In his address to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) convention held last week, Finance Minister Ken Krawetz announced the final stage of Education Property Tax reform.
"Today's announcement completes the largest education property tax cut in the history of Saskatchewan, reducing the agricultural mill rate from 7.08 to 3.91 as promised," Krawetz said.
In 2009, the government changed the funding formula which reduced the burden of Education Property Tax for all ratepayers.
"Once fully implemented in the upcoming budget, the education portion of property taxes on agricultural land will have been reduced by a total of 80 percent," Krawetz said. "This includes an additional $31.3 million reduction in 2011. At the same time, we are committed to a corresponding increase in the provincial share of education funding."
At the recent Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities (SUMA) convention, Premier Brad Wall announced that the new municipal revenue sharing formula would also be fully implemented in the 2011-12 budget, with one point of the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) going to municipalities.
"Overall, municipalities will receive 2011-12 funding of $216.8 million, with rural municipalities and organized hamlets seeing an increase to $62.9 million, up $14.3 million in the last fiscal year," Krawetz said.
Additional funding was announced during the SARM convention; $500,000 in new funding was announced to help RMs remove beavers and dams in areas where they are causing damage. This will be a one-year pilot program administered by SARM.
Additional funding of $150,000 was also announced for SARM to administer rat control programming. The provincial government will now provide a total of $750,000 to SARM in 2011-12 for rat control.
Continued funding for gopher control will also take place in 2011-12. Under the Gopher Control Rebate Program producers and RMs are eligible to receive a 50 percent rebate on eligible gopher control products. Producers and RMs will also be able to access two percent strychnine in 2011 to help control gophers.
