Antigonish town council meeting Feb. 2021; CIGO photo
Budget planning is underway in the Town of Antigonish.
Jeff Lawrence, the town’s chief administrative officer, says staff members are still in the very early stages.
After February’s regular town council meeting Tuesday night, Lawrence said the current 2020-21 fiscal year is progressing fine.
“We’re a little worried about what impacts COVID may have on tax assessments and others going into (2021-22),” he said. “Over the next month or two, we’ll be shoring that up, but there’s no huge anomaly that we’re staring at at this point in time.”
The town’s fiscal year comes to an end March 31.
Lawrence said both their capital and operational budgets won’t be ready until after that date.
“We’re just beginning, at the staff level, to put together operationally our budget,” he said. “I anticipate that probably it will be May before we bring forward a finalized budget; discussions with council will be later in March.”
Lawrence said they hope to have their capital budget finalized by April in order to move forward with some tendering information.
He said it’s too early to say what could happen with tax rates.
