(File photo/northeastNOW Staff)

By Cam Lee

Nipawin COVID-19 response

Nipawin offers financial relief for residents affected by COVID-19

Mar 31, 2020 | 5:00 PM

The Town of Nipawin has taken measures to assist residents and businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Council approved a number of motions to provide some relief during a special meeting March 27. Utility bill payments may be deferred until Sept. 27. The town has suspended turning off municipal water due to non-payment during this period.

“We had been thinking about some of the things we might be able to do,” Mayor Rennie Harper told northeastNOW. She said she had a number of conversations with business owners and residents.

“We very early on had talked about what we might do with utilities and penalties,” Harper said.

CAO Barry Elliott said the town in the past has not levied penalties for late utility payments. Typically, the town would correspond with the property owner and if they didn’t pay, the water would be turned off until the payment was made.

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Council also agreed to waive all current and arrears property tax penalties for the period from April 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2020. Harper said they were looking to implement something that might have some impact on the commercial and residential sectors.

Council decided to revisit the budget as well, which originally featured a tax increase of nearly three per cent. They have chosen to amend the budget, resulting in a zero per cent increase to the overall property tax levy for 2020.

“The town will be levying through taxation the exact same amount than it did in 2019,” Elliott said.

That doesn’t necessarily mean there will be no change to your tax bill.

“Their individual property tax bill is based primarily — well, on the mill rate, of course — but also on the assessment value,” Elliott said.

He said if your assessment changed due to home renovations or other factors, your tax bill will change slightly. But Elliott added most property owners will be in the neighbourhood of that zero per cent tax increase.

The town will make up the difference by using funds from their stabilization reserve.

Harper said it was important for the town to do what they can to help residents.

“As a town, there’s really not a lot of things that you can do, and it’s very important to us to be wanting to support the people that live here and the businesses that are shut and all of those kinds of things,” Harper said. “This was one of the things early on that we thought we could do, and we’re going to look at it some more, but this is something that we thought we could do right away.”

Harper said the town is thinking of the residents of Nipawin during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We understand how difficult this is, and just encouragement to hang in there,” Harper said.

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cam.lee@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @camlee1974