BONNYVILLE – Set on a two per cent municipal tax increase across all tax assessment classes, the Town of Bonnyville council passed all three readings of its 2023 Tax Rate Bylaw during a regular meeting on May 9.
In order to achieve an average two per cent tax increase and balance the 2023 operating and capital budgets, the mill rate for residential and multi-family residential assessment classes saw slight decreases, while the mill rate for non-residential properties increased.
The Town’s residential municipal mill rate is set at 7.335, multi-family residential is at 6.5292, while the commercial or non-residential mill rate is set at 11.4388.
Between 2022 and 2023, the residential mill rate for properties decreased by 0.36634 mills due to a number of factors, CAO Bill Rogers told council.
Those factors include a drop in the school requisition, only a slight increase in the senior's requisition, as well as an increase in overall residential assessments.
“The overall multi-family residential mill rate has decreased even more, by 0.78704 mills, due to the same factors but with greater increase in multi-family assessments,” said Rogers.
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Non-residential was the only property class to see a mill rate increase, 0.90856 mills, which was mainly attributed to an overall decrease in non-residential assessments. These properties were also subject to the drop in provincial school requisitions and rise in seniors requisition and the two per cent municipal tax dollar increase.
Included in the property taxes are provincial requisitions for seniors housing, schools and designated industrial properties.
On behalf of the province, the Town will collect just over $2.8 million for schools, $94,571 for seniors housing, and just over $1,000 for designated industrial properties from municipal ratepayers.
Taxes to be levied
On April 25, Town council approved a $30.4 million operating budget and a $21.1 million capital budget for 2023.
With the approved two per cent tax increase, nearly $8.3 million will be raised by general municipal taxation to offset the shortfall in the Town’s operating budget.
Another $22.1 million will be generated through municipal revenues as well as grant funding, transfers from reserves, debenture funding, local improvement taxes and Ward 6 North (ID 349) funding.
With the passing of the 2023 Tax Rate Bylaw, the municipality will be mailing out 2023 property assessments and tax notices before the end of May.
Property owners will have until June 30 to pay their taxes without penalties being applied.
RELATED STORY: Town stays the course with approved 2023 budgets
May 23 meeting cancelled
Town council also approved the cancellation of the May 23 Regular Meeting of Council.
The decision is due to council members and the CAO attending the 2023 Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Conference in Toronto.
The next regular council Meeting will be June 13.
