The Thompson Regional Hospital District has begun the process to decrease its tax requisition for the 2024 budget, and its asking the province to pay the difference.

The TRHD board expects to decrease the tax requisition by approximately $271,343 (or 1.7 per cent), to account for properties in Sun Rivers and Sienna Ridge, which do not directly contribute to the TRHD budget as they’re located on Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc reserve lands.

“After discussions with Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc leadership, we understand that sufficient taxation is collected from properties in these neighbourhoods due to the Locatee Lease Policy that is applied by the Government of Canada, and we are aligned with Tk’emlúps in this,” Hospital Board Chair Mike O’Reilly said.

“This reduction in taxation is to make sure that taxpayers in other communities of our hospital district are not continuing to absorb these additional costs to meet the TRHD’s annual contributions.”

O’Reilly says the total tax requisition for the 2023 budget was just under $16.4 million, a 1.5 per cent increase over the previous year. Essentially, it means that an average home in the area covered by the TRHD that was assessed at $600,000 would have paid approximately $179.58 in hospital taxes.

“This reduction in taxation will mean that the Province of BC will need to prepare to fund this difference,” O’Reilly added.

The TRHD typically funds about 40 per cent of capital equipment purchases at healthcare facilities within its boundaries, with the province and Interior Health covering the rest. If needed, the TRHD borrows money to cover its share, using tax dollars to pay back its debt.

Efforts to get residents in Sun Rivers and Sienna Ridge to pay hospital taxes have been going back a number of years.

“We’re not looking for a contribution from TteS, their membership, the band itself, nor the commercial properties. We are looking for non-Indigenous locatees which have properties,” Former Hospital Board Chair – and Kamloops Mayor – Ken Christian told Radio NL in 2021.

“I see little difference between Tobiano, Rivershore and Sun Rivers. Except that Tobiano and Rivershore pay hospital taxes, and Sun Rivers doesn’t.”

O’Reilly says the reduction in the hospital board’s budget will be adjusted each year based on property assessments in Sun Rivers and Sienna Ridge.

He expects the TRHD will raise the issue with B.C. cabinet ministers at next week’s Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Whistler.