By Angela Brown

Battleford council amends incentive program

Jun 8, 2017 | 12:00 PM

Developers of new builds in the Town of Battleford who have been approved for the town’s incentive program will notice some changes to the tax exemption policy going forward.

At its recent meeting, council approved a recommendation from administration to amend the policy so only the municipal tax portion is exempt, not the education tax portion.

The current deputy-mayor Susan McLean Tady, who chaired the meeting, said making the change would be in the taxpayers’ best interests.

“It is a cost to the taxpayer if we exempt it,” she said. “We still have to pay it out to the school boards.”

“We have no control over the school taxes,” she added.”Therefore, it is something we have to collect and submit to the school divisions. It’s not really our tax to exempt. It is implemented by the province.”  

2023-24 Hardware

AAA Stars celebrate best of season with year-end awards

3h ago

Real Estate

Buying or selling a house? Do your homework first

6h ago

NB council

City approves new land sale on Buhler Bay

7h ago

While the town had been exempting both the education portion and the municipal portion in the past, as McLean Tady said: “With the state of our economy now, we feel it is best we just exempt the monies we have control over.”

In his report, CAO John Enns-Wind said while abating municipal property taxes is lost revenue for the town, abating school property taxes is an expense the town must still pay to the Ministry of Education.

Enns-Wind said the 2016 incentives in total amounted to $80,044. From that amount, the municipal portion exempted was $40,059, and the education portion $39,985,   

He said what the town paid to the Ministry for the Education for the tax it abated would have been enough to pay for a new one-ton truck for its public works department.

The CAO added to the best of his knowledge the Town of Battleford is the only municipality in the surrounding area that still abates the education tax portion in its incentive program.  

The incentive program is available for what’s known as the developer incentive for new subdivision projects; as well as commercial-industrial building and residential building projects. The program offers a tax break for a specified period for approved projects. The town will now abate only the municipal property tax, effective June 6. The date was set as the day following council’s meeting of June 5 to allow one application for a project that was submitted previously to be able to fall under the old incentive policy, prior to the amendment. 

The town has been running its incentive program for a number of years to encourage new development.

“I’m sure people building and renovating in the town have appreciated the policy,” said McLean Tady, adding she thinks it has helped increase development. “It gives more of an incentive to develop if you can save some costs.”

“I believe it’s a definite asset to the town if we can continue this and encourage growth,” she said of the program.  

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW