Duggan delivers balanced budget
No tax changes planned for Alberton residents
ALBERTON – The municipal tax rate for the Town of Alberton is unchanged for the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
Blair Duggan brought down his first budget as the town’s new finance chair Monday night. The numbers:
The tax rate remains at 56 cents per $100 assessed value for noncommercial property. The commercial rate is $1.05.
Duggan is projecting revenues and expenditures in the general operating account for the year running from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020 will balance out at $804,644.
Major revenue generators: municipal property tax - $335,417; government transfers $220,923; rural fire dues $158,100.
Major expenditures – Public property, Parks and recreation - $240,928; General government - $238,200; fire protection - $186,000; Police protection - $139,516.
There’s a balanced budget for the sewer utility, too, $147,454.
Duggan also won approval on motions for a two per cent raise for the town’s two full-time employees, a $5,000 operating grant and a special $10,000 grant for renovations for the Jacques Cartier Arena Operating Committee, grants of $2,000 each for the Alberton Museum and Western Community Curling Club, a grant of $1,500 for the Alberton and Area Community Development Corporation and a $1,000 grant for the Alberton Business Association.
The new Municipal Government Act also required the town provide a one-year and a five-year capital plan. The one-year plan has a $1,256,000 figure, including one million for further work on the Emma Drive subdivision, funded in part by the Gas Tax Municipal Strategic Component; $253,000 towards a new fire truck, to be financed, and $3,000 for a new computer.
The five-year plan lists $1,404,900 worth of upgrades to the sewer utility.
Council passed a motion authorizing that the direct allocation from the gas tax fund from 2019 to 2024 be spent on the subdivision and the lagoon.