HRM budget 2023/24

Wednesday, HRM’s budget committee finalized the transit budget, and will consider hiring four new security guards at a cost of $379,000. Otherwise, the $38 million budget sailed through the debate largely untouched. This transit budget is 12% more than last year, due largely to an increased cost of fuel, and an increase in the cost […]

Our city councillors are doing better than their provincial and federal peers these days, although that can sometimes be hard to appreciate. Over the last week, HRM council debated how the public’s money should be used and, mostly, made good decisions for the future of the city. Council didn’t cut arts funding. Instead, councillor Waye […]

Building permit fees will be going up 25% on April 1, a move that will net the HRM an additional $1.45 million in revenue. These fees are governed by the Fees By-Law F-200. This fee hasn’t been adjusted since 1997, and currently sits at $5.50 per $1,000 of the estimated value. It will go up […]

The $104.6 million department of public works budget passed after a two-day budget meeting this week. The public works budget will get a bit of a shock in future years as the province gave the city approximately $14 million in asphalt liabilities. In this year’s budget, the city allocated $6 million to deal with the […]

HRM’s budget debates rolled on this week. At Wednesday’s meeting, after some mild scrutiny, the budget committee passed the city IT department’s $32-million budget. It also passed the Property, Fleet & Environment budget valued at $48 million. Friday morning, the committee also passed the$12.9 million human resources and corporate communications budget. For this budget, council […]

In a meeting dominated by a discussion of what public safety is and what it will mean in the future, HRM’s budget committee discussed the first three business unit budgets up for consideration. Two of them—city finance department’s $15.4 million budget and the city legal department’s $8.8 million budget—both passed through the committee with minimal […]

Halifax council’s Wednesday budget meeting was a briefing from the city’s accountants explaining the financial difficulties in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. The main tension in the 2023 budget, as it has been for many years, is that the city is not currently sustainable. It’s important to make a few distinctions here, because […]