North Battleford city council has adopted the 2012 operating budget and five-year capital plan with its overall 3.9 per cent mill rate increase for 2012.
Adoption of the budget carried at council by a vote of 5-2 at Monday's council meeting.
Most councillors voiced their approval of the budget and of the process this year. Councillor Grace Lang, who was vocal in her criticism of the budget process last year, said she appreciated the process this year much more, with administration giving status updates on all the projects undertake.
Councillor Don Buglas was also pleased, noting administration's ability to meet the targets set.
"We're moving to a more proactive approach with our budgeting process," Buglas said.
The budget and the process did not receive the same level of enthusiasm from the two councillors who voted against it: Brad Pattinson and Trent Houk.
Houk objected to a failure to address "huge overlaps" in the budget. Pattinson objected to the 4.4 per cent increase for multifamily units. He said apartment buildings would take the "full brunt of that increase" and rents would "have to go up" as a result.
"At the same time we're writing grants for people to buy condominiums," Pattinson said.
Mayor Ian Hamilton responded that the multifamily rate was more an issue of tax policy, not the budget process, and how it is allocated.
In speaking to reporters afterwards, the mayor did leave the door open to the possibility of tax policy changes in the future for multi-family units.
"It will be something that should be reviewed by the tax policy committee," said Hamilton.
"We will be looking into that into the future to see if there are some areas we can address that are not in line with other taxing bodies across the province."
Also introduced were three bylaws setting the water, sewer and refuse collection rates for 2012. Those required three readings each in order to be passed at council, but made it through only two readings before Pattinson and Houk refused to give unanimous consent. Houk explained this was mainly to allow the public a chance to weigh in on the rate changes before final passage.
The next step for council will be introduction and passage of bylaws establishing the new mill rate. Mayor Ian Hamilton told reporters after the meeting he expects those bylaws to be introduced at the next council meeting Jan. 23.
The water, sewer and sanitation rate bylaws will also come back for third reading and expected passage at that time.
The amount of the property tax increase will vary for individual taxpayers. The general mill rate will be rising from 18.18 to 18.76.
Residential and condo taxpayers can expect a 3.1 per cent increase, but it will rise by 13.3 per cent for owners of vacant residential land, 4.3 per cent for agriculture, 4.4 per cent for multifamily property and three per cent for elevators, pipelines and commercial property.
The protective services base tax goes up from $559 to $593, which is assessed to single family and condo properties only, with a third placed on vacant residential. There is no change to the Recreation Culture Capital Facilities Levy this year with the only change coming to the Commercial Industrial RCCF mill rate, which is adjusted slightly from 3.858 to 3.854.
As for water and sewer rates, customers using 25 cubic meters will see their water rate increase 3.4 per cent while their sanitary sewage rate would go up 2.9 per cent. Residential pickup will go up $1 per residential unit.
