By Andrew de Souza

City taxes to rise

Mar 19, 2011 | 7:29 AM

The City of Prince Albert’s budget committee has wrapped up deliberations and agreed on a new tax scheme for the city.

On Friday, council members and department heads hammered out the details of about $42 million for the city’s capital and operating budgets.

The number was arrived at after council postponed the budget in January and asked administration to bring back paired down numbers.

After those few months, the city looks like will have shaved off about $1.9 million from the original figure.

Committee wants minimum tax

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While the budgets were pared down, taxes will still have to go up to pay for them.

City manager, Robert Cotterill, presented the committee with a report for how the city could not only make enough revenue to operate, but also to put away about $1 million per year for future infrastructure needs.

“I’m concerned and the staff are very concerned about our future,” he said.

“There are some expenditures coming towards us that we have not built into any budgets.”

He said the city essentially needed $6 million in order to pay for future infrastructure needs, particularly the Diefenbaker Bridge, otherwise they would find themselves in a desperate situation later on.

The premise of the report was the implementation of a minimum tax for properties in the city.

After some debate, the committee agreed on the tax scheme as follows. Residential homes and condominiums would see a $100 flat tax, while multi-unit dwellings would see a $35 per unit increase.

As well, the committee agreed on a minimum tax with a sliding scale for commercial properties that would fall between $300 and $3,000 depending on the size of the property.

On top of that, the committee approved a 3.25 per cent increase in general property taxes.

Not universally accepted

The proposal won a majority vote, with councillors Lee Atkinson, Charlene Miller and Darren Whitehead opposing.

Coun. Lee Atkinson said his opposition was based on the fact that it simply wasn’t a fair premise to tack an extra $100 on to all properties, especially ones with a low assessment value and while cost of other services such as water and sewer continued to climb.

“Quite frankly, I think there are people in our community who are on fixed incomes for whom all these additions are going to make a difference to the style of living they can have,” said Atkinson.

“And then, of course they also have the burden of the tax increases that we’re going to pass along as well.”

But Coun. Cheryl Ring, who first moved to accept the tax scheme, defended the decision as a realistic one.

“I firmly believe in putting money away for future,” she said.

“We haven’t been able to do that and that is the crux of why I made the decision.”

Ring added that she believed residents would be satisfied with the solution.

“People are going to comfortable with the fact that everybody is going to be paying equally for the services that they’re getting.”

Vote still required

The committee approved the tax scheme in principal.

However, administration still needs to fine tune the numbers and bring it back to council for approval.

That’s expected within the next cycle of council.

Any change would be applied to 2011 taxes for residents and businesses.

More details on the committee's actual decisions on different items are available here.

adesouza@panow.com