CBRM achieved surplus last year despite nearly $4-million snowstorm cleanup

Cape Breton Regional Municipality ended its last fiscal year with a $100,000 surplus, despite the nearly $4-million cost of cleaning up a massive snowstorm last February.

Independent auditors have given the municipality a clean bill of health for its financial reporting, but Mayor Cecil Clarke says CBRM still faces challenges when it comes to money.

"We're not in bad shape, but we can always be better and this budget round will have more requests than we have capacity," he said following an audit committee meeting Monday.

CBRM is still waiting for word from the province on whether it will receive disaster relief for last winter's snowstorm, which dropped about 150 centimetres of snow on the region over one weekend.

If disaster funds are approved, that will improve the financial outlook, but it's not all smooth sailing, Clarke said.

Despite the surplus in the last fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2024, and a projected surplus of up to $1.2 million this year, people still expect CBRM to spend more, he said.

"Everyone can look around their own street," Clarke said. "There's always more things they'd like to have done than our ability to do it, whether it's in recreation, public works, sidewalks, maintenance of roads, water, wastewater.

"We have lots of things that we have to attend to."

Jennifer Campbell, CBRM's chief financial officer, told the audit committee the surplus from the last fiscal year was a result of a variety of factors. Those included increased revenues from deed transfer taxes due to property sales, higher interest on bank balances and increased revenues at the Centre 200 arena because of the Cape Breton Eagles' success through three rounds of playoffs in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League.

CBRM also had extra expenses last year, with unexpected building repairs and higher-than-expected costs for fuel and general inflation, but overall, extra revenues covered the expenses, she said.

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