The warden of Antigonish Co. says it’s too early to tell how much of an impact COVID-19 will have on the municipality’s bottom line.
Owen McCarron says they had initially hoped to pass their 2020-21 budget by May, but that will likely be pushed back to mid-to-late June.
McCarron tells The Hawk they know they’ll feel some financial pain as a result of the pandemic- they just don’t know how much.
“It’s a little early to determine what the impacts are going to be, but we feel there are certainly going to be impacts,” he says. “We’d be naive to think that we’re not going to feel some of the pressure that’s happening from COVID-19.”
McCarron says they hope to have some sort of outlook in the coming weeks.
He says there are no plans to ask their residential and commercial ratepayers to help shoulder that load in the form of a tax increase at this point.
“The last thing that we’d want to look at in these times would be an increase in taxes,” he says. “We’d want to figure out other solutions to try to mitigate the pressure on ratepayers throughout the county.”
McCarron says members of the Antigonish Arena board made the decision to remove the ice from the facility April 3.
He says that will mean a loss in revenue, but there will also be some savings associated with the move in terms of maintenance and electricity costs.
