MELFORT — Melfort residents will see a slight increase in property taxes this year as the Melfort City Council passed their mill rate bylaw during their last meeting.
Rick Lang, Melfort’s mayor, said this mill rate increase that passed at the April 6 council meeting was to address the $129,000 deficit that the city was facing following the 2020 budget process.
The previous mill rate was 10.40 mills and was increased to 10.75 mills, which raised the $129,000 the city needed, Lang said.
Increased mill rate impacts everyone, Lang said, with the average property tax increase being around 2.07 per cent. Lower property values will see around 1.99 to 1.95 per cent while higher assessed properties will see around 2.1 to 2.15 per cent.
This is a fairly average property tax increase from year to year, Lang said.
“Over the last eight years since I’ve been mayor, 2.07 per cent is the lowest tax increase we’ve had ever with respect to a new budget.”
Lang said council members had three options when deciding how to cover these costs: increase the base tax, increase the mill rate or do a mixture of both. Increasing the mill rate would keep tax increases around that 2.07 per cent instead of seeing bigger discrepancies with an increased base tax, Lang said, which was the main reason the council chose to do one over the other.
Lang credits covering inflation and contract renewals with the $129,000 budget increase. A wage contract clause that noted a wage increase scheduled for 2020 needed to be addressed with this year’s budget. Costs like increases to protective services budgets that happen every year also have to be offset with the budget, which has to be done either through cutting money from elsewhere or increasing taxes.
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