With St. Albert’s education property tax requisition scheduled to rise by approximately $2.5 million for the coming fiscal year, homeowners will find themselves paying more on their property taxes.
The increase — 9.64 per cent over the previous year — means homeowners will see their overall tax bill bumped up to approximately 4.2 per cent when the requisition is taken into account. The percentage increase in the education levy is the largest since 2009 (8.13 per cent) and the highest increase in 10 years for the provincial portion of property taxes.
The 2012 municipal budget was passed in December with a property tax increase of 2.8 per cent and hike of 9.5 per cent to utilities. The increase in the education requisition, from $25.1 million to $27.5 million, will see the average homeowner pay an additional $8 per month over last year’s levy.
Mayor Nolan Crouse said the city is often the brunt of complaints when tax bills are issued in the spring because some homeowners don’t distinguish between their municipal tax bills and the education requisition.
“All we do is collect the education tax on behalf of the province and write a cheque,” Crouse said. “It kind of skews what the taxes are.”
Province-wide, the government wants to collect $1.979 billion — approximately $120 million more than last year — from the education levy. Of that total, $1.8 billion will make up part of provincial education funding, while the remainder will be allocated directly by municipalities to opted-out schools.
The education requisition was introduced in 1993 when the provincial government revoked the taxing powers of school boards.
In the budget released earlier this month by the province, the mill rates for the education levy were frozen at 2011 levels. That means residential and farmland owners will pay $2.70 per $1,000 in equalized assessment, while non-residential property owners will pay $3.97 per $1,000.
Jerry Ward, public affairs officer for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, said the province is banking on higher tax revenues from an increased number of new properties, as well as growth in property values.
“This tax helps ensure all students receive quality programming, regardless of where they live,” Ward said.
The education property requisition represents approximately 30 per cent of funding for education, Ward said.
The province uses one of three formulas to determine each municipality’s tax requisition and selects the scheme that produces the smallest total — a cap of a 12-per-cent increase on the previous year’s increase, a four-year average of equalized assessment from 2009-2012 or the municipality’s 2012 equalized assessment.
