Holyrood increases commercial mill rate

Incremental tax increases spare business community, Mayor Gary Goobie says

Holyrood Mayor Gary Goobie says increasing the mill rate for businesses in the town will increase tax fairness, while business owners will “grin and bear it.”

The budget was announced at Tuesday evening’s council meeting, featuring an increase in the commercial mill rate from 10 to 11.

As well, a $3 monthly increase in water and sewer fees for residents and a $2 increase for businesses will help cover extensive water and sewer upgrades that have happened in the town for the last two years.

Pat Comerford has owned Comerford’s Oceanview Efficiency Units in the town for almost 40 years. He says the increases aren’t large, but that doesn’t mean the business community is excited about them.

“None of them are going to like it, but they all have to do it,” said Comerfold.

“We’ll grin and bear it, hey?” The residential mill rate remained the same at 6.5.

Goobie says the increase in the business tax helps make taxation in the town fairer. The raise to 11 mills is still lower than nearby, larger municipalities such as Conception Bay South and Paradise, which set their commercial mill rate at 11.5.

“We looked at businesses in Conception Bay South and Paradise and found that our business tax was much lower,” said Goobie.

“We don’t want to impact the business community all at once, so we do it incrementally so there’s not too much pain involved.”

When it comes to the water and sewer upgrades, the town has embarked on $3 million in spending on the upgrades in the last two budgets — $1 million coming this year. Those projects are cost shared, with the town itself chipping in 10 per cent of the cost, with the rest shared between the federal and provincial governments.

The town’s total budget is just over $3.8 million in revenues and expenses, so even just 10 per cent of the water and sewer cost is substantial, Goobie said.

“We’ve been facing an increase in water and sewer maintenance costs. We have ageing infrastructure right now and we’ve had considerable leaks in the system in the past year that needed fixing,” he said.

“The maintenance aspect is on the rise and we have to adjust the water and sewer tax appropriately to meet those rising costs.”

Goobie says he’d rather not put timelines on when the upgrades to the water and sewer system will be completed, given the unpredictable nature of such projects.