Susan Holt, Wikipedia photo
Premier Susan Holt says her government will not be sharing sales tax revenues with municipalities as recommended in a report commissioned by the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick (UMNB).
During an interview last week in Sackville, Holt referred to an earlier announcement that local governments will receive $138 million in provincial funding next year, an increase of $63 million, but still well below the $200-$225 million per year the UMNB says is needed.
The province says it plans to increase funding in each of the next five years until 2030, but even then the funding will reach only about $188 million.
“We’re trying to balance both living within our means and giving municipalities the tools they need to live within their means,” Holt said when asked what the province is aiming to do.
“We have increased funding for municipalities that’s going to grow year-over-year-over- year until we get pretty close to that target that Craig Brett set,” Holt added.
She was referring to the report the UMNB commissioned from Mount Allison Economics Professor Craig Brett.
It recommended that the province transfer one point of provincial sales tax revenue (about $225 million per year) to municipalities, but Holt said “no” when asked if her government would do that.
In his report, Brett points to a steady reduction in provincial grants over the last 25 years forcing municipalities to rely more heavily on residential property taxes which account for nearly 85% of municipal revenues. (Tantramar relies on property taxes for just over 93% of its revenues.)
Mt. A. Economics Prof Craig Brett. Photo: UMNB
The Brett report says municipalities also need the sales tax revenue to pay for improvements to local infrastructure such as roads, storm sewers, sidewalks and buildings.
The UMNB and the Association of Francophone Municipalities say increasing provincial funding levels is a good first step, but much more is needed to close a gap in funding for municipal infrastructure estimated at $2.5 billion.
In a joint news release, the UMNB and AFMNB warn that phasing the funding increases in over five years risks worsening the infrastructure deficit.
The release quotes UMNB President Brittany Merrifield: “Delaying essential infrastructure investments only increases future costs and undermines the quality of services provided to citizens. We need to act quickly to prevent further deterioration.”
The province plans to introduce legislation this spring outlining more details about the new municipal funding model.
For earlier coverage, click here.
The answer to governments who thinks its OK to spend spend spend and tax tax tax … is Libertarian party politics… we believe you know how best to spend your money; not the government… they have proven themselves poor managers of money and they also only ever grow government larger thereby increasing their budgets every single year.. with more bureaucrats and technocrats than ever on the payroll.. it’s a problem.
#TaxationisTheft #VoteLibertarian if you want smaller, less expensive government.
So which one of us local tax payers would be footing the bill for infrastructure improvements? Because if it’s about us keeping our tax dollars, then there is no more revenue going to the town/province/nation to cover such things. Oh and what about emerg services? Those are paid by taxes.
I know you think Health Care is dumb, but health care is paid by taxes and people who think health care ISN’T so dumb would like to access it, so who gets to take on those payments? Is it a single person? A group? A… Community? A… Province?
What about Education? Who’s going to volunteer to pay teachers? Pay for the buildings kids are taught in? Oh I suppose we could do home school but that would require someone staying ‘home’ to teach so… who does that? And what happens when people start going homeless because a single person income cannot deal with the bills required to keep a home these days?
No taxes/less taxes sounds great, but frankly it’s not possible. Can taxes be better used? Absolutely. Should we be paying so much in taxes? Depends on your point of view; right now no, but had wages kept up with the reality of costs of living, there should be an equal give/take that would have kept people happy.
The only thing I will agree with is that Government doesn’t handle taxes properly, IMO and not enough people work in Government know what to DO with the money that comes in, where it should be spent, and not spent, where increases should go and so on.
Funny though that when you look at the world index of happiest places to live, the top are countries (Nordic) who have SERIOUSLY high taxes compared to us and their tax system is different. Though there are factors that make Canada different (when compared to said Nordic countries: land mass size, HUGE areas that are NOT settled, people spread out across the country and almost 4 or more times as many people) We should be smart enough to figure something out that works.
Not paying taxes is NOT a solution.
I agree we have to pay taxes but should be a more fair way of charging property tax for instance. The previous provincial government promised it was going to eliminate the double tax on landlords but that has not happened and landlords are still paying more taxes than the average citizen, we are the only province with double taxation. Don’t think because you rent that you don’t have to worry about property tax but you should because there is a direct cost in the amount of rent you pay, all too often landlords are seen as greedy when really the Government with high tax bills are the real culprits.
Now more on the other side of the fence the province only has so much money to go around so really shouldn’t our municipality tighten up its spending habits. Is it really necessary to have so many half ton trucks in our fleet and do we really need the most modern heavy equipment out there? We should think more like private businesses and make do with what we have reducing the tax burden on our citizens. Going one step further, why not have private companies clean our streets and take care of all of our public works? Then we would have bidding wars on our public works operations.
The management style of the town is an inverted pyramid with too many department heads and not enough qualified workers. The people we hire should be qualified to do their jobs so we would not have to pay for all these studies we spend thousands on. I like the Japanese style of management, look into it and you will find it very interesting.
Do we really need a police force as big as what we have? I’m sure a lot of people remember when we only had 4 full time policemen in this town. The population has not exploded since those days so why so many more police? I think we have been watching too much American TV cop shows influencing our community. We are not Americans running around with guns everywhere.
Department heads should learn to control their budgets and drop the idea “if we don’t put in for more pie in the sky items then our budget will be reduced the following year”. That form of thinking is ludicrous.
I believe rolling back all these heavy expenses (In the millions) would certainly bring our taxes down putting more money back in our pockets and we could get back to being the happy heart of the maritimes.