Tantramar finally gets a look at its budget, but it lacks details
It was six days into the existence of the new town of Tantramar before staff received the first budget for the town, and the document remains “incomplete” according to mayor Andrew Black. “It’s just a bunch of numbers,” said Black after a first Tantramar council meeting on Tuesday. “There’s no separation of services. There are some services that we know are shared services within our community, there’s some services that are local. But with just a number, we have no idea where we’re at,” said Black.
Black says that five different tax rates are listed in the budget document, but there’s no specifications about which rate applies to where. He says the budget is devoid of comments or explanation.
“We have requested more information as rapidly as possible,” said Black, so that he and town staff can, ”figure out where we stand, where everybody stands.”
As with the initial bylaws governing Tantramar, the first year’s budget was created by amalgamation facilitator Chad Peters. Though provincial deadlines for budget date back to mid-December, Tantramar staff did not get their first peek at the budget until Friday, January 6.
“We’re working with the province to receive what we’re calling the working documents,” said CAO Jennifer Borne on Tuesday. “Right now it kind of just gives a high level overview, so we’ll be working to kind of dig into each cost centre and get more information on line items.”… Continue
Mystery elections flyer which broke rules likely came from department of local government
Elections NB didn’t send it, the town of Sackville didn’t send it… so the question is, who sent an elections flyer to addresses all over the new Tantramar municipality? While the Department of Local Government refuses to answer that question, a complaint to the New Brunswick RCMP by Elections NB may lead to an answer.
The mailer certainly appears to be a well-intentioned, if not by-the-book, correction for an earlier mistake by Elections NB. Early in October, residents in Tantramar received notices from the provincial elections agency telling them they would NOT be voting in municipal elections on November 28. That was, of course, an error, and a big one.
A mix up by a contractor handling the mail out of important election information for Elections NB meant that about 260,000 households got exactly the opposite message they should have received. The reality is, all residents of the former town of Sackville, village of Dorchester, and parts of the Dorchester, Sackville and Point de Bute local service districts, can go to the polls by November 28 to elect the first ever mayor and council for the newly amalgamated town of Tantramar.
Elections NB immediately acknowledged their mistake, but also said that a corrected mailer to the homes in question would not be forthcoming, in part due to supply chain issues.… Continue