Existing taxpayers in the city of Kamloops are looking at a tax levy increase of 2.97%.
Mayor Ken Christian thinks it has achieved a good balance. “I think that we have some new initiatives underway, we have maintained the core services that people expect us to provide and we’re competitive. When you look at neighbouring communities, some double that in terms of a tax increase and we like to think of Kamloops as an affordable city.”
Councillor Mike O’Reilly says that 2.97% figure is admirable particularly when we compare ourselves to other nearby communities. “Last we saw Kelowna’s sitting at about 4.1%, Mission 4.9%, Maple Ridge 3.8%, Vancouver 7%, Vernon 4.9%, West Kelowna 4.8%. We are significantly below multiple municipalities in British Columbia.”
Corporate Services Director Kathy Humphrey does her best to explain what that means to the average homeowner. At Tuesday’s meeting she said “like I have communicated in the past is that there really isn’t really an average home out there. Your average home would have to increase from average to average.” But, speaking on The Jeff Andreas Show on Wednesday, she did her best to put that into perspective. “Basically, if your home had the average value last year, which was about $410,000, and your house has the average home value this year, which has gone up to $443,000, you’re looking at about $65.”
Humphrey says growth is projected 1.25% this year. “We are anticipating about $1.4 million in growth, which is 1.25% off our budget, which brings us down to just over $3 million add to our budget. So that brings us to just over $115 million which is funded by property taxes.”
Humphrey it is a little bit tough to project those growth numbers. “We work really closely with BC Assessment to get their read on what’s happening in the community. They provide our revenue team and our taxation team with updates throughout the year in terms of the growth and what they’re projecting for new businesses and new buildings within the community. But what we do… we budget a little bit conservative because we don’t want to be too high and not collect enough money and then what we do is just sort of buffer the difference, because generally it is only a little bit of a difference year over year, t cover our estimates on either side.”
City council adopted some additional items at yesterday’s meeting and now the budget document just needs to be ratified and the tax rates set. Council will do that some time in April.
