Town councillors in Antigonish have passed their budget with no tax rate increases.
They approved the 2020-21 fiscal plan at a special meeting Monday night.
The residential rate stays $1.09/$100 of assessment; the commercial rate remains $2.61/$100 of assessment.
After the meeting, Laurie Boucher, Antigonish’s mayor, told The Hawk she’s pleased with the final product, given the current global situation.
“You go through what we’ve gone through the last eight weeks with COVID-19, to come up with a $10.7 million budget- $2.1 million capital budget- and not having the need to raise taxes, is very, very good.”
Boucher said the total hit of COVID-19 to their bottom line is in excess of $150,000.
She said it was important not to pass any of that impact on to their ratepayers.
“It really hurt our town economically, (and) to have an extra burden on our commercial and our residential (ratepayers) right now would have been very hard,” she said. “We did ask staff to do the best they can.”
Boucher said town officials didn’t have to leverage any provincial emergency loans, which were introduced to help municipal officials struggling due to COVID-19.
She said the option is still there if necessary.
