County of Barrhead property owners to see modest tax rate increase

County residents can expect a slight increase in the tax rate after council approved a 0.2 per cent mill rate increase.

At its meeting April 18, council voted unanimously in support of Bylaw 1-2017 – 2017 Rates of Taxation, which estimates county expenditures and transfers in the amount of $14,898,374.

In addition, county revenues and transfers from all sources other than taxation amount to $3,934,445 and the balance, $10,963,929 is to be raised from municipal taxation.

County of Barrhead reeve Doug Drozd explained administration and council worked through 20 separate variations of the budget before settling on the final version.

“Finance director Diane Begert and I tag-teamed this,” County of Barrhead chief administrative officer (CAO) Debbie Oyarzun said, adding that in addition to $460,000 lost through linear assessment, the budget contains interest and debenture principal payments, as well as a number of reductions aimed at curbing expenses.

To balance the budget, Oyarzun said the municipal mill rate has been increased 0.2 mills, bringing the rate to 5.9020 for residential properties, 16.5613 for farmland and 17.1012 for non-residential, pipe-land and machinery and equipment.

“Despite the increase to the mill rate, it still requires $145,731 to be utilized from unrestricted reserves and because our overall assessment has gone down by $8 million, the overall collection of taxes is still almost $107,000 less than what was collected in 2016. It is significant. We had to dip into our unrestricted reserves to spare current taxpayers the full brunt of it,” she said.

Drozd agreed, saying the majority of the money being spent is in an effort to prepare for any eventuality.

“We spent a day and a half on this and the majority of that time was spent on the budget, line by line,” Drozd said, adding when it came to the tax rate setting process, multiple scenarios were scrutinized.

“As Diane [Begert] indicated, there is an amount coming out of reserves and we looked at how much is needed to increase the mill rate to reflect that. We ultimately ran through about 20 different scenarios to make it work and this is the direction we decided to go in, after looking at a variety of ways to decrease it. This is what we ended up with,” he said and Coun. Dennis Nanninga agreed.

“I really think we are going to struggle to live up to the budget, in my opinion, because you know, the storm that happened last week, it’s going to cost us a tremendous amount of money by itself just to keep the roads up to the standards that everybody is used to. It’s going to be difficult,” Nanninga said.

When asked what a .2 mill increase equates to on $100,000 per assessment, Begert said it all depends on the assessment in question.

“The residential rate is different than non-residential,” Begert added.

Oyarzun agreed.

“It varies depending on whether it is farmland, residential or non-residential and likewise depends on the value of your property,” Oyarzun said, adding the markets have gone down quite a bit.

Drozd agreed.

“Everybody is going to be doing the calculations in their head, wondering what their taxes are going to look like, so we have to bear that in mind,” he said.

Troock echoed Drozd’s comment, adding it is easier to hand out mill rate increases when hardship is not being endured.

“It is what it is. We try our hardest but it’s going to be a tough year on everybody,” Troock said.

Fire services and recreational services, two of the largest portions of the county’s 2017 budget will increase by 13 per cent and five per cent respectively.

“There’s been a bit of a change to the funding model for the Barrhead Fire Service and while the agreement has not yet been updated, the model was accepted by the fire services committee and it was brought to both councils,” Oyarzun said, adding the increase had been captured in the budget and the county will now pay for whatever occurs within their jurisdiction.

“In the past, we had everything divided between billable and non-billable items, with things like false alarms and lift-assists falling into the later category. At the end of the day, those costs were split in half but that isn’t going to happen anymore. The only things left in the pot so to speak, things that we are sharing the cost of, are the salaries for the fire chief, deputy chief and the miscellaneous costs we have for the privilege of having a fire department.”

In addition, Oyarzun said recreation made up a fair portion of the budget.

“We have to remember that there are a variety of recreational services the county contributes to including Misty Ridge Ski Hill and the golf club, where we contribute on a per-request basis, and more significant contributions associated with the Agrena and the new Aquatic centre,” she said.

The county contributes $30,000 to summer recreation program staffing and Oyarzun said with the county’s $5 million debenture now disbursed and its interest payments amounting to $281,802, in addition to a $62,538 contribution to the agrena — itself a 5 per cent increase from 2016, total expenditures amounted to $542,619 for recreational services.