(file photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

from phone calls to auctions

North Battleford council looks at enforcement options as property tax debt exceeds $7 million

Mar 12, 2024 | 2:18 PM

North Battleford city council is looking at making plans to work to knock down the significant amount owing to the city from unpaid property taxes.

Finance Director Margarita Pena presented the financial report ending December 2023 at Monday’s meeting that showed $7.2 million in property tax receivables owing. This amount represents $6.6 million in current (2023 year) outstanding and arrears (2022 and years prior) for taxes owing, as well as $555,549 in tax title. The taxes owing has been increasing each year, from 2018 when $2.9 million was outstanding.

Pena said the finance department has been focused on recovering the owed amount.

“We’re trying to collect taxes as much as we can,” she said.

“Over the past year, finance has worked diligently to collect outstanding receivables while monitoring and controlling internal cashflow as is standard,” Pena noted in her report. “However, due to increasing receivables, finance has increased its monitoring to control the tax enforcement process.”

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She added to ensure the city remains efficient in responding to internal and external expenses, administration will transfer $2.8 million from the institutional investment fund to its regular financial institution to reflect the receivables currently owing to the city.

Pena noted administration is making courtesy calls to certain properties where administration suspects tax notices were not received or were misplaced.

There are approximately 208 properties at various stages of the tax enforcement process. After the city obtains property through tax enforcement, the properties are tendered and/or auctioned as they become available. As well, administration will start applying Section 285 of The Cities Act to certain properties to collect monthly payments.

Coun. Kelli Hawtin expressed her concerns about the the growing balance owing from year to year.

“A few years ago, I think we engaged a law firm to help us collect taxes,” she said. “It just seems that the processes we’re using aren’t helping the problem. I’m not suggesting we stop the process we’ve been working on. I appreciate it,… But when you look at the numbers, it is a big, huge alarm for concern for us. If people aren’t paying their taxes, we can’t afford to deliver the services that we need to deliver.”

Mayor David Gillan said unfortunately the taxes that are outstanding have built up over the years.

“We went through a very bad period with COVID and whatnot,” he said following the meeting. “We didn’t want to be too difficult on people because a lot of people lost their jobs. Unfortunately, that number has built up a bit and now we’re just supporting management, by saying what do we have to do as a municipality to get back to normal.”

Gillan suggested as a possibility that administration may want to look at hiring a new senior position to help with that task, or use internal staff to help collect that money owing.

“What I am just expressing is, and I think it was on behalf of the other council members because I didn’t hear any opposition from them, is that do we need more resources because when something gets behind, it takes a long time to get it figured out and fixed, or is it better to invest a little bit of money to get it done more quickly,” he said. “You juggle the cost versus the benefit of that.”

Gillan asked administration to explore all options.

“We don’t want it to go on like this forever, and we want a solution,” he said. “We don’t have a solution. They [administration] have to come up with a solution. That’s their job. But we’re just saying: We’re supportive of any options that get this problem under control.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsnow