Stellarton tops six local units in provincial report card

A provincial report card on the health of municipalities shows the Town of Stellarton as the healthiest out of the six local units.

Municipal indicators recently released by the province, in partnership with the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, are a set of financial, demographic and administrative indicators that provide insight into the condition and health of Nova Scotia communities.

It takes in such things as uncollected taxes, budget deficits, debts, population and government transfers and rates the municipal units using green, yellow and red flags for low, moderate and high risk.

All Pictou County units had green and yellow flags while some had red as well. Stellarton fared the best with only one yellow flag for combined reserves, which speaks to the percentage of the combined reserves compared to operating and amortization costs. The Town of Stellarton’s combined reserves as a percentage of total operating and amortization costs is 36.9 per cent. A municipality would be considered in the high-risk zone if its combined reserve was below 30 per cent.

“There was no red for Stellarton, which I think is unusual, especially for a rural municipality,” said Stellarton Mayor Danny MacGillivray.

“We’re very pleased with the results. It just shows over the long term Stellarton has been well managed over the last number of decades. We’re very fortunate to be in a relatively solid financial position.

“For a municipal unit of our size in rural Nova Scotia, we’re doing really well, and the future looks good too for us. We have a strong commercial tax base which is hopefully going to grow with the cannabis plant and also the business park acquisitions. That’s what you need is a strong commercial tax base and it looks like it’s growing. We think the future’s bright.”

The majority of the local municipalities all showed success in liquidity position, which is the ability to have enough cash to pay bills when they are due as well as having a prudent debt level and overall good budget accuracy.

Uncollected taxes are an area many of the municipalities could improve on considering taxes are the greatest source of revenue for five out of the six local units. In 2017, 79 per cent of revenue for the Municipality of the County of Pictou came from taxes while in New Glasgow it was 69 per cent and Stellarton 59 per cent. Westville’s tax revenue accounts for 56 per cent of its income, Pictou 56 per cent and Trenton 31 per cent.

Trenton is the only unit that has more revenue coming in from government transfers than taxes. It collects 31 per cent of its revenue from taxes and 52 per cent from government transfers.

All of the local municipal units experienced a decrease in population from 2016 to 2017 with the entire county having 1704 fewer residents over the one year.

Protective services and transportation are each of the unit’s largest expenditures tying up between 20 and 37 per cent of revenue.