Charlotte business people await meeting on budget
Published Saturday March 21st, 2009
Spending County mulling over fallout from spending cutbacks outlined by province
ST. STEPHEN - Charlotte County business people hope that Business New Brunswick Minister Greg Byrne can tell them what the provincial budget means.
The minister's office called the St. Stephen Chamber of Commerce ahead of Finance Minister Victor Boudreau's budget speech this week asking for a meeting, Chamber vice-president Geoff Knight said. They are trying to set it up for early April.
Byrne has been meeting with business groups around the province "to communicate the government's economic message," the minister's spokesman Ryan Donaghy said Friday.
Byrne has met with business people in several places including Bathurst, Moncton and Miramichi. In St. Stephen he will have the advantage of meeting after the budget speech. The parties just need to settle on the date.
Between now and then business people, along with municipal and community leaders in southwest New Brunswick, will attempt to figure how it affects them.
"I guess it's a tough-news budget," said Knight, executive director of the Charlotte County Development Corporation.
"The only thing I would say, it was inevitable, the way it came out," Richard McKay of Stationary Plus said.
"I think that governments were negligent years ago," retired businessman and former St. Stephen town councillor Al Corbett said. "We should have been cutting back our civil servants years ago."
"And would I like to be in business right now? No. I'm very glad to be retired," said Corbett, who ran a photography shop.
He does agree with cutting taxes while running up a deficit. "I'm convinced you've got to pay your fair share. I don't think its taxes that kill people "¦ we must render unto Caesar what is Caesar's."
"Your personal tax, you only pay on what you earn "¦ it's the fairest tax you can have in a democracy," he said.
While others mull over civil service jobs and deficits, St. Stephen chief administrative office Hendrik Slegtenhorst will try to make sense of the government's plan for the property tax system.
According to information accompanying Boudreau's budget speech, available on the Finance department's website, the government will prevent the province and municipalities from picking up a windfall when property assessments increase.
The government will apply an "accountability adjustment factor" to property tax rates so the provincial and local governments will automatically benefit from increases in assessments only to the level of the increase in Statistics Canada's Consumer Price Index.
Neither Slegtenhorst nor Mayor Jed Purcell, a retired banker, could say much about the accountability adjustment factor or other aspects of the budget this week.
"It needs to be read and understood," Purcell said. "I think we're in for some changes coming in for the next year."
He gave Premier Shawn Graham credit for sticking with his program of lower taxes despite the impending deficit.
"That's an awful lot of money," Purcell said.
However, he said, Graham has "pretty well stuck to his guns since he's been in here."
On other points the budget presents a clearer message for Charlotte County.
From Jan. 1 to May 15, ferry service to Deer Island will drop to once every hour rather than every half-hour.
The Transportation Department will accomplish this by parking the 18-car John E. Rigby, the smaller of the two ferries on the Deer Island run, during the off months. The 24-car Deer Island Princess II will continue to run year-round.
This change will not lead to layoffs, but five employees might work fewer hours with their jobs converted to seasonal status, according to Transportation Minister Denis Landry.
This change will save the Transportation Department $300,000 per year, a contribution toward the total savings of $8 million per year the government wants from this department.
With no bridge to the mainland, Deer Islanders need their ferry - so they did better than Gagetown, Hampstead and Belleisle, which lost their ferries altogether.
These cutbacks cannot encourage people who want a ferry to Campobello Island as an alternative to traffic lineups at the international bridges to Lubec, Maine, and at St. Stephen/Calais.
Transportation plans to save another $500,000 per year by closing two winter-only maintenance and service garages in northern New Brunswick, and converting 23 others to winter only.
This probably does not bode well for building the planned new garage in St. Stephen this year.
Disabled
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
