The 6 communities that rely most on money from the equalization table

It's a pot of $32 million dished out by the Nova Scotia government across the province, and it's been causing quite a stir.

Perceived unfairness around how municipal equalization grants are formulated even prompted hundreds of placard-waving protesters to line a Sydney thoroughfare last month to chant their disapproval.

But as the Cape Breton Regional Municipality argues it should get more funding, a CBC News analysis shows it and five other municipalities already dependon the money far more than their counterparts.

In Westville, Clark's Harbour, Lockeport, Trenton, the Town of Pictou and the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, equalization from the province made upat least 10 per cent of their 2017-18 operating budgets.

The province says the Nova Scotia Equalization Program is intended to help struggling communities pay for everything from water service to sidewalk repairs to garbage pickup.But it also raises another question.

"How far do we want to go to prop up municipalities where people just want to live in an idyllic rural life style because they like it?" said Harry Kitchen, a professor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont.,who has studied equalization programs across the country.

"It's a real question in Canada. You're taking on motherhood when you take on that issue."

The formula used to determine how much goes to each municipality is complicated. It considers the number of dwelling units, the taxable assessment for homes and businesses, and the cost of providing a specific set of services.

Westville tops the list of communities most reliant on equalization, receiving $684,391 through the program, or 14.9 per cent of its operating budget. It, along with Trenton, resisted the push for amalgamation in Pictou County.

Tiny Clark's Harbour has been described by a local councillor as "prosperous,"but it received $189,122, or 14.6 per centof its operating budget. And CBRM eats up the lion's share of equalization just more than $15 million a year.

• See how much each community in Nova Scotia relied on municipalequalization in 2017-18

On the other side of the ledger: The Halifax Regional Municipality and eight mostly rural counties that collect nothing at all. They includeRichmond County, Inverness County, Chester and Kings County.

The debate over equalization has been especially loud in Cape Breton.

The Cape Breton Regional Municipalityis struggling as the population falls and costs increase. For the last two years, there's been nothing in the budget to fix crumbling sidewalks.

Mayor Cecil Clarke said CBRM is unique because it was saddled with a $58-million debt when it was created through amalgamation in 1995. But he said people in the municipality should expect no less when it comes to services such as sidewalks, street maintenance, infrastructure upgrades, along with parks and recreation.

"What we all know is that what is in place is not working effectively. And we have too many shortcomings across a whole spectrum of municipal service delivery," he said.The current system of equalization "is just distributing money under an old formula that is no longer relevant."

That formula may be about to change.

The province is reviewing the equalization programand has put municipalities on notice that changes could be phased in starting in 2019.

Waye Mason, a Halifax municipal councillor and vice-president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities, is a member of the review committee.

"You don't want to design a formula so that people can make bad decisions," said Mason. "We want to protect what's going well in the rurals but also help towns and regional centres really grow."

Still, Municipal Affairs Minister Derek Mombourquette isn't committing to increasing the pot. And he's not ruling out the possibility the province could apply conditions to the funds, which now come with no strings attached.

For example, there could be incentives built in to encourage communities to work together, share services, or to "capitalize on specific projects that are necessary for multiple communities."

Any drop in that funding would hurt the Town of Westville, admits Mayor Roger MacKay. The former coal mining town of 3,600 people in Pictou County receives 14.9 percent of its $4.6 million operating budget from the equalization grant.

In the most recent municipal financial index a provincial report card on fiscal health Westville received a "yellow flag" for its reliance on government transfers.

Westville opted out of the amalgamation process in 2016, but MacKay said a drop in funding could prompt the town to look at more ways to share services, and costs, with others.

"We don't have a large commercial tax base to fall back on," said MacKay. "We're more of a bedroom community, but that's not always a negative."

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