PORT HAWKESBURY: Town officials are projecting a $100,000 loss in revenue for the month of April, and in a “best case scenario,” a total of $300,000 in losses over the next six months.
Outlining current and potential losses from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic, Erin MacEachen, Port Hawkesbury’s finance director, said the projected loss affects the town differently due to the amount of revenue they generate from sales and services.
“It was a difficult budget year even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit us,” she said. “We’re continuing to fine-tune the impacts of COVID-19 on our specific municipality, because we’re unlike some of our neighbouring municipalities, where we own a lot of sales/service.”
Following April’s regular town council meeting on April 7, Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton said the town is in a unique position and their main goal is to get through the pandemic without losing any town services in the long-term. About 10 per cent of the town’s revenue is dependent on sales and services.
“We’ve already had to make some pretty tough decisions with regard to some of our service delivery, particularly with regard to closing some of our facilities,” Chisholm-Beaton said. “This is uncharted territory, we are rolling with the changes, day-by-day, hour-by-hour.”
Looking at a six month projection, potential losses in revenue go up as a result of restrictions being in place and the town not being able to operate normally.
“We’re looking at a net impact of close to $300,000 if this situation lasts six months, based on preliminary discussions with staff,” MacEachen said. “I don’t think it’s going to get any better than that; we’re probably going to find more revenue that we’re losing and additional expenses we’re going to have in relation with this pandemic.”
MacEachen said senior staff is taking this day-by-day, as the pandemic is definitely going to have an impact on what they’re able to deliver to their residents, and a lot of that is going to be based on what restrictions the government has in place.
Looking internally at their own departmental budgets and looking at the ability for them to make some adjustments, MacEachen said they’ve been doing that over the last number of years, and added there is not a whole lot of discretionary spending in the budget.
“It’s hard to scale back everything you do, for a one-time blip.”