The municipal budget has been given the green light.
After months of lengthy debate, Halifax Council voted 14-3 on ratifying the $1.45 billion operating budget and $316.7 million capital budget, with Councillors Sean Cleary, John Young and Mayor Andy Fillmore voting against.
It means, a municipal tax increase of 9.5 per cent, with a 7.5 per cent increase to the average residential and commercial property tax bill, which is about $284 a year.
Deputy Mayor Patty Cuttell said they worked hard and not voting for the budget, would be an entitlement if each councillor had issues with it.
“Where does that leave us? What does that mean? That does mean we go back to the drawing board and start this process all over again? Is that going to get us to a better place at the end of the day? I don’t think so,” said Cuttell.
Councillor Trish Purdy echoed her sentiment and said they took a lot of time to get to this point.
“I honestly think that if this budget were to fail today and we were to go back and to this all over again, I don’t think we’d come to a different conclusion,” said Purdy.
Meanwhile, Mayor Andy Fillmore thought they could do better.
“The tax increase remains higher than many of our residents can reasonably afford. While really hard and excellent work was done on reduction, there were subsequent additions that eroded much of the progress that we made,” said Fillmore.
In order to try and decrease the spike, Council tackled several big items such as the AAA bike lane network and possibly deferring the Halifax Forum – this got voted ahead.
