Melfort property tax raised by 2.09 per cent

MELFORT — The total property tax levy will increase in Melfort by 2.09 per cent.

The increase was a part of the budget that passed Melfort council on Feb. 11.

“We looked at the inflationary aspects and any additional requests that we had and we were looking of funding a deficit of $125,353, and that is the 2.09 per cent tax increase,” said Rick Lang, Melfort’s mayor.

The mill rate has been increased to 10.46 mills, an increase of .23 mills. The base tax has increased on single residential properties by $12, which makes it now $686. Vertical condominium base tax has been increased by $8, making it $488.

The cost increase is mainly due to inflation, Lang said.

“We take the increased assessment, any new houses that come on stream that are taxable – we add those into the amount that we receive,” Lang said. “But then we also put all the inflationary aspects onto the budget and that tells us how much we need to raise in excess of how much we have. Unfortunately the new assessment coming online never really covers off the inflationary aspect of what we have to raise to make the budget balanced.”

The city found they were in a deficit of $187,000 due to inflation.

They looked at additional requests to the city. There was $50,000 worth of proposals being requested, of which the city approved approximately $11,000 resulting in that being added to the $187,000 to make it about $198,000.

The new assessment values from the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency dropped that to about $30,000. Administration went back through and found some efficiencies to lower it further. This all put the money down to the approximately $125,000 that the tax increase is paying. 

The landfill was also brought up in the budget.

The current landfill will be having consultations done in 2019 to ensure everything is in compliance with current regulations.

“Once we get the engineering work finalized and we know just what we have to do we will be budgeting more money in the 2020 budget,” Lang said. “At this point in time we don’t know the full ramifications of what the landfill is going to cost us but we do know that for 2019 we’re going to spend just over $100,000.”

The $100,000 is budgeted for some engineering work to cover a complete study of the landfill and give the city an idea of the work that will need to be done, as well as the cost associated with the work. The new work would not begin until 2020.

“The [environment] ministry has identified some things they would like to see, so we’re having an engineer look at it to make sure it’s all we’re stuck with and make sure there is no surprises.”