(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

Taxes

Council passes new police tax and rejects reduced rate for non-profit housing agencies

Apr 15, 2021 | 5:27 PM

Prince Albert city council has approved a new tax to fund additional police officers and rejected a proposed amendment that would have lessened the financial burden on non-profit housing agencies.

The $35 annual base tax will be applied to all properties in the city. Multi-unit residential properties would be charged per unit. The tax is expected to generate $554,505 in 2021, enough to hire four more police officers.

The police base tax was approved as part of the 2021 property tax bylaw, which also saw council increase the minimum tax by $100.

On Monday night, council heard concerns from Brian Howell of Riverbank Development Corporation who said the new police base tax would hurt affordable housing providers who can’t afford to raise their clients’ rents. Howell said he would prefer to see increases go through the general mill rate so the amount properties pay is proportionate to their assessed value.

Riverbank Development Corporation has just over 100 units, meaning they will pay an additional $3,500 per year under the new tax. Meanwhile P.A. Housing Authority, with just under 1,000 units will pay approximately $35,000 more per year.

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On Monday, Coun. Ted Zurakowski suggested the city should look at potential ways to mitigate the affect of the new base tax on the organizations.

“I’d like us to take a closer at what we can do for our housing agencies,” he said. “Because by in large those are the seniors living in many of them, those are the working poor trying to get ahead.”

Zurakowski failed to get the votes necessary to have city administration prepare a report on the topic. But on Wednesday, when council met to give the measure final approval, Coun. Terra Lennox-Zepp raised the issue again.

She said she had received correspondence from P.A. Housing Authority saying the proposed police base tax would impact the organization’s ability to offer programming to their tenants.

“We talk in this council a lot about vulnerable populations and the limitations of what a council can do,” Lennox-Zepp said. “We’d love to fix many social problems and many of those solutions are not within our jurisdiction but this one is. This is something we do have control over.”

Lennox-Zepp’s amendment called for non-profit housing agencies and P.A. Housing Authority to pay a reduced rate for the police base tax, with the precise amount to be determined later by city administration.

Coun. Dennis Ogrodnick opposed the idea.

“The money has to come from somewhere,” he said.

“What your proposing is that people that already pay a lot in taxes will have to pay more,” he continued later in the discussion. “It’s not right, it’s not fair.”

Advocates of the base tax, including Mayor Greg Dionne, have made similar arguments, saying splitting the cost of increased policing evenly across all properties is the most equitable option.

Ogrodnick said the $35 annual tax was “a small amount of money” the equivalent of “one less Slurpee a month.”

His colleague, Coun. Miller objected to that characterization.

“As a person who actually used it

The proposal to reduce the amount of police base tax paid by non-profit housing agencies failed 6-3. Those in favour were: Councillors Charlene Miller, Ted Zurakowski, and Terra Lennox-Zepp. Those opposed were: Councillors Dennis Ogrodnick, Blake Edwards, Dawn Kilmer, Tony Head, Don Cody and Mayor Greg Dionne.

The property tax bylaw passed 8-1 with Lennox-Zepp as the lone dissenting vote.

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alison.sandstrom@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @alisandstrom