Kamloops taxpayers are looking at a 4.92 per cent property tax increase this year, up slightly from the provisional 4.89 per cent increase that was presented to council last year.

This new figure comes as City Councillors approved a number of supplemental budget items at a Committee of the Whole meeting Tuesday morning.

“Since [we presented the last provisional budget], staff had gone back and assessed whether or not some of our assumptions were solid, and looked at some of the new costs of doing things,” Corporate Services Director, Kathy Humphrey told NL News

“We were able to drop just over $400,000 from the original budget, taking the increase down to about 4.5 per cent and then council considered the supplemental items and brought it back up to 4.92 per cent.”

At that 4.92 per cent, this is the highest tax increase in recent Kamloops history, coming after last year’s 0.93 per cent, the lowest in several decades. The average tax increase in Kamloops over the past decade has been around two per cent.

More than half of the 2022 increase will be going towards policing, thanks in large part to the new national RCMP contract, with the City owing back pay from 2017 to the Mounties.

Earlier this month, the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce said it wants to see the 2022 property tax hike come in no higher than five per cent.

“Council considered most of the supplemental items that were before them,” Humphrey added. “The couple of ones they did not approve were the LED lightning for City Hall as well as creating a public Wi-Fi network.”

“And they didn’t approve the train whistle project, however they did ask staff to go back and consider options and then to present them with some options and some more solid designs and cost considerations at a future date.”

Another supplemental budget item that was approved with conditions was the rehabilitation of the Kamloops Tennis Centre, though Humphrey says councillors were in favour of it funding request as a loan and not a grant.

The biggest impact to the tax bill was funding the City’s new community climate action plan at an estimated 0.35 per cent increase a year for the next ten years.

“The average house went up 27 per cent. If you’re kind of in the range of 25, 26, 27 per cent, your property taxes are probably going up around five per cent,” Humphrey said, when asked what the average increase to taxes would be.”

“If you’re more, you’ll see probably more than the 4.92, and if you’re house went up less than 25 or 26 per cent, then you probably will actually see less than a five per cent tax increase.”

Humphrey added a couple of formalities still need to take place in the weeks and months ahead, before tax notices get put into the mail.

“We need to take this information and turn it into an actual bylaw. We essentially present the budget in a bylaw format and council will take two meetings to read it and then adopt it as well as the tax rate,” she said. “We also just got the completed rolls from BC Assessment yesterday, so now that we know what the tax requirements are, we will calculate what the mill rates are for each of the tax classes and take that to council in a bylaw.”

Humphrey notes all of that will need to take place by the May 10 meeting, as it needs to be approved by May 15.

You can expect to get your tax notices shortly after the May long weekend, with taxes due on Monday, July 4.

You’ll find Humphrey’s report to the Committee of the Whole meeting here.