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Kelowna taxpayers will be paying a little less than expected this year as City Council approved the final 2015 budget on Monday with a municipal tax increase of 3.2 per cent.
Photo credit: KelownaNow.
This increase is lower than the 3.46 per cent increase approved by Council at the provisional budget deliberations held in January.
Breaking this number down, a tax rate of 3.2 per cent means the owner of a single-family home with an average assessed value of $467,730 will pay $55.42 more in property taxes than last year.
From a business standpoint, there was a 1.56 per cent change in taxation and a difference of $18,900 considering an assessed value of $1.23 million.
“It’s normal to see changes between provisional and final budget,” said Financial Planning Manager George King. “We have access to new information between August and May, such as emergent items, which are included in the final budget. This final budget, we saw an increase in revenues from the FortisBC Franchise Fee for natural gas sales in Kelowna and a reduction in capital expenditure due to the removal of the Cameron House restoration project. This equals the 0.26 per cent reduction in tax demand from the provisional budget.”
Making up a total of 34 per cent of this year’s budget, Kelowna’s civic operations is the largest recipient of our tax dollars, which is followed closely by policing services at 25 per cent.
Photo credit: City of Kelowna agenda minutes.
Moving into the future, the City of Kelowna projects a 2016 budget impact of 1.54 per cent or a taxation demand of $120 million with a net operating budget of nearly $119 million.
Overall, Council was happy with this year's budget.
“I’m very pleased with the [tax increase,]” said Councillor Luke Stack. “At the beginning of this year our goal was to keep the [tax increase] as close to three per cent as possible and I think these changes bring us very, very close to that. I’m very pleased to see where we’ve ended up.”
Taxation accounts for 24 per cent of the City of Kelowna revenues for 2015, with 76 per cent garnered from sources such as grants, reserve funds, fees, and charges.
According to the City of Kelowna, this year’s tax increase will continue to provide citizens with a quality level of service, infrastructure, and amenities in a cost-effective manner.
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