The warden of Richmond Co. says he’s pretty happy with the municipality’s 2018-2019 budget.
Brian Marchand says tax rates are staying the same; rates remain $0.80/$100 of assessment for residential ratepayers and the commercial rate stays steady at $2.10/$100 of assessment.
Marchand tells The Hawk their number one priority during budget deliberations was to maintain those rates.
“In an era with increasing costs and everything else, we do have 40-55 per cent seniors in our jurisdiction,” he says. “We didn’t want to increase any cost for them.”
Marchand says an economic development highlight is the multi-million dollar cannabis cultivation facility expected to be operational Lennox Passage by the halfway point of 2019; $575,000 has been allocated for infrastructure work and community capital-related expenditures.
He says he’s not overly concerned with an almost $33,000 decrease in the commercial tax base; the residential tax base increased more than $106,000.
Marchand says their grant structure will be a bit different.
“We reduced what we were going to put out in grants by a little over $200,000,” he says. “That was a concern that a lot of residents had- that we were giving out too much money and the way we were giving it out, so there will be a new structure coming out.”
The municipality’s total budget is a little more than $14 million.
Photo credit: Richmond Co.