If Woodlands County residents notice an increase on their property tax notice, it will not be because of a mill rate increase from the county.
On Tuesday, May 3, Woodlands County councillors, during their regular meeting in Whitecourt, unanimously approved their 2016 capital and operating budgets, which call for a zero per cent tax increase.
However, Luke Mercier, Woodlands County chief administrative officer said the county’s overall mill rate will increase slightly, not because of anything council or administration did, but because of two items - the school tax and social housing levy part of the property.
He explained that as part of provincial legislation municipalities are required to collect taxes for the Alberta School Foundation Fund (ASFF) and both the Barrhead and District Social Housing Association and the Lac Ste. Anne Foundation.
“We have no control over that. It is something we have to collect on behalf of the province,” Mercier said, adding the ASFF portion increased by $315,000 equating to a 5.5 per cent increase.
The residential and farmland portion of the ASFF is $1,631,897 while the non-residential portion is $4,173,589. For the portion the county collects on behalf of school boards which have opted out of the ASFF, county residential and farmland, as well as non-residential, ratepayers will contribute $171,344 and $8,639 respectively.
Mercier estimates the overall mill rate will increase by about two per cent.
Mayor Jim Rennie said actually the mill rate isn’t going up and the tax rate for 2016 is pegged at 2.7452 per cent for residential and farmland, while non-residential, machinery and equipment and linear is 9.7749 per cent.
“A person may have to pay more in taxes this year, but that isn’t because of a mill rate increase. It is because of an increase in the school taxes and because the value of their property has increased,” he said.
Mercier said that is partially correct, adding the mill rate did increase for the school portion. The tax rate for ASFF for residential and farmland is 2.4866 per cent. For non-residential it increases to 3.9381 per cent. For the opted out of school boards category, the percentages are the same.
Whitecourt Central Coun. Ron Govenlock suggested it would be better if administration staff created a separate line item for school board taxes.
Mercier agreed, saying administration is already in the works for next year.
“But in the end, council still needs to discuss it when they are doing their budget deliberations, but it is definitely confusing and next year we will be putting it on its own,” he said.
While county ratepayers will notice an increase in the overall mill rate due to their school taxes, Mercier said residents will receive a small break due to a decrease in the amounts the county has to collect for social housing. However, he said in most cases the amount will be negligible because the change was so small.
For the Lac Ste. Anne Seniors’ Foundation and the Barrhead and District Social Housing, the tax rate for all categories except for linear is 0.2182 and 0.1067 per cent respectively. For linear the tax rate for both organizations is 0.2074 per cent.
After the meeting, Rennie said right from the onset council was committed to a zero per cent mill rate increase.
“We were able to do that and it is something I and the rest of council are very proud of. It took a lot of hard work from the departments that we have to all the community groups that we sponsor. Everyone stepped up to the plate. We either slowed down some of the projects that we had and we also were able to cut some costs through innovation,” he said.
