Council passes ’04 budget

Town council finally passed the 2004 budget Monday night by a 5-1 vote.
Mayor Dan Onichuk and Couns. Tannis Drysdale, Todd Hamilton, Struchan Gilson, and Rick Wiedenhoeft voted in favour of the budget, with Coun. Roy Avis opposing it.
Coun. Neil Kabel, who had voted against the budget in principle at council’s April 26 meeting, was not on hand for Monday night’s meeting.
Except for the mayor, who said he felt “council as a whole” agreed on the budget, no councillors had any comments regarding it at Monday night’s meeting.
And while a public meeting was held before the budget went to the final vote, no residents came forward with comments either in favour or against it.
But yesterday, Coun. Avis said he’s concerned with the overall tax increase in the budget. “And some of the issues in the budget I didn’t agree with,” he added.
But Coun. Avis opted not to elaborate on what the specific issues may be, saying he’d rather wait and see how the budget ends up playing out now that it’s been passed.
After the April 26 meeting, in which the budget was passed in principle, Coun. Kabel said he felt the commercial tax increase of 1.9 percent was too much for already over-burdened business owners.
It was previously reported that the 2004 budget would see tax hike of 14.6 percent for residential, multi-residential, pipeline, and farmland properties, along with an increase of 1.9 percent for commercial and 7.33 for industrial.
But town treasurer Peggy Dupuis clarified Wednesday morning that, after all adjustments are made, the actual increases will end up being less than that.
“For residential taxpayers, the Town of Fort Frances raised taxes 14.6 percent. However, the impact will be reduced because of a couple of factors,” she remarked.
“First, the education taxes on each home on average has gone down four percent; this means the total increase, on average, per home would be 11.6 percent,” Dupuis said.
“Secondly, this year the Ministry of Finance introduce a new procedure for allocating taxes across classes.
“Because the total value of residential dwellings increased this year, on average, each home will see a further reduction of three percent [the residential assessment went from $287,975,240 in 2003 to $302,091,320].
“The final average total increase will, therefore, be 14.6 percent minus seven percent, equalling 7.6 percent.”
Dupuis noted the increase in the multi-residential class is also 14.6 percent, but because of a “huge assessment decrease [$16,064,000 in 2003 versus $11,476,000 in 2004],” as well as a reduction in education rates equal to residential education rates, the net increase in the multi-residential tax rate is roughly 50 percent.
“It is likely, however, that if the assessment reductions were applied equally, each property owner will not see any change in the actual dollars they pay in taxes,” noted Dupuis.
The tax increase for the industrial class is 7.3 percent.
“There was very little assessment change and very little change in the education tax rates that left a net increase in the industrial tax rate of six percent,” said Dupuis.
“The commercial class saw a tax increase of 1.9 percent, with the assessment changing from $50,203,062 in 2003 to $60,934,602 in 2004, which caused a small reduction in the tax rate,” she added.
“The education tax rates were also reduced slightly, resulting in a net reduction and making the 2004 commercial tax rates .98 percent of the 2003 commercial tax rates.”
Residents likely won’t see their tax bills until early July, said Dupuis, as the town must submit the new tax ratios to the Ministry of Finance for approval first.