EDITOR'S NOTE: This article appeared in the Aug. 25 edition of the Town & Country Today before the announcement by Premier Jason Kenney that Minister of Municipal Affairs Kaycee Madu would be replaced by Grande Prairie MLA Tracy Allard while Madu, the MLA for Edmonton-South West, becomes the new Minister of Justice and Sociitor General.
Woodlands County councillors passed a motion during a special meeting on Aug. 20 to forward a letter to the Minister of Municipal Affairs regarding their “extreme” concerns over proposed changes to the assessment model, which could deprive the municipality of millions of dollars in tax revenue.
As noted by mayor John Burrows, the province is looking at trying to reduce the municipal tax burden on the oil and gas industry by changing the assessment model that determines how much taxes companies owe to municipalities.
Burrows said the province is focused on four scenarios that could result in Woodlands County suffering a significant assessment base loss of anywhere between $168 million to $326 million.
That roughly equates to a revenue loss of $1.5 million to $3.1 million for Woodlands County, which would have to be made up through increasing the residential tax rate a minimum of 353 per cent, the non-residential tax rate by 25 per cent, eliminating half of its full-time staff and/or drastically reducing capital expenditures.
Needless to say, “none of the scenarios are very attractive to Woodlands County right now,” added Burrows.
The letter also states that the government has failed to provide any methodology for developing these scenarios, which also lack long-term data or impact analysis.
Burrows said the altered assessment model allows for a “steeper and deeper decline on the assessment,” and there’s no way to know how those impacts will play out in 10 years.
As well, the letter states there has been a lack of consultation with municipalities on these proposed changes, adding the “sheer nature of the closed-door conversations with industry representatives does not support transparency.”
This reason why this motion was discussed at a special meeting is because Burrows and chief administrative officer Gordon Frank had met with Minister of Municipal Affairs Kaycee Madu on Aug. 18 in Edson, alongside representatives of municipalities in the West-Yellowhead constituency. (That resulted in Woodlands’ regularly-scheduled council meeting ending early.)
Burrows said they were able to get the minister to verbally commit to a date when municipalities could give feedback on the proposed assessment model. He also committed to having his department release technical data on the proposed changes for municipalities to go over.
That is “a step in the right direction,” though it’s coming very late in this process, Burrows noted.
Meeting with MLAs
Council also received an update on where things are at with arranging a meeting Athabasca-Barrhead Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken and Yellowhead West MLA Martin Long on this issue.
A motion had been passed at the Aug. 4 meeting to arrange a closed-door meeting discussion between council and the two MLAs over the assessment model. No specific date for that discussion had been set, as administration was going to reach out to both MLAs and set up a time that worked with their schedules.
Frank reported at the special meeting on Aug. 20 that both MLAs had yet to report back.
At that point, Burrows interjected and said he had gone to a meeting with MLA Shane Getson and Associate Minister of Natural Gas and Electricity Dale Nally in late July at Onoway.
He also reported that he and Frank had met with van Dijken at a meeting on Aug. 12 that was hosted by the County of Barrhead.
Burrows said he had then gotten a call following the Aug. 18 meeting with Madu from van Dijken, who asked if it was still necessary to arrange a meeting with Woodlands County council.
Regardless of what other meetings had been held, other councillors insisted that this closed-door meeting between van Dijken, Long and Woodlands County council take place.
“I see this as quite a slap in the face that these boys can’t take time out of their busy schedules to do their job,” said Coun. Ron Govenlock, who was also critical of administration for not submitting the request to the two MLAs sooner.
Coun. Dale McQueen said he was on the same page of Govenlock, adding that if he were either of the two MLAs and there was so much on the line with this tax issue, “I’d be scratching to get over here to talk to the people and try to calm the waters a little bit.”
He added, “Right now there’s a lot of nervous people and a lot of nervous municipalities wondering what’s going to happen if this goes through.”
Burrows suggested he would follow up with van Dijken via a phone call and administration would continue to press for that closed-door meeting.
