Unions of Nova Scotia Municipalities

New Brunswick Launches Local Governance Action Plan

The New Brunswick provincial government released on December 6 an action plan to establish a new local governance system. The plan is the result of extensive consultation and fulfils the provincial government’s commitment to establish a new local governance system.

The plan has five objectives:

strengthen the capacity of local governments while maintaining community identity

fair and effective property taxation and assessment system for the long term

increased collaboration, communication and planning between communities

more equitable community funding arrangements

modernized legislation supporting local and regional decision making.

Actions announced at today's launch include:

establishing 12 regional service commissions by January 2013

providing support to help communities restructure

removing barriers that discourage communities from restructuring. Specific actions include   establishing a roads policy and arriving at more equitable cost sharing for RCMP services

providing new options for property tax payments, coming into effect in 2013

redesigning property tax bills to provide more information to property owners

developing a provincial policy to guide regional investments for sport, recreation and cultural facilities.

Among further initiatives to be announced:

improvements to the property tax system will be contained in the 2012-13 provincial budget

a plan to address assessment spikes and year-over-year increases will be announced in 2012

a new community funding arrangement will take effect in January 2013. The unconditional grant for 2012 was announced previously

legislation will continue to be updated to support the new system.

   
For further information, visit: www.gnb.ca/localgovernment.

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