Locally, social media exploded last week with outrage and disbelief as local property owners received their 2017 revaluations.
The Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) had forewarned the 2017 revaluation would see residential properties in Saskatchewan rise, on average, by approximately 18 per cent. It also announced long ago that taxable value would rise from 70 per cent of assessed value to 80 per cent.
According to Lonnie Kaal, Yorkton city manager, the average increase in Yorkton is significantly higher at around 25 per cent than the provincial average.
And that 25 per cent is definitely not evenly distributed.
On the Facebook Page Roses and Raspberries Yorkton, users reported increases in assessed home values ranging up to $221,000. One employee of this newspaper saw an increase in assessed value from approximately $60,000 to $108,000, or $42,000 to $86,000 taxable, more than double.
Other homeowners, particularly in the newest neighbourhoods of the city, actually saw a slight decrease in assessed value.
Much of the frustration on social media was directed at the City of Yorkton, but the City is not responsible for the assessments.
Shannon Bell, the city’s director of finance, explained their process. In a nutshell, the City determines its budget for the year, then calculates what tax rate is required based on the total assessment base in order to raise the money it requires for capital projects and operations.
“Everyone thinks taxation is complex, but it’s really quite simple,” Bell said.
Three weeks ago, the City tabled a preliminary budget that proposed a 6.8 per cent increase in the tax rate, but that did not take into account the new assessment numbers, which they did not have during budget deliberations.
Last, week, Bell issued a document (available on the City’s website) explaining the relationship between assessments and tax rates. AS an example, the document uses a residential property that saw an increase in assessed value from $244,100 to $279,600 (30.9 per cent). For 2016, the taxable value would have been $170,870 ($244,100 x 0.70). For 2017, the taxable value will be $223,680 ($279,600 x 0.80).
If the City did not require any increase in total revenue, the tax rate would go from 5.25 to 4.01.
“That’s the easy piece,” Kaal said. “If the average assessment increase is 25 per cent, we just drop the tax rate by 25 per cent and we get the same money.”
Of course, the bottom line on individual tax bills is slightly more complicated than that due to a number of factors.
First, the City is looking for more money, 6.8 per cent or so. Secondly, not all increases are created equal. To take the Yorkton This Week employee mentioned above, even a neutral tax ask from the City would cost them $126 more in city taxes this year.
In addition, commercial assessments are going up an average of 44 per cent and taxes are levied on the full assessed value on those. So depending on how the City balances residential versus business property taxes, individual amounts could be further skewed.
There is also the education piece that is still a complete unknown because the Province sets the mill rate for schools and municipalities are still waiting for the provincial budget to drop before finalizing their own.
In the meantime, property owners who disagree with their new assessment can appeal. The process starts with contacting SAMA to discuss how they arrived at the value of their property.
If they believe there is an error, they must submit an application to the local Board of Revision (City of Yorkton) along with a fee of $100 by 4 p.m. on May 8.
If the appeal is rejected, they can request a review by the Saskatchewan Municipal Board and, if there are legal matters, it can be taken to the Court of Appeals.
