Town of Westlock Council made it official last week — the mill rate is increasing slightly.
Councillors voted 6-0 in favour of the increase, passing all three readings of the Tax Rate Bylaw at their April 23 meeting. Coun. Clem Fagnan was not in attendance.
Council discussed the tax increase at length during their April 15 committee of the whole meeting and made the decision at that time not to use a $548,840 surplus to keep the mill rate down, despite a 7.57 per cent average decline in residential assessment values.
The residential mill rate will rise 8.9063 to 9.8651.
“At our committee of the whole meeting last Monday there was some really great conversation and discussion had surrounding the town’s 2019 Tax Rate Bylaw. I think it was an excellent discussion that council had regarding our rates and some of the philosophy around that and what our tax rate is going to be,” said acting CAO Simone Wiley.
“I think that was exactly the kind of discussions we need to have at tax time,” said mayor Ralph Leriger.
The town passed its 2019 operating ($2,575,670) and capital ($8,089,895) budgets in December — the operating budget featured a 2.8 per cent increase over 2018.
The assessed value of a property is multiplied by the mill rate, then divided by 1,000 to calculate the tax bill.
Residential properties have declined in value by just under $30 million — residential properties were valued at $399,373,970 in 2018 versus $371,458,390 in 2019.
On the industrial/commercial side, business owners also face a small mill rate increase, from 16.1571 to 16.9487.
Other mill rates codified in the bylaw include: farmland, 24.1901, grants in place (subject to municipal tax only) 16.9487 and vacant non-residential, 34.5180. The mill rate for linear and railway, grants in place of taxes (non-residential) and machinery and equipment is 16.9487.
In total the town will collect $7,165,775 in municipal taxes on a combined assessment of $588,225,970.
“During the 2018 budget deliberations, the pressure of inflation, paying for the full year of RCMP costs (2018 was for April to December costs), a predicted loss of assessment, and the increases in employment costs meant a five per cent increase to taxation,” finance director Julia Seppola said in her written comments to council.
“However, work was done by administration to existing contracts to work with the providers in an effort to lower costs. Savings were found in energy, office equipment and communication contracts.
“The savings from these negotiated changes along with department directors’ efforts to cut spending in targeted areas to offset inflation resulted in a tax increase of 2.8 per cent which was down 2.2 per cent from original estimates.”
Seppola also told council the education requisition numbers from the province will be an estimate this year (using last year’s numbers). The final numbers likely won’t be made official until the new government presents its first budget.
There is some risk in this, she said, as numbers could be off slightly next year, when any discrepancy would have to be made up for.
