Okotoks residents will have to shell out more for property taxes than expected after town council approved a 3.2 per cent property tax increase for 2016.
Council approved its tax bylaw on April 25, which will see the tax bill for the typical residence in Okotoks rise by $103, or 3.2 per cent, to $3,340. One year ago, council approved a $149, or 4.8 per cent, increase to the typical home for 2015.
The tax hike is higher than council hoped for when it approved a 1.6 per cent increase to the municipal share of property taxes on Dec. 14, but the increase could have been more.
The Alberta Education requisition for residential properties rose by 8.1 per cent, or about $816,000 for Okotoks. Homeowners will also pay more on their tax bill for fire services as a new labour agreement with firefighters required a $370,000 boost for salaries. There was also a small increase to the Okotoks Public Library and Foothills Foundation requisitions.
Coun. Tanya Thorn said the tax increase could have been higher, but the 8.1 per cent Education requisition increase was offset by Okotoks’ growth last year.
“We were lucky we’re only going to see about a 0.5 per cent increase because of [education requisitions], but that’s because of the growth we’ve had in our community,” said Thorn, who is also chairperson of the Town’s finance and budget committee. “So that growth and assessment value has actually worked quite significantly to our favour in this time, because otherwise we would have been looking at a fairly significant increase to accommodate the Provincial requisition.”
According to Thorn, the main factor behind the tax increase is the recent fire services labour settlement with the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), which is something the Town has been working toward for “quite a while.”
Fire services reached their settlement with IAFF earlier this month. The union agreement resulted in a $370,000 increase in salaries for 2016 that had not been budgeted for, said Thorn.
“It hasn’t happened as we would have expected, so we didn’t know if we would see it this year,” said Thorn. “There were indications we would, but we didn’t know when or where so we have no way to budget for that salary increase in the current year.”
She said good planning allowed the Town to set funds aside to deal with early union negotiations, but salaries could not be put into the current budget without clear indication the settlement was coming.
Thorn said she’s pleased with the 2016 budget and tax rates, given the unexpected items that arose in April.
“Obviously we don’t have a say in the Provincial requisition, we’re a flow-through, so it does impact us,” said Thorn. “But the big piece for us was the settlement of the fire agreement.”
Coun. Carrie Fisher had hoped the Town would be able to stabilize the tax rate closer to the 1.6 per cent increase council had approved in December by making amendments to its budget to compensate for the higher education requisition and fire agreement.
“We wanted it to stay at a certain level for our residents, understanding that many of our residents are in tough financial times,” said Fisher. “Unfortunately, the Provincial education amount came in higher than expected and later than it should have been so we couldn’t make any adjustments.”
Overall, she said the 2016 budget has some good compromises and will allow the Town to invest in infrastructure and protective services.
“I’m happy we’re getting additional RCMP officer, definitely,” said Fisher. “That is something we hear as a need from the community, and I’m pleased we’ve been able to make our budget work to increase that service level.”
