Sechelt council has started work on the district’s 2020 operating budget.
At a committee of the whole meeting Jan. 22, director of finance David Douglas started with a review of changes in the tax roll for the district, which is down for the first time in several years.
Much of the revenue potential for Sechelt depends on the residential tax base, and this year a combination of fewer new residential properties being added to the roll, lower assessments, and the loss of $14 million from the tax base because of the write-down of the Seawatch properties, means a reduction of 4.9 per cent in the amount of taxable resident property value from 2019.
“Over the last number of years, it’s been declining a little bit in new construction but with that on the Seawatch properties made it that much more,” Douglas said, adding that the district expects to see about $68,000 in tax revenue from new construction for 2020.
One new source of income for the district is the roughly $17,000 per month that comes in through Recycle BC, which is being used to offset the cost of solid waste collection.
The committee did not discuss the projected tax increase for 2020 and Douglas didn’t put forward a figure, but he did tell the committee that the draft operating budget projects $14.1 million in revenue and $17.7 million in expenditures and a projected deficit of $1.25 million in “taxes required from rate increase.”
Douglas estimated that every one per cent increase in taxes would bring in $92,000.
At this stage in the process last year, the draft budget projected a tax increase of between 12 and 13 per cent, but the final 2019 tax increase came out at 8.45 per cent. The 10-year average is 2.95 per cent, with the largest increases coming after a 2017 decision to include three per cent increases every year to set aside money for future infrastructure replacements and upgrades.
Douglas also showed the committee comparisons between Sechelt and similar municipalities that get a lot of services through regional districts, which are taxed separately. Douglas said, with a $1,495 municipal portion on the tax bill for a typical home, Sechelt is “on the lower end.”
Douglas is also proposing council review its non-statutory reserves to see if any are redundant and the money is available for transfer to other reserves or, in the case of some of the reserves for specific buildings, such as Rockwood Lodge, and docks, whether they should be combined in more general building and dock maintenance reserves.
Councillors had a few technical questions, but didn’t offer much other input, although committee chair, Coun. Matt McLean, said he was looking forward to “getting to the nitty gritty” when the committee holds its next budget meeting on Feb. 12.
That meeting will give council detailed, department-by-department breakdowns and a look at proposed service-level increases.
