Duane Hicks
Town council hasn’t yet made a decision on the 2017 budget.
While the majority of council has no problem with a zero percent tax levy increase this year, some expressed concerns with certain aspects of the operating budget at yesterday afternoon’s budget meeting.
“We’re at the point where the budget is ready, but tonight there’s some minor issues that have come forward to the table that council’s going to have to consider,” Mayor Roy Avis said after the meeting.
“We will be addressing the outcome of the budget on Monday [April 24],” he added, noting the minor issues are in-camera items (personnel matters) that he feels bear more discussion.
A vote to finalize the operating budget was tied at 3-3 (Coun. Doug Kitowski was not in attendance).
The budget currently includes a zero percent levy increase, which means the town will be collecting the same amount of tax dollars as last year.
But treasurer Laurie Lindberg clarified that because of the assessment loss, in order for the town to collect the same amount as last year, tax rates still will have to change.
Two tax scenarios presented to council show residential tax rates going up either
0.87 percent or 1.28 percent, but no decision was made yesterday.
Mayor Avis said there’s been “hurdles” during the budget process, including a decrease in assessment overall both in commercial and residential, including reductions for the “big box” stores.
At the same time, council and administration has remained mindful of the fact some property owners’ assessments are increasing dramatically.
By not increasing operational costs within the municipality and by finding savings, they have striven to mitigate the impact as best they can.
“People are going to be really surprised when they get their final tax bills because within the municipality, approximately 50 percent of the people’s tax assessment is going to go down and roughly 50 percent is going to go up,” Mayor Avis noted.
“There’s some tremendous changes which council has no control over,” he stressed.
“That’s all done by MPAC [the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation].”
Fort Frances CAO Doug Brown said residents should be aware that council has been “grappling” with this big assessment change that was directed from the province.
To come out of it with zero percent tax levy increase is pretty much unheard of “in this day and age,” he noted.
“You’re doing a good job for your community,” Brown remarked.
“The reason why we’re doing all of this is because we care about the taxpayers,” he added.
