If Halifax regional council approves the budget it tabled last night, it’s going to get a little more expensive to live in HRM.
Staff had to squeeze $35.5 million out of the budget this year and it’s proposing the following to make that happen:
• A 1.7 per cent general tax rate increase.
• Increases in the rural and urban transit tax rates.
• No more weekly green cart pickup during summer months.
• Closing some visitor information centres.
• Changes to recreational programs.
• No trap-neuter-release program or zebra crosswalk stripes.
• Suspended streetscaping projects.
• Higher user fees for items such as ice rentals.
• No new trails that don’t have funding already.
• No new public art projects such as murals.
• Suspension of the Community Facility Partnership Grant program.
The five-year transit expansion plan remains in effect, which means 10 new buses this year, extending Access A Bus and opening the Ragged Lake Operations Centre and the Dartmouth Terminal.
The debt will also continue to go down $5 million in the next year.
