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Tax rates could maintain status quo

Turner Valley property owners will likely see little change in their property taxes this year. At its May 6 regular meeting, town council passed first reading to maintain the municipal tax rate at last year’s level.
Turner Valley Municipal Building
Turner Valley Town council passed first reading for its tax rate bylaw, which maintains the same rate as last year for residential and non-residential properties, at last week’s meeting.

Turner Valley property owners will likely see little change in their property taxes this year.

At its May 6 regular meeting, town council passed first reading to maintain the municipal tax rate at last year’s level. Based on the total assessments for 2019, it will result in an estimated $14,220 surplus for the operational budget that council adopted in March.

If the tax rate bylaw is approved, this means the average home valued at $350,000 would see a $30 decline in municipal taxes over last year and the average business with the same value would experience a $33 drop.

Mayor Barry Crane said council was careful to not increase costs to residents as it spent months going over the Town’s operating and capital budgets.

“We’re happy with the process that we put in place and the questions that we asked to get where we are,” he said. “We looked internally to find savings where we could and this year we shaved $200,000 off operation costs. We also got $273,000 and change in surplus at the end of the budget after the audit was done. That will go back into reserves.”

This year marks the third consecutive year council maintained its tax rate, something Crane said can’t continue in future years.

“Holding the line again is nice, but it’s not sustainable,” he said. “At some point we’ll have to look at the projects we choose to go forward with and see where they affect future budgets. We’ve done a hard job of keeping it where it’s at so we’re just going to have to be very diligent of what we're going to approve going forward.”

Todd Sharpe, the Town’s chief administrative officer, said the amount property owners will pay in taxes this year will all depend on the value of their home or business.

“Someone could have had undeveloped land that was partially finished last year so they paid the old tax rate and if it was completed in 2018 and reassessed in 2019 the number goes up,” he said. “Not everyone is going to see a decrease. Someone might have built a garage so that’s going to change the number there.”

Sharpe said property assessments assign a dollar value to properties, which is used to calculate the amount of taxes charged to property owners.

“Assessed value is not an appraised value, it’s a value assigned to every property for taxation purposes,” he said. “It’s not a perfect science. They look at comparable properties, sales values, improvements. They don’t assess every property, they make assumptions based on the year built, size and features. There’s not a capacity to assess every property in every municipality.”

In addition to the Town’s operating budget of $3,039,527, taxpayers must also pay the education and Westwinds Communities requisition. Turner Valley’s portion of the Westwinds requisition is $48,825.

In the absence of a new assessment passed along from the Province in time for setting the tax bylaw, administration recommended assuming no change by the Province and setting the tax rate accordingly, Sharpe said.

“We had an election and change of government so that’s been delayed,” he said. “We can maintain a rate and then do a catch up period next year or we could make some assumptions about what might happen and try to collect that. We’ve chosen to maintain the rate and do the collection next year, if needed.”

Sharpe said administration feels it shouldn’t take money from taxpayers before it’s needed.

“We’re not talking a large amount of money either way,” he said. “The information we’re getting is it likely won’t be a large adjustment either way.”

Turner Valley’s municipal tax rate bylaw will come back to council for consecutive readings at its May 21 meeting.

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