of the whole meeting.
First, the committee recommended that council approve a bid from GFL Environment Inc. for the 2022 bulky waste clean-up at a price of $74,438.24.
Municipal council approved the RK MacDonald Board bylaw amendments; including term limits for directors, incorporating operating policies, conflict of interest, and clauses regarding electronic meetings.
Finally, the committee recommended that council approve the re-naming of a private road in Arisaig to Whales Pass, as there are now three households that reside on the street.
All motions were passed unanimously.