SANDRA M STANWAY
Brooks Bulletin
The county continues to support a 2.49 per cent increase in property tax revenue for 2025 although it doesn’t keep pace with inflationary pressures.
County CAO Matt Fenske said the restricted surplus is allowing for the lower rate but it won’t last forever.
Fenske said that if there isn’t assessment growth in the county, “We do start to erode our savings account.”
On Thursday county council held their interim budget meeting diving in once more into council and staff wish lists before meetings in December including approval of the interim budget.
When looking at other rural municipalities, in 2024 the county was below the residential, farmland and non-residential tax rates and while there is some room to increase property taxes it was not yet recommended.
“You have some capacity to grow your property tax rates if you need to. I’d prefer that we don’t if we can manage that,” Fenske said.
“If we could get our non-residential rate into the top 10, I think that would be pretty cool but I don’t want to be competitive on tax rates if it means sacrificing service levels.”
The oil and gas tax holiday that was put in place by the province is due to end in 2025. That will result in assessment returning to the county and would allow for a 3.61 per cent property tax revenue growth or $1.3 million.
The county is balancing whether or not rates, such as utility and farm, are high enough while they try to extend the life on capital items.
When the municipality compares what is proposed next year to 2019 the county’s net municipal property tax revenue will increase by $635,899 or from $33.147 million in 2019 to $33.783 million in 2025.
There is $1.7 million in budget pressure including $839,123 for policing, a reduction in provincial grants, high inflation, declining linear assessment, a tight labour market and the increase of sharing funds with the municipalities.
Fenske estimated that the county will receive $1.7 million in Local Government Fiscal Framework (LGFF), which about half of what was received through the previous program, MSI.
The county has about $27.1 million in capital projects for 2025 including road, curb and gutter work in Blocks 1 and 4 at Lake Newell Resort, bridge replacement, gravel road rehabilitation, construction of an access road off Township Road 192N (Gun Club) to JBS Food and upgrading a portion of the truck route possibly Range Road 150 between Highway 1 and Township Road 192.
The debt level will increase by $640,000 as old debts are offset by new including $750,000 for the Lake Newell Resort path.
A full time ag technician and deputy fire chief could be hired in 2025, construction of a dirt BMX park at Emerson Park Bridge Campground is being considered for 2026, concrete rail crossing improvements in four locations including RR151 west of Brooks and three in the Bassano area.
Consideration is being given to develop the west side of Tilley as a future residential subdivision so the county is looking at investing money for engineering.
There will be a three per cent increase in utility rates which will result in another $3.26 per month for 15 cubic metres of water in the hamlets and $1.94 per month for the rural water system. Mini bus users can expect a $2 increase per trip from $20 to $22 per trip.
The fire budget has a fairly significant increase proposed including $221,000 for expenses to include a deputy fire chief, contracted services, materials, transfers to other organizations and $78,000 for replacement extrication equipment.
The final tax amounts aren’t expected to be presented until after the reading of the provincial budget in the spring when the school taxes and other amounts are in place.
