COLD LAKE - City of Cold Lake council reviewed the continuation of a program that will ensure low-income senior homeowners continue to receive financial relief through a property tax rebate at its April 22 regular meeting,
The Seniors Rebate Program, formally known as Policy 099-FN-07, was first introduced in 2007 with the goal of shielding qualifying senior property owners from municipal tax increases.
The policy has evolved since its inception, with two amendments made in recent years.
“It's a program that was set up to provide benefit to low-income seniors, and the current iteration of the program provides a $100 tax rebate,” said Kristy Isert, general manager of Corporate Services, during her presentation to council.
In 2022, the City simplified the program by removing the requirement that a resident's tax bill must increase by more than $5 to qualify. Instead, any senior meeting the income criteria of the Alberta Seniors Benefit Program is eligible for the $100 rebate. That change alone increased the program’s reach from two users in 2021 to 22 in 2022.
The biggest shift came in 2023, when the City entered into an information sharing agreement with the Province of Alberta, allowing it to automatically receive a list of Cold Lake seniors who qualify for the Alberta Seniors Benefit.
“So, as the program evolved over the years, the largest or most significant of those changes was . . . when the city discovered the province of Alberta could provide a listing of seniors who qualified for the Alberta seniors benefit in early May based on the April 30 tax filing. In order to do that, an information sharing agreement has to be entered into so we did try that for the first time in 2023,” Isert explained.
The new data-sharing method quickly improved the program by simplifying the process and increasing participation, with the number of seniors receiving the rebate rising to 62 in both 2023 and 2024.
“Under the program when the information is shared with the City, then we're able to just apply the rebate to the taxes for the eligible seniors, removing the whole convoluted application process for them,” Isert explained.
The City has already allocated $6,500 in the 2025 budget to continue supporting the 62 anticipated recipients of the $100 rebate, according to the City of Cold Lake.
Council made a motion to approve the data sharing agreement with the province, ensuring that the streamlined rebate process remains in place for another year.
