MONCTON, N.B. – Elected members in the Greater Moncton Area are calling for a faster process to get a grant out to municipalities.
Councillor Charles Leger says the city has been receiving less of the province’s Community Funding and Equalization grant as Moncton becomes more self-sufficient.
Last year, the city received about $8.5-million and Leger expects that number will to continue to drop. But he says it’s hard to plan a budget without knowing how much money they have.
“Without knowing what impact that grant will have it makes it difficult to budget,” he said. “At least give us a firm number so we can at least make firm decisions based on how many dollars we have for our operations as the City of Moncton.”
The province changed the grant program in 2012. Now, the new formula looks at each city’s tax base and expenses.
Municipalities should know the grant amounts by the end of the month.
Leger says the changes could be slowing down the system.
“A lot of that is because of the recalculation,” he said. “How it was before it was much better in terms of knowing what the actual number was.”
The Town of Riverview is also doing its best to plan its budget without knowing their grant.
Last year, the town received about $1.9-million.
“We do our very best to maintain the current tax rate and that will be the goal for this year’s budget,” said Robert Higson, the town’s director of finance. “But until we receive some further information and have council deliberate the budget it’s unknown at this point what the impact will be on our tax rate.”
Despite the lack of information, the town will start deliberating their budget Thursday.
Mayor Ann Seamans says getting grants earlier in the year, would better help them make plans for the community.
“It’d be a lot easier if we had the amounts that’s for sure,” she said. “But over the years our staff have been able to make the numbers quite close so we do have to wait until we have the actual numbers until we know for sure what the outcome would be.”
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