CARROT RIVER — Carrot River’s tax increase will be higher than expected.
The town originally budgeted for a 1.9 per cent increase in taxes, but at the March 20 council meeting, they voted to change that to a 2.75 per cent increase.
Kevin Trew, Carrot River’s town administrator, said the reason for the increase is due to capital projects.
“We want to do some paving, we know there are going to be some more storm sewer repairs happening in the near future so we want to make sure we’re prepared for all expenses in the near future,” he said.
Trew said council also wants to take into account the cost of borrowing.
“We have borrowed in the past for many years, and whenever we borrow we want to make sure we have the funds to pay for that cost of borrowing.”
Trew said council remains happy with the property tax amount.
“It’s more than what we expected, but when we started plugging in numbers, and council was happy with the numbers. We actually had a discussion at our committee meeting about how that affects average taxpayers. Most people will look at about a $60 increase over the last year.”
Minimum taxation has gone from $1,381 to $1,450.
Base tax for residential was changed to $1,050, which is an increase from the previous year which was about $900. Base tax on commercial, elevator and industrial class were raised to $700.
The mill rate was lowered from 5.2 to 4.90.
“We did not set the mill rate with our budget. We actually just did an approximate of what we thought the tax increase would need to run a balanced budget then we actually plugged in the numbers with council and there’s another $20,000 to put through surplus.”
The mill rate is a charge per $1,000 of assessed value on a home, business or property.
Local purchasing
Council also decided to start looking locally for equipment in the future.
“Some of our equipment that been warranted we been buying from the manufacturer,” Trew said. “Council has suggested maybe we start looking locally at off-brand filters and whatnot, support even more local businesses and also try to get some cost savings as well.”
Fire truck sale
The Town of Carrot River has also decided to sell their 1982 pumper fire truck.
“We have not used the 1982 pumper truck for a number of years, the last time we used this, we did use it in 2015, and it was a great thing to use when we dealt with La Ronge fires. It was a very good truck. Unfortunately it has not passed the pump test for three years now so really we can’t count on if it would fail at an emergency.”
Trew said the fire truck purchased in 2014 was meant to replace this one.
Anybody can buy this truck from the town. Trew said they will accept bids after advertising it to the community in the next four to six weeks.
“This will be a public offering soon, and that’s good. It will be a good thing. We already got an offer on it but we will send out tenders.”
