The City of Castlegar was faced with a unique situation last week — it had more money than expected.
At the April 15 city council meeting, Castlegar’s finance manager told council that the city had received unexpected revenue through the grants-in-lieu of taxes for the Hugh Keenleyside and Brilliant Dams.
A grant‐in‐lieu of taxes is similar to a property value tax and is collected from property owned by or vested in the provincial and federal governments and their associated agencies and Crown corporations that are exempt from property taxation under the Constitution Act.
Grant-in-lieu rates are set by the province and Ola Oladele said that when budgeting, the city assumes that those revenues will be the same as the previous year. This year the province unexpectedly increased the amounts.
After debating several options, council decided to use the $140,000 to reduce taxes in 2024 and 2025.
For 2024, that means that the expected tax increase of 6.43 per cent will now be reduced to 5.24 per cent.
In the city’s five year financial plan, next year’s tax increase was expected to be around 7.54 per cent. The anticipated increase is now reduced to 6.24 per cent.
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