The municipality of Grey Highlands will be waiving penalty and interest fees on tax and water payments until July 1.
“At this point in time we have not seen a huge drop in the payments we have received,” said Anna McCarthy, treasurer for the municipality of Grey Highlands during a virtual council meeting held March 25. “My current recommendation is that staff waive penalties and interest for a specified amount of time.”
The municipality currently charges a 1.25 per cent penalty for late payments. Interest is added for any remaining outstanding balance. These charges will be waived for Grey Highlands residents until July 1.
While the council's decision doesn’t defer the entire payment, it allows residents to defer the payment if they so choose without being penalized.
The council did discuss deferring resident payments entirely, however, this would cause issues in the payments the municipality owes to the county and school board.
“We have expenses that we need to meet, most notably we have payments due to the school board and county by the end of the month and we rely on property tax and user fees to meet those obligations,” explained McCarthy.
As such, deputy mayor, Aakash Desai made a motion to contact the school board and county to ask for a subsequent deferral on payments due from the municipality.
“Council directs staff to contact the treasurer from these organizations to acquire deferral on those remittances,” Desai said.
Karen Govan, the chief administrative officer, says the municipality is more concerned about the payment that is due in June, than they upcoming March 27 deadline, as, by that time (June), the full impact of COVID-19 will have set in.
“We are anticipating the payment this week won't be the big issue, it will be the payment in June,” Govan said. “As time goes on, people are losing their jobs and are just trying to figure out where they are financially.”
The June remittance of property tax and water payments is due on June 27.
If residents require the cancellation of pre-authorized payments, they are being asked to provide the municipality with at least five business days notice.
“What we would like to do is reach out to those who are having trouble making payments and schedule payment plans and keep the conversation going because as you know, once you miss one payment, it can start to escalate,” said Govan. “We want to make sure our businesses and residents have an opportunity to enter a payment plan.”
Questions and concerns about property tax and water bill payments can be sent to the municipality of Grey Highlands finance department.
The Blue Mountains is having a council meeting on March 30, and discussion will include similar measures to waive tax penalties.
Collingwood council passed similar measures yesterday.
