Quispamsis council has voted to keep the town’s property tax rate unchanged in 2024.

Councillors adopted the municipality’s roughly $34-million budget during their meeting Tuesday night.

Despite a 12 per cent assessment growth, council voted to keep the tax rate at $1.2777 per $100 of assessment.

Mayor Libby O’Hara said it was a “wrestling match” to balance rising assessments with increasing costs.

“We have to provide a certain level of service that people are accustomed to,” O’Hara said in an interview.

“We have a police budget that has gone up, we have a fire budget that’s gone up, we have the regional service commission budget that has gone up.”

During the budget deliberation process, council asked staff to consider lowering the tax rate by around two cents to $1.2559.

But after staff crunched the numbers, O’Hara said many councillors felt it would leave the town’s reserve funds too low.

“We have to make sure that there is a reserve there that if anything does go off-kilter or haywire, then we have money there that we can call upon,” she said.

Most user fees such as ice rentals, fields and facilities will increase by four per cent to cover the rising cost of living. Water and sewer rates are also going up by around the same amount.

Quispamsis has earmarked nearly $8.8 million in next year’s general capital budget.

About $5.6 million of that will be used for roadwork throughout the community. The town delayed its street upgrades this year after the lowest tender came in $1.3 million over budget.

“Roads are going to be something that we will put a fair amount of money in and we will cover more road surface this year coming,” said O’Hara.

The mayor said even though some other communities are lowering their tax rates in 2024, Quispamsis still has one of the lowest rates compared to Hampton, Grand Bay-Westfield, Moncton, Riverview, and Miramichi.