Tax cuts and transit investment highlight HRM budget

Regional councillors have received the first draft of HRM’s 2012-13 budget, which includes tax cuts for residents and businesses.

Homeowners can expect an average of $11 in savings and businesses will save $211 on their tax bills next year.

Chief Administrative Officer Richard Butts told council that savings came from across the municipal government.

“Virtually every department is showing less money dedicated to wages than we did last year,” he said. “We were successful in becoming much more efficient and finding savings within the organization which allow us to reduce the budget and consequently reduce the tax rate.”

Another highlight is more money earmarked for transit, including funding for an airport connection, a new ferry and the purchase of new buses.

Butts says there is constant pressure to find savings because most of the city’s costs are increasing.

“Most of the things that impact on our budget — wages, for example, fuel and electricity — are all things that have continuous ongoing upward pressure,” he said. “We’re trying to as best we can slow down the growth in those components.”

Butts added that there will be have to be cuts to Metro Transit overtime in the next year.

“One of the issues was systemic overtime that we couldn’t manage,” he said. “We think that the new collective bargaining agreement helps us with that, so we look to make more and more progress on overtime in the next fiscal year.”

Council will meet early next week to launch budget debates.

——-

Click here to read the various sections of the 2012-2013 Proposed Budget (HRM website).

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today