The final act in the budget process has been completed. The bylaws setting North Battleford’s mill rates are now passed and the tax mailings can go out.
Five bylaws were passed in three readings at a city council meeting Monday. Passed were the amendment of the subclasses bylaw, the bylaw to establish mill rate factors, the bylaw to authorize the tax levy, minimum and base taxes and the BID levy, the bylaw levying of base tax for UPAR, and the bylaw to amend penalties for non-payment of taxes.
While the bylaws are now passed, the actual taxes will not likely go out until mid-July, due largely to some staffing issues over the next few weeks.
At council Monday, director of finance Steve Brown went into detail about the property taxation process for 2019.
According to Brown, the increase to the uniform mill rate is four per cent, from 12.97 up to 13.488.
All other base taxes including the residential base tax and Recreation Capital Facilities levy for condo and residential properties go up four per cent. The commercial and industrial class mill rate is going up from 1.36 mills to 1.41 mills.
The provincial downloading levy brought in after the 2017 budget will be merged with the overall uniform mill rate to simplify the tax notice. As for UPAR levies, those were not increased.
There are no changes to mill rate factors with the exception of the commercial and industrial assessment; Brown said there were significant challenges on the assessment from last year to this year. For commercial and industrial assessment, mill rate factors are being increased 2.8 per cent from 1.1155 to 1.1467.
One additional subclass is being created. A large Commercial and Industrial subclass has been created with a mill rate factor of 15.92; this covers all properties with a building with 100,000 or more square feet.
In his final comments Brown noted that anticipated revenue is $540,609 short on the tax line compared to what they had in the budget. The budgeted revenue had been $10,566,540, but the anticipated revenue from the mill rate is now estimated at $10,025,931.
This should not come as a surprise, Brown said. He also noted this was strictly due to reassessment challenges.
