BARRHEAD-The County of Barrhead will use the bulk of its $650,000 Municipal Operating Support Transfer (MOST) grant for unpaid 2020 property taxes.
MOST is a cooperative program the federal government has with the provinces through the Safe Restart Agreement (SRA). The SRA federal investment of more than $19 billion is meant to help provinces and territories safely restart their economies and make the country more resilient to possible future surges in cases of COVID-19. In Alberta, $436 million is available.
The municipality received $647,717. MOST funding needs to be spent by March 31, 2021.
County finance and administration director Tamara Molzahn said the funds are to be "dedicated to incremental operating costs due to COVID response and restart, as well as other operating losses or deficits incurred as a result."
Councillors unanimously approved a motion, to put the bulk of the funding towards the expected shortfall of revenue caused by unpaid 2020 property taxes. The motion also earmark’s $1,247 to pay for additional personal protective equipment (PPE) and cleaning costs incurred by the municipality due to the virus.
Council also approved to cap the MOST money they spent to facilitate staff from working at home to what they have already spent ($6,991). And additional expenditures for the project will come from reserves. Originally council approved $14,000.
"Government of Alberta advisors have confirmed that unpaid taxes are an eligible COVID related expense even though we might be able to recoup some of the losses in future years," Molzahn said.
Reeve Doug Drozd said it is unfortunate that the municipality has to use the lion's share of MOST funding to help pay unpaid taxes of businesses.
"[The province] is opening it up and allowing municipalities to use it for unpaid taxes ... they are thinking the unpaid taxes are COVID-related, but in our case, it is mostly the oil and gas industry," he said. "If it wasn't for the unpaid taxes, we could take this whole program and put it into tangible assets that would benefit the County of Barrhead for years. Instead, we have to use it to pay the taxes of some bad actors who haven't come to the table."
Coun. Walter Preugschas argued that the reason why some of the oil companies are having trouble paying their property tax is indirectly the result of the impact the coronavirus is having on the economy.
Coun. Ron Kleinfeldt ended the debate calling for the vote.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
