New West residents and businesses are a step closer to facing a 7.7 per cent tax hike in 2024.
At a Jan. 22 workshop, council voted 5-2 in support of a recommendation instructing staff to bring forward a bylaw that reflects and estimated property tax revenue increase of 7.7 per cent.
“For a $1.58-million residential single family home, which was the average in 2023, it works out to $306 annually, or about $25 a month. And for a business, the average value in 2023 was $3.74 million, and that works out to $2,344 increase, or roughly $195 a month increase,” said Shehzad Somji, the city’s director of finance. “So these are estimates; there will still be some fine-tuning by the time we prepare the bylaws but we feel that these are fairly accurate numbers.”
According to a staff report, the impact of a 7.7 per cent tax increase on a residential strata valued at $640,000, would be an increase of about $125 annually.
Under the proposed timeline for completing the financial plan, staff will do a presentation about the budget at the Feb. 5 meeting and it will be posted on the city’s website for consultation and response. It’s expected council will give three reading to the five-year financial plan bylaw at its Feb. 26 meeting and adopt the bylaw on March 11.
Somji said council considered three budget scenarios at a Dec. 11 workshop, with those options proposing 5.5 per cent, 6.8 per cent and 8.5 per cent tax increases in 2024.
At Monday’s workshop, Somji noted council had supported Scenario 2, as well as four additional enhancements from Scenario 3 that totalled $1.14 million. Those additional enhancements to the budget are for the hiring of seven additional firefighters ($0.92 annual budget), youth services ($0.08 million), an auxiliary support work ($0.03 million) and a recreation supervisor ($0.11 million annually.)
In addition to those items recommended by council, staff have now recommended that an additional $0.36-million of enhancements from Scenario 3 be funded this year. Those items relate to: a building maintenance worker at təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre; a new building service worker at Century House; supplies for arboriculture operations and maintenance to support trees being planted in 2024; a senior engineering technologist; an assistant program coordinator at Moody Park Arena; and a transportation and planning analyst.
At the Jan. 22 workshop, Mayor Patrick Johnstone and councillors Ruby Campbell, Tasha Henderson, Jaimie McEvoy and Nadine Nakagawa supported the recommendation. Councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas opposed.
“I won't be supporting this particular recommendation. I am not going to get into all the various reasons why – they've been well-documented and well-debated in this chamber,” Fontaine said. “But suffice to say, I am struggling, as are many of residents within the city, with an almost eight per cent tax increase.”
