Tantramar Councillor Barry Hicks
“I will be voting against the tax hike,” Tantramar Councillor Barry Hicks declared last week during a lengthy debate before council finally approved the 2025 municipal budget.
Hicks serves as councillor for the former Sackville local service district (LSD) that includes Westcock, Wood Point and Rockport.
“Until I see town hall representing the LSDs and some services for LSDs, I will be voting against,” he said, repeating opposition he expressed at a previous budget meeting in October.
He said then that he’s been fielding calls from residents seeking more services, such as street lights or road grading, for the taxes they’re paying.
Hicks was commenting on proposed tax increases in the former LSDs to pay for a wide range of municipal services their residents share with Sackville and Dorchester including everything from the rink at the Veterans Memorial Civic Centre to police and fire protection.
Treasurer Michael Beal responded at the October meeting that under the terms of the amalgamation the province imposed in 2023, the former LSDs were required to pay for the services they were already receiving.
He recalled that before amalgamation, Sackville fought a losing battle every year trying to get residents in the LSDs to pay more.
“Every year we argued with the province that the local service districts were not paying their fair share towards fire protection and every year we were told it’s a formula and that’s all you’re getting,” he said.
Phased-in tax increases
Tantramar Treasurer Michael Beal speaking at last week’s budget meeting
Beal explained at last week’s meeting that plans call for residents in the former Pointe de Bute and Dorchester LSDs to pay increased tax rates until 2027 while the residents in the former Sackville LSD would pay those increased rates until 2030.
“Basically, in creation of the budget, the premise of amalgamation is that local service districts would pay for the services that they already have,” he said.
“And unfortunately, that would result in tax rate increases until they hit that point.”
For the area that Councillor Hicks represents, it means that the municipal portion of taxes would go up every year by five cents ($.05) per $100 of property assessment.
This year’s rate that council approved last week rises by five cents to $0.6125 cents per $100 of assessment rising by 2030 to $0.83 cents.
In addition, residents in the former LSDs pay $0.4115 cents per $100 that the province collects to maintain roads.
Table shows 2025 tax rates
Sympathy for LSDs
Councillor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell
Councillor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell was one of several councillors who expressed sympathy for residential taxpayers in the former LSDs.
“I strongly believe that they should be able to get something for the higher taxes that they are paying,” she said.
“What it is, maybe we have to talk about it, but definitely there is a problem there and as elected officials, we’re hearing it.”
Mayor Black said he was “pleasantly surprised and happy to hear” most councillors speak about supporting the former LSDs.
Although the mayor said he understood the need for all municipal residents to pay for shared services they already receive, he suggested that more could be done to add new ones.
“We need to do something to help support the LSDs and make it have some appropriate action so that people can see that the taxes that they do pay are not just for services that exist currently that we’ve been subsidizing for many, many years,” he said, referring to Sackville’s past arguments that the former town was subsidizing residents in the former LSDs.
“Because that conversation, even though it’s true, it’s a difficult one for people to understand,” Black added.
NOTE: In approving the 2025 budget, council also passed a motion calling on town staff to review street lighting in the former LSDs that the provincial department of transportation and infrastructure currently provides and to make recommendations on the number of lights, their locations and costs before the 2026 budget.
To read what some Sackville residents told Tantramar council in 2023 about tax rates and municipal services, click here.
Meanwhile, in Riverview, they are REDUCING their property tax rate, once again, for 2025. The new rate will go down by 5 cents, which continues the trend over the past 4 years which has seen property tax rates being lowered by a total of 21 cents to date.
With this latest reduction, their tax rate for the coming year will be $1.3826 per $100 of assessed value. When you compare that with Tantramar’s new rates for Sackville and Dorchester being $1.5350 per $100 of assessment, one can only wonder how Riverview manages to be so much more thrifty.
This was reported by the Telegraph Journal on November 29, 2024. For those with a subscription, you can read the full article by following this link: https://tj.news/moncton-miramichi/riverview-drops-tax-rate-in-2025-budget
About time that they pay their share.
First of all if you must hide your name you should not be allowed to post here. You do not seem to be knowledgeable in what you are saying, I was on the previous LSD committee and I can definitely state that the LSD area residents more than paid for any services that were given to the area residents.
If ‘Fredericton’ eventually gets its way, it will have almost all of the population of NB living in apartments near the core of major towns and cities. It will continue increasing the individual homeowners’ taxes as well as making sure that one cannot afford rural living either.
In all honesty I’ve felt this way for a few years now. Which if you think about it, is insane.
Due to assessment increases, increased tax payments across the board:
https://www.chmafm.com/welcome/council-approves-tax-hikes-across-the-board-with-rate-increases-in-former-lsds/
Somebody has to pay for the tax breaks the council gives to the Laffords.