Kimberley’s 2024-2028 Five Year Financial Plan and tax rates bylaws have been adopted by city council.
As a result, the municipal tax will rise by 5.33 per cent in 2024, resulting in an increase of about $140 for an average assessed home, worth $540,885.
“It is a balance between levels of service, projects and topping up reserves. All of that is important, but so is affordability,” said Mayor Don McCormick.
“The 5.3 per cent tax increase was pretty much exclusively about inflation.”
McCormick said the municipal government has felt the pinch of inflation just as residents have.
“The cost of servicing has gone up tremendously over the last three years, and we have to make up for that somehow,” said McCormick. “Those are uncontrollable costs, and if we don’t take those tax increases to cover our inflation, we end up having to reduce services to cover that cost.”
McCormick said he’s happy with the percentage increase, knowing that it could have been worse.
“These past couple of years we’ve been helped in keeping that increase down through non-market change. That’s really the value of construction that has gone on over the past couple of years that are now turning into assessments and taxes,” explained McCormick.
“We’ve come off a tremendous couple of years with that growth, and that directly impacts our ability to keep tax increases low. We’re hoping that continues over the next couple of years.”
Tax assessments and information will be sent out in the weeks ahead.
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