West Nipissing Council has adopted the 2020 budget.
That includes some good news for West Nipissing residents, as the original increase stood at 6.2 per cent before talks were derailed due to COVID-19, but the official budget has it listed lower.
“The municipal tax rate increase is 4.07 per cent,” Mayor Joanne Savage said. “Initially when discussions had resumed back in March, it was brought down to 6.2, while we were retrieving $300,000 from the reserves. With the final increase, we are still taking that money from the reserve, but we scaled back on community projects.”
Savage says some of the projects that have been scaled back include the replacement of the skating rink in Cache Bay, funding for the roof for the rink in Field, and a community celebration in recognition of the 2019 International Plowing Match.
Projects that were thought would not be completed this summer was also removed, according to Savage.
“We were also given a synopsis on the decrease of revenues that the municipality has experienced, or will be experiencing thanks to COVID,” she explained. “The budget also has the provision of three new full-time positions.”
However, not all councillors were on board with some of the budget decisions.
“It did create divisiveness in the final voting of the budget,” Savage said. “The contentious issue was that at the end of 2019, there was a surplus of $195,000. Some of the councillors were in favour of utilizing the surplus to decrease the increase, but it was defeated in the end.”
“At our next meeting, we will be discussing tax ratios for the different classes,” she added.
