2017 Budget Release

NEWS RELEASE

DATE: May 4, 2017

RE: 2017 Budget Release

The 2017 budget was a challenging budget requiring difficult decisions to be made to balance the budget while ensuring key programs such as infrastructure maintenance and repair and the transfer to infrastructure replacement are not compromised.

2017 was an assessment revaluation year, with a base year of January 1, 2015. The property assessment has increased substantially from 2016 values particularly in the lower assessed residential properties. The City combated this valuation increase with a roll back of the Mill Rate from 11.04 to 9.30 and tried to address fluctuation of assessments within property sectors through adjusted Mill Rate Factors. The preliminary budget deficit was 3.38% of the tax base with additional requests of .80% for a total of 4.18%.

The unexpected provincial government discontinuation of the Crown Corporations Grant in Lieu payments caused an additional shortfall to the 2017 budget of $254,767 or 4.61% of the tax base. Council explored options to minimize the impact on property tax without reducing maintenance of City infrastructure and without drawdown of reserves to balance the budget. Council approved reductions of one-time savings, program reductions where the province has discontinued funding, and a hiring freeze on seasonal vacancies. Council will continue to review programs and service levels for 2018 to deal with the loss in revenue from the provincial government.

To meet additional growth and inflationary pressures, Council has approved a Mill Rate increase of .56 to 9.86. This option will combat the proportionately higher increases to the lower assessed residential properties due to revaluation.

For a residential property with a taxable assessment of 200,000, this will mean an increase of $86.24 or 4.10% and for commercial property with a taxable assessment of 250,000, this will mean an increase of $263.19 or 5.20%. When taking into account the wide spectrum of taxable properties that exist in the City of Melfort, this will translate into an average tax increase of 4.07%.

For details on the City of Melfort 2017 budget, please contact Sandy Peterson at City Hall.