City of Humboldt Mayor Rob Muench does not believe in abatement for new businesses.
And he said as much at the Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce Annual General Meeting on March 29.
But that does not mean the City of Humboldt is writing off abatements completely.
“We are doing some studies with other similar sized cities in the province to see what they’re doing, if that’s helping or hurting them, if it’s hindering us from attracting businesses.”
Existing businesses need support, says Stacey Poss, executive director of the Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce but it is a balancing act between supporting current businesses and attracting new ones.
“I’m glad they are taking the time to look at this because I don’t know if there is a blanket solutionor abatement policy for anything.”
More research needs to be done, says Poss, with the city looking into it from their end. The Chamber will also start looking into it through other Chambers and directors to see what can be done to advocate for businesses.
Commercial building permits in 2017 were over double that of 2016 and 2015 combined, which means that Humboldt is still attracting businesses and businesses are expanding, says Muench.
But what he would rather see is the city trying to keep down property taxes for businesses.
The ratio between commercial and residential property taxes is slightly offside right now and Muench says that there are less businesses than residents trying to balance the scales.
They need to have a look at that, says Muench.
Recent Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency reassessments had Humboldt businesses reeling, with some businesses paying double their previous tax bills while others were paying half.
Muench says that warehouse businesses were deemed more valuable compared to office space, which meant taxes increased for the former and dropped for the latter.
Because of this, the City of Humboldt is going to have a hard look at their tax policy in the next year, says Muench.
“We’re going to be looking at those numbers and look where SAMA categorized different categories of buildings. You can apply a certain mill rate of certain groups of buildings to try and bring that down.”
To try and keep the tax revenue neutral, that means if one category of buildings goes down, that means others have to go up, says Muench.
City staff were able to approve $100,000 of tax appeals for local business which is considered lost revenue for the city. However, Muench says that those losses were budgeted for.
