WATCH: Jamie Orchard talks with Mayor Russell Copeman about the issues faced this year.
MONTREAL – On Monday evening, borough councillors in Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (CDN—NDG) adopted its 2014 budget, which sees library cuts and parking meter rate hikes, but minimal increases to property taxes.
“It includes measures aimed at limiting the increase in the borough’s tax burden while maintaining services to citizens,” noted the council in a statement.
The borough earmarked 16.9 per cent of its budget to sports, leisure and social development, 15 per cent to snow removal, 14 per cent to cleaning and maintaining roads and sidewalks, 13.9 per cent to the management of waste and recyclable materials, 9.8 per cent to maintaining parks and horticulture, and 8.5 per cent to libraries and maisons de la culture.
Get daily National news
The $73,577,800 balanced budget saw a slight increase from last year of of 0.17 per cent.
The increase is due to “various contractual commitments,” which include snow removal, payroll and the borough’s participation in balancing the City of Montreal’s budget.
These commitments required an additional sum of $2.8 million in order to present a balanced budget.
In order to make up for the shortfall, the council will lower expenses by reducing the number of hours in the borough’s four libraries. Residents will only be able to access one of two libraries in CDN and NDG on Sundays and Mondays.
It will also increase revenues by raising parking meter rates by 50 cents per hour. Parking a car will now cost $2 in the local network (up from $1.50) and $2.50 in the arterial network (up from $2).
Councillors decided to keep the local tax at $0.05 in 2014, so as not to further increase the tax burden of its residents.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.