Neepawa Town Council approves new budget

Details

Published on Thursday, May 7, 2015

By Eoin Devereux

The Neepawa Banner

The Town of Neepawa has approved its new budget. On Tuesday, May. 5, Council gave second and third reading to the document, which allocates $6,718,130.27 to the general operating fund and $3,078,319.65 to the utility operating fund.

Residential and commercial property owners in Neepawa will experience the lowest property tax increase in the past five years, as the mill rate will rise by 0.87 per cent. For a home with an assessed value of $200,000, ratepayers will pay an additional $18.90 in taxes on average for the year, while for a commercial property that has a value of $500,000, the increase will be and average of $68.25. Those figures could be higher or lower to rate payers depending on several outlying factors.

Mayor Adrian de Groot said Town Council is happy with what it was able to accomplish throughout the budget deliberations, 

“[Town Council] wanted to make sure that it was comfortable with the decisions that were made. The debate throughout the process on spending was healthy and informative. It’s a responsible budget. Council and administration have had a lot of input into it.” said de Groot.

Before the budget was formally approved, a pair of presentations were made to requesting funding changes to be considered. The first presentation featured Neepawa Natives president Dave McIntosh asking council to reconsider its decision to decrease its annual grant contribution to the Manitoba Junior Hockey League club. In previous years, $10,000 was set aside to assist the team, but this year, that number was allocated at $5,000.  McIntosh provided an in-depth examination of the residual financial impact of the Natives to the community and asked that the amount be revisited.

The other funding request came from Troy Mutch, the president of the Neepawa and District Chamber of Commerce, who asked for grant money that was previously set aside for a new summer festival be redistributed to the Neepawa Fair. The proposed festival was cancelled in April and had originally been devised that as a replacement for the defunct Lily Festival. 

Mayor de Groot said both presentations had merit and Town Council can give each request consideration, without impacting the mill rate.

“Council will have an opportunity to discuss it and then collectively decide on what should be done,” said de Groot. “We have room within our budget to shift things, whether it’s for grants for other things as well. As administration indicated, as long as we don’t change the mill rate. If their were huge increases under consideration, then it has to be done all again. These requests are well within our ability to move things around and not have it impact the property tax rates to commercial and residential property owners in any way.”

De Groot said council will sit down and consider the requests in the near future and either say ‘“no change” or adjust those commitments.