Moncton councillors are starting to examine the details of the city’s proposed 2021 budget that holds the tax rate steady.
The 2021 spending plan includes $161.6 million for city operations, $40.1 million utility budget, $39 million on capital spending, and $30.4 million on utility capital spending.
It expects to borrow more than $22 million for capital and utility projects.
Marc Landry, the city manager, said despite challenges from COVID-19, the city was able to prepare a budget that keeps the tax rate the same.
The city’s tax rate is $1.6497 of $100 of assessed property value.
More than 90 per cent of the city’s revenue comes from property taxes, while 7.3 per cent comes through “own-source revenue” that includes things like fees the city charges. An equalization grant from the province covers the remaining 2.2 per cent.
The city’s total 2021 spending is down 1.42 per cent from 2020.
That comes as the city has already voted to increase grant spending by about $154,000, the Codiac Regional Policing Authority contract cost is up $689,000, and the city won’t be getting $357,000 in revenue from the company operating the Avenir Centre because of a bailout approved earlier this year.
This year the city isn’t basing its budget talks on a guess about the city’s tax base. That’s because the province moved up when it provides that information to municipalities. The tax base is the collective value of property, as assessed by Service New Brunswick.
In previous years, the city would tentatively approve the budget with projections and then have to revise it once the actual numbers are released by the province.
“Today we’re working with numbers that are reality versus projections,” Marc Landry, the city manager, said Wednesday.
Projections by staff over the summer showed multimillion dollar deficits if the city’s tax base stayed stagnant or grew only one per cent. A deficit of $1.4 million in 2021 was expected if growth was only one per cent.
However, the city’s tax base is $8.86 billion in 2021. That’s up $149 million from 2020, or 1.72 per cent.
Overall, the city now projects a cumulative deficit of $2.9 million over a decade.
“We’re not concerned with that,” Jacques Doucet, the city’s chief financial officer, told council Monday.
Councillors are scheduled to spend Wednesday going through the 464-page budget and continue Thursday and Friday if necessary.
