By Councillor Arnold DeBoon, Town of Creston
“Our Financial Plan and Taxes”
Each year, council is required to adopt a five-year financial plan for the Town of Creston to set the annual municipal budget. As council, it means many meetings to establish strategic priorities, examine the overall budget and operational budgets, evaluate the current five-year financial plan, and make decisions on new initiatives, one-time projects, and capital projects.
The budget process is open to all to attend and participate in. In past years, the public has been able to physically attend the budget meetings. However, things were a little different for the 2021 budget process, due to the restrictions on in-person gatherings as a result of the pandemic, with the public participating virtually through the Webex platform.
The results of these meetings form our annual municipal budget. All this information is contained in a 134-page budget booklet that is available on our website at creston.ca/2291/Budget. This article is my attempt to summarize this booklet for your information.
Council has a strategic business plan that focuses on community safety, livability, economic health and service excellence that we developed in early 2020, and established our top five priorities for the next 12 to 24 months to guide our decision making. Through the 2021 budget process, we have proposed a moderate tax increase of 2.9 per cent for this year.
This is meant to keep up with inflation to maintain current service levels, infrastructure management reserve funding, fire hall debt servicing and enhance service levels where possible. Municipal taxation represents 55 per cent of the total property tax bill for the Town of Creston. The other 45 per cent is either set by the province, Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK), hospital district, BC Assessment and the Municipal Finance Authority.
I encourage you to read through the town’s budget documents so you can see for yourself all that goes into the annual municipal budget. Information on attending future meetings regarding the budget or any meetings of council is available by accessing the meeting agendas on our town website.
When we receive our property tax notices, the burning question is always, “how do we compare to other communities?” Overall, the property taxation burden of a Town of Creston taxpayer is approximately the provincial average. Out of 162 municipalities, Creston ranks about 85th on the list. Creston has the third-lowest total residential property taxes and charges out of seven Kootenay municipalities with populations over 5,000.
Comparisons are based on the average assessed value of homes in each community. For example, if you wanted to move to Fernie and replace your average assessed home in Creston valued at $266,830, you would have to buy a home with an average assessed value of $569,308. The total property taxes would jump from $2,799 in Creston to $3,978 in Fernie. If your home in Creston is worth double the average assessed value of a home in town, you pay double the total property taxes. This formula is applied to all residential properties in BC.
It is also worth noting that of the 84 municipalities with lower property taxes in BC, 72 of them do not pay for policing costs, due to having populations of less than 5,000. The provincial mandate is that any municipality with a population over 5,000 is required to pay for 70 per cent of policing costs, while municipalities with populations of less than 5,000 do not pay for policing costs directly.
Instead, they pay a police tax, which does not nearly cover the cost. Conversely, populations over 15,000 pay 90 per cent of policing costs. There is very little we can do to change this, but we are trying to by participating in discussions with the province through the Union of BC Municipalities. All of this information is based on 2020 values, available through provincial local government statistics, and may run contrary to opinions sometimes expressed on social media. What you see there is just that - opinions.
I have attended numerous budget meetings in the past three years, and I have also been witness to the careful planning that goes into the preparation of the five-year financial plans. Staff does an excellent job of making sure there is money to fund all of the town’s operations, as well as effective capital planning.
A small amount of property taxes is set aside to fund larger projects and meet the needs of ageing infrastructure so that we do not have to try to catch up in later years to fund these items. For instance, we have reserves for such items as public works equipment, fire equipment, green initiatives, wastewater treatment equipment replacement, and several others. There is over $10 million in our reserves, and of course, it is meant to cushion the blow of big expenses to replace infrastructure that we know is on the horizon.
Town of Creston staff is continuously looking for grant opportunities to help to keep taxation and fees lower than they would otherwise have been. Some larger grants we have benefited from in the recent past are $7.3 million dollars for the upgrades at the wastewater treatment plant and $7.8 million in grants for upgrades to our water system. Together, the many smaller grants also received totalled in the millions. These all greatly contribute to keeping our costs down.
When you enjoy a glass of fresh water, when you flush your toilet, when you see stormwater disappear, when you consider that we have adequate police and fire protection, when you see new sidewalks, new pavement, and the many other services provided by the town, two things should be clear. You are getting what you pay taxes for, and your council and staff are not just planning for today, they are planning for tomorrow!