Grand Forks residents are likely to see an increase in their property taxes this year.
Council voted on the first three readings of the 2016 Property Tax Rates Bylaw 2032, which would see general municipal rates for residential rise from 4.1646 in 2015 to 4.8074 (dollars of tax per $1,000 taxable assessed value), a mill rate increase of 15 per cent.
West Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital District proposed tax rate is 0.2999, while the RDKB tax rate is 2.1816.
The 2016 Tax Rates Bylaw 2032 was first presented to council at the Committee of the Whole meeting on April 11. Council had three options for distributing the tax burden.
Option 1 used the same conversion ratios as 2015 and resulted in the same total proportion of taxes collected by each rate class. This would have resulted in Major Industry jumping from $43.3948 per $1,000 of assessed value to $48.2727. Option 3 used the same rates as 2015 and resulted in a revenue shortfall for the city.
Council chose to go with Option 2 which set the Major Industry rate to the same as 2015 (43.3948) and used the capped rate of $40 per $1,000 of assessment set by the province for Utilities. This resulted in a resident rate of $4.8074 per $1,000 of assessed value.
Utility remains at 40.0000; Major Industry stays at 43.3948; Light Industry is up from 12.2023 in 2015 to 14.0857 in 2016; Business/other moves up as well from 9.9534 in 2015 to 11.4897 in 2016; Rec/Non-profit is up from 3.3317 (2015) to 3.8459 in 2016; and Farm goes up from 4.4978 (2015) to 5.1920 (2016).
Based on the 2016 BC Assessment Roll (average market value) for a single family residential property, which is $194,000, the typical single family residential property would see a tax increase of $10.39 per month or $0.34 per day. The total municipal tax would be $932 for a single family residential property valued at $194,000. Last year’s BC assessment for a single family residential property was $189,000, which meant property tax of $787.
The background information from the city states that municipal taxation is the largest source of revenue for the city. The municipal property tax rate in Option 2 ensures that the city meets its 2016 revenue requirements in the 2016-2020 financial plan. The 2016 financial plan includes a transfer of $240,000 from the general fund to capital reserves. Capital reserves will be used for infrastructure renewal including a $32 million backlog of capital projects.