Five Things You Need To Know About The Moncton Budget
MONCTON – Moncton’s City Council unanimously gave its approval-in-principle for the 2019 budget, the three-year operating budget, and a five-year general fund capital budget on Friday.
The five-year gross general fund capital expenditure is $302.3 million. For 2019, the gross capital budget will amount to $77.3 million.
Here are the key things you need to know from Moncton’s budget:
1. Property tax rates will stay the same
Moncton is keeping its tax rate the same at $1.6497 per $100 of assessed value for 2019, as it estimated higher “own-source revenue” and a 1.25 per cent increase in assessment base.
The assessment base, which is the total value of all the properties across the city, will be confirmed by the province later this month. But this means the city will get 1.25 per cent more revenue from property taxes without having to raise tax rates.
The city’s own-source revenue, which comes from items outside property taxes and equalization grants, also increased by $934,139.
“Part of it is we’ve got revenues coming from the Avenir Centre. So, part of the arrangement we have is a guarantee fee from them. There’s also ticket fees and other things we get,” said acting Chief Financial Officer Gregg Houser on Wednesday.
2. Utility bills will increase
In 2019, the average household will see a $32 rate increase annually from $1,025 in 2018, representing a 3.1 per cent rise. This includes $847 for water consumption and $210 for TransAqua.
This year, Moncton saw commercial consumption increase slightly while residential usage remains stable. The rate increase applies to commercial consumers as well.
3. Large spending on blue-green algae
The city is also allocating a large amount of money to resolve issues related to blue-green algae, a bacteria that can be harmful when it blooms. The algae was again found in the watershed in Turtle Creek, the water supply for Moncton, Riverview and Dieppe, this summer. It was also found in three water bodies at Mapleton Park, Centennial Park and Jones Lake.
A total of up to $27 million has been budgeted for this issue through 2021, with $6 million set for next year.
City Manager Marc Landry said Moncton is working with its neighbours to resolve it.
“We continue to have technical meetings with them,” he said. “We involve them at every level of decision making. As we move forward, we continue to do further analysis. We’re looking at the data and they’re involved in the process.”
4. Economic development focuses on downtown and immigration
Director of Economic Development Kevin Silliker said the city’s focus for the next five years is downtown development.
“We have an objective to achieve $108 million worth of new downtown assessment by 2023,” he said.
That includes $25 million in the area closest to the Avenir Centre, and $83 million in the broader downtown. They’d likely to be all private investments, he said.
The department, which includes immigration, will also work on assessing the progress of a five-year Greater Moncton immigration strategy that ends this year. A new five-year plan is in the works and will likely be built out in the first quarter of 2019.
Moncton expects its economic growth to slow at 1.8 per cent for 2018 and 1.7 per cent for 2019, down from 2.7 per cent in 2017.
However, the city’s unemployment rate is also expected to fall to 5.9 per cent, below the 6 per cent mark for the first time in 10 years. Housing starts will fall to 635 units for 2018, but that’s expected to rise to more than 800 next year. The construction industry will also stay on an upward trend thanks to non-residential projects.
5. More modern and more accessible buses
The city budgeted $8.8 million to replace a total of 16 buses in the Codiac Transpo fleet in 2019. Four of those will be wheelchair accessible under a 2017 Build Canada Provincial Infrastructure Component funding. Another 12 buses will be replaced with more modern, wheelchair accessible buses under a similar funding deal approved this year.
Under this arrangement, the federal government will pay 50 per cent of the cost and the provincial government will pay 33.3 per cent. Monton will pay 17 per cent at around $2.3 million for the first four buses, and nearly $6.5 million for the remaining 12.
The city is also looking to replace the cash-only, 30-year-old fare boxes starting next year to make them “a little smarter,” said Don MacLellan, general manager of community safety services. The city awarded a $1.4-million contract to replace the fare boxes to TripSpark Technologies in September.
“Modern systems now they have some electronics attached to the fare box so that you can mine the data that’s there and know where people are travelling to and from, and how much they’re spending and all of that,” he explained.
“In 2019, we’ll get the boxes in and the initial software. By 2021, what we want to do is invest in the best technology we can to do [electronic payments]. With it changing so quickly, we’ll wait to determine what that technology is at that time. Maybe you’ll be operating off your cell phone. But that’s the goal – to have that by 2021,” he added.
Next year, bus fares will go up by 25 cents to $2.75.
Overall, some adjustments could still be made to the budget if the provincial governments’ assessment number turns out to be different. However, Landry said the current number is based on “comfortable” calculations and consultations with Service New Brunswick.
“We feel pretty confident that this is a safe assessment number,” he said, adding the tax rate and utility rates increase won’t be disturbed.
Any final adjustments will be proposed to council on December 3.
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