Council mulls property tax hike

Homeowners could see property tax increases in line with the city's 2.5 per cent budget increase this year, according to an early city staff report.

Preliminary options for the year's property tax structure were outlined for city council's finance and audit committee, which held its first meeting of the new term Tuesday morning.

The committee - consisting of mayor Lyn Hall and councillors Susan Scott, Garth Frizzell and Frank Everitt - selected Frizzell to sit as its chair.

Of the three options presented by financial planning manager Kris Dalio, two would set the base rate so as to charge the representative home (estimated to be $230,216 in 2015) a total municipal tax of $1,825 - an increase of 2.5 percent over the $1,780 paid by the $223,403 representative home in 2014.

"This is a method that we've used the last couple years," said Dalio.

Residential properties consist of almost 76 per cent of the city's total assessment value, and pay nearly 55 per cent of the tax burden.

Under the first option presented, with the residential increase set at 2.5 per cent, business, major and light industrial and farm tax rates would decrease by 1.67 pr cent and the utility rate would decrease by 0.6 per cent.

Under the second option, with the residential increase also set at 2.5 per cent, the major industrial rate would decrease by 2.03 per cent and the business rate would absorb some of the spillover, decreasing by 1.51 per cent.

The third option would reduce the major industry tax rate to the 2013 level of $46 per $1,000 of assessed value, leaving the residential rate to absorb the excess with a 2.61 per cent increase and a business rate that decreases by 1.41 per cent.

Staff will return to the finance and audit committee with the tax rate structure again in April, after the final 2014 assessment roll is released.

In the meantime, council may be scheduling a special budget meeting next month to allow for discussion and any potential reallocation of budgets based on the new council's recently finished strategic planning sessions. The budget bylaw - including the tax rate structure - needs to be finalized by May 15.