Armstrong residents can prepare for a tax hike.
City council and staff have finalized its five-year financial plan which calls for a 2.95 increase on the municipal tax portion, meaning about $24 per taxpayer with an assessed average home price of $325,000.
Residents will also be paying for policing costs for the first time, and can also expect an increase as the city removes the water and sewer parcel taxes from the notices, moving them to an invoicing system.
“Our general tax is what we are in control of,” said Mayor Chris Pieper. “It’s just operating costs for our municipality. Inflation is over two per cent and to meet the needs of operating the community, that’s what we need.”
Pieper said council and staff did everything possible to minimize the tax hike through months of discussions. Helping to minimize the increase was the fact the city continues to grow. There were 50 housing starts in 2017 which contributed significantly to keeping the increase at bay.
“We thought it would be higher than this,” said Pieper. “We are very cognizant of our capital projects going ahead, especially (flood mitigation) on Meighan Creek and Deep Creek. Those are our No. 1 priorities.”
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Residents will notice a line item on their tax notice for policing.
The city has to pay now that its population is more than 5,000, and reached a multi-year deal with the solicitor general’s office retroactive to April 1, 2017. Armstrong and Spallumcheen are each responsible for three officers, as well as two support staff, and Armstrong will pay for a fourth officer beginning in 2019.
“We’re now going from a subsidy rate from the provincial government from about 25 per cent payment, which all communities under 5,000 and all regional districts have, to 70 per cent,” said Pieper.
“We established a reserve of $426,000 over the last 10 years, strictly for policing, and to lessen the impact to the taxpayer, we’ll use part of that reserve to go forward.”
The city paid $391,000 for policing for nine months in 2017 (retroactive to the newly signed contract) and has budgeted $533,000 for policing this year.
Residents will also see on their notices that the sewer ($90) and water ($110) parcel taxes have been removed as the city shifts them to invoices.
“Our parcel taxes we had here on the notice will be divided in half and put onto our invoicing system. That will start in October,” said Pieper. “The fixed fee will go up for both of them to reflect removal from the tax notice. Water consumption charges will stay the same. The overall tax notice may be less but you’ll pay for it in the fall.”
Armstrong Spallumcheen will also share in the purchase of a new fire truck, at more than $1 million, in 2018. This is to meet insurance company guidelines as the truck being replaced is more than 25 years old, which is against insurance rules.
roger@vernonmorningstar.com
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