With city council wrapping up budget deliberations on Dec. 1, the proposed 2023 tax property increase remains at 5.8 per cent, although the overall budget has yet to be formally approved.
The proposed budget includs a 5.8 per cent property tax increase, a 3.8 per cent utility rate increase, and a pre-approved five per cent electrical franchise fee increase.
The Dec. 1 council meeting saw the tax rate move back and forth as over a dozen motions were debated.
Successful motions that lowered the tax rate included the approval of using an additional 20 per cent of the city's 2022 assessment growth – the positive difference in tax funds collected from the current year compared to the previous year – to reduce the 2023 property tax rate.
Each year, 25 per cent of the city's assessment growth is automatically used to offset the following year's tax base, but an unanimously passed motion put forward by Coun. Sheena Hughes allows the 20 per cent, $576,700, of assessment growth earmarked for the stabilization reserve to also be used to reduce the tax rate.
Another motion, also put forward by Hughes, passed by council on Dec. 1 was to reduce the annual 1.5 per cent increase to the city's capital budget in 2023 to a 0.75 per cent increase, and use the remaining 0.75 per cent, $880,600, to lower the tax base.
Those measures were then countered by another motion put forward by Hughes' to not use $1.4 million in one-time funds from the city's stabilization reserve to reduce the tax rate, as was planned in the proposed budget. With only Coun. Shelley Biermanski opposed, council voted not to use one-time measures to reduce the tax rate because, Mayor Cathy Heron said, "it's bad practice to use reserves to artificially lower taxes."
Council will look to approve the 2023 budget on Dec. 20. The Gazette's Thursday, Dec. 8 print edition will feature more in-depth budget deliberation coverage.
