The average residential property owner in Squamish can expect to pay $160 more on their municipal property taxes this year.
On Thursday (April 25), at a special business meeting, District of Squamish council passed the first three readings of the 2013 budget. The final stamp of approval is likely to follow at the regular business meeting on Tuesday (May 7).
Property taxes for the average residential property will jump by 10.2 per cent, said Christine Matthews, the municipality's manager of financial planning. Owners of single-family dwellings can anticipate a 9 per cent tax hike, amounting to $182, while the average strata faces a 9.7 per cent jump, equalling an approximate $120 lift.
Other, smaller classes of residential properties including residential vacant land and residential farm will see a higher percentage increase, officials said.
Each homeowner will be impacted differently, each property based on their assessment value, Matthews said.
Businesses owners can anticipate $560 more on their property tax bills a 10.4 per cent increase.
Councillors Ron Sander and Patricia Heintzman voted against the taxes. The rate is too high and the expectations created in the budget, including increases in grants and services, aren't sustainable, Sander said.
I think we are going to be in a position where we have to potentially look at knocking them back next year and I don't think that is a good management basis to jump up and jump back, he said.
Council failed in its scrutiny of the budget, Heintzman said. The process was flawed and the increases are too high, she said.
We should have been tougher. We should have been more determined through staff to find some cuts, she said.
Councillors had time to make suggestions on how to get figures down, Coun. Ted Prior retorted, adding officials did cut the increase down from an approximate 12 per cent tax hike.
If we are going down a wrong path, then speak up, he said. So we went through all these days and I think we've come to a point now where if we wanted to do some serious cutting it should have been three days in, not nine days in.
Stating that the tax increases need to drop, without making suggestions of how to get there, isn't meaningful, Coun. Doug Race said. Council had weeks to review service levels and determine what components could be cut, he noted.
I am personally happy with the service levels that we are providing with this budget, Race said.
The 2013 municipal budget increases are not something anyone is particularly pleased with, Mayor Rob Kirkham said. But it meets the community's municipal expectations, he noted.
Council has already committed to start looking at the 2014 budget in June, Kirkham said, with in-depth discussion unfolding in September and October. That process change is something district officials have talked about for years, but never achieved, he said.
We have planned for it, we have set dates for it and it's in our agenda planner, Kirkham said.
For more information on the budget visit www.squamish.ca.
