MELFORT— All City of Melfort utility disconnects and late charges have been suspended until Sept. 30.
Bill reminders will continue to be sent to residents.
This was passed by Melfort council in a Zoom conference meeting on April 6.
“The premise beyond this is to help those citizens who are now out of work,” said Rick Lang, Melfort’s mayor. “The businesses have closed, so either they worked for those businesses and don’t have a job currently, or are the owner of the business and the business is closed.”
In addition, Melfort property owners will get an extra three months to pay their bill without incurring any penalties on their 2020 property taxes. The taxes will need to be paid by Sept. 30.
The city usually collects 40 per cent of all property tax revenue in June, which would be approximately $3.78 million dollars.
“Our treasurer looked at our financial situation and felt comfortable with us passing this resolution to provide this relief and it was felt that the city could handle the financial complications that will arise from passing this.”
Lang said the payments are still expected in September, but hopefully by then community members will be back at work by then.
“That is the hope. What we’ve modeled this after is other communities and what they’ve done within their community as well, particularly some of the other cities.”
Saskatoon and Regina have both suspended their property tax deadlines and utility collections until Sept. 30.
