With projected operating deficits estimated at $180,000 a year over the next five years, and a breakdown in consolidation talks with their neighbouring municipal unit, the Town of Shelburne says they’ve been left “in a position to decide between dissolution and significant cuts in service.”
The town notified town and area residents and businesses of the situation on Jan. 23.
“It became clear during our budget deliberations last year that the writing was on the wall in terms of our ability to maintain service levels for the town and that we would be required to look to regional solutions going forward,” said the town in a media release.
In the spring of 2019, the towns of Shelburne and Lockeport, as well as the Municipality of the District of Shelburne, initiated a series of conversations to determine whether consolidation, based on the Windsor-West Hants model, could occur in eastern Shelburne County.
“While we have had several smaller meetings since last spring, with the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing (DMAH) in attendance, we have not been successful in bringing the district council into full conversation with all three councils about a collective future. Further, last week the district council decided to opt out of any further discussions on consolidation unless the province was willing to commit to funding to assist in the renewal of Town of Shelburne infrastructure,” states the release.
“This leaves our council in a position to decide between dissolution and significant cuts in service," the town says. "As we are projecting operating deficits for the foreseeable future, service cuts and/or tax increases will become an annual event as we are required by the province to submit a balanced budget.”
For the Municipality of Shelburne, Warden Penny Smith states, “the concerns raised at our council when discussing consolidation are financial concerns and what this could mean to the taxpayers in the municipality. The Town has aging infrastructure that needs to be upgraded and maintained.
“The question that must be addressed is who will pay these costs," Smith said. "Our Council believes that the province needs to make a financial commitment to address the town’s infrastructure challenges, such as the marine terminal, flooding of Dock Street and aging water and sewer lines, as they have done with other municipal units that merged or dissolved. With financial support from the Province, we could continue discussions."
TOWN IS NOT ALONE
The existing situation isn’t unique to Shelburne, said Mayor Karen Mattatall.
“Towns across the province struggle to maintain expected levels of services with funding based primarily on property tax revenue. In areas of the province where property assessment growth remains flat, costs of services will continue to outpace our revenue and the pressure to regionalize will continue," she said. "The imposition of mandatory service standards, such as the recent federal requirement regarding wastewater system effluent, has further accelerated the financial challenges of small towns, particularly when any project overruns are borne by the towns.”
With a total population of approximately 7,000 residents, the mayor said, “Our position has always been a unified consolidated unit in eastern Shelburne County would serve the best interest of all residents. We really are joined at the hip.”
The two municipal units have a solid working relationship through shared services and other initiatives. The Municipality of Shelburne points to some of these share services.
“We currently share services such as waste diversion and building inspection and we recently contributed $143,000 towards phase one of the Town of Shelburne’s Marine Terminal upgrades, recognizing this facility as a regional asset and understanding its’ importance to the residents and businesses in Shelburne County,” Smith said.
While the municipality understands the importance of working together, they also understand their responsibility in ensuring that some type of regionalization will not have a detrimental financial impact on their residents and taxpayers, said Smith.
Under dissolution, the Town of Shelburne would submit an application to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (URB) who would then oversee the process of public hearings and decide whether there is merit in the application. If the application goes forward a transition committee would be established to make decisions for all municipal units during the transition period.
“We would prefer that there be more local control over any future outcome for the region, and in this sense the consolidation process is better suited than is the dissolution process,” says the town. “The consolidation process has the benefit of allowing the municipal units decide their terms and transition process rather than turning the control over to an outside body.”
The Town of Shelburne has started an asset management program, it says, to address and better manage the aging infrastructure it has inherited from both the federal and provincial governments in the marine terminal and water utility. "However, this program is in its infancy and policies aimed at addressing infrastructure deficits have only recently been implemented. We recognize that we need regional support to maintain the level of services that keep this area viable.”
READ ALSO: FROM ELSEWHERE IN THE REGION
Yarmouth town and municipality open to consolidation exploration session
Municipality of Argyle open to discussing 'structural reform . . . potential consolidation'
