There will be a tax increase for Vernon residents in 2024.
But not as high as first projected.
Council agreed Monday, Dec. 4, to a rate increase of 5.49 per cent, down from a staff recommended 7.85 per cent in November, which was the highest of three scenarios presented to council to ponder.
The numbers came down even further before deliberations started.
“It was mainly a decision to not include some future park asset management funding, which accounted for about one per cent,” said Mayor Victor Cumming. “We’ll be doing those replacements using current funding instead of adding to the tax base for 2024.”
Another significant item that helped with the decrease was reaching a recreation services agreement with the District of Coldstream and Regional District of North Okanagan Electoral Areas B and C, announced and released Friday, Dec. 1.
The highlights of the 2024 budget include maintaining services right across the city, which Cumming said eats up about four per cent of the tax hike. The remaining 1.5 per cent focuses on community safety.
“We’re adding to our firefighters,” he said. “We’ll be adding four new firefighters and one staff member (FireSmart coordinator), and we’ll be adding two RCMP officers and two support staff for the RCMP.”
The budget also includes adding operational growth at the city.
“We’ve added some capacity to finance and administration, expanding transit and increasing our IT with half of that going to supporting IT growth at the RCMP,” said Cumming. “There’s also one addition to planning (department) to help with the growth in development applications.”
Meetings were slated to be held over two days, but council wrapped things up in one.
Two public sessions for input were held Monday, with city watchdog Dawn Tucker taking advantage to speak at both. She presented a grocery list of topics from her and representing members of the community for council to consider.
Two other men spoke at the public input sessions. All public queries and comments were received by council for information.
READ MORE: Vernon staff suggests largest of three potential tax hikes to council