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qathet Regional District’s (qRD) finance committee has accepted an updated 10-year tax rate summary for the years 2014 to 2024.
At the March 6 finance committee meeting, directors were presented with three spreadsheets from finance department staff, including a summary of residential tax estimates per $100,000 value by area.
Electoral Area E director and finance committee chair Andrew Fall said the tax rate summary had been requested at the January 24 regional board meeting.
City of Powell River director Cindy Elliott said the 10-year summary provided only talked about rates and that there was no information about the average household.
“We were looking for the 10-year summary to also include totals,” said Elliott. “I’m wondering if that is still coming or did it get missed somehow?”
Manager of financial services Linda Greenan said the other amounts with the requisitions were missed.
“After I received the motion, I looked at it thinking you wanted the same tax rate summary we had provided previously, so we updated those rates and provided that,” said Greenan.
Fall asked if the additional information was something difficult to provide.
Greenan said it is difficult. She said it would take approximately three days of staff time to create the new document. She added that a reasonable timeframe for the additional information would be that it comes to the May finance committee.
“We are quite busy right now,” said Greenan. “We have the auditors in, then we have to complete the financial statements, and we have to do the updates to the budget. In April we could start on this work and have it for the May agenda.
“This is something that wasn’t in our work plan. We will have to have staff do that in overtime.”
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said he recalled the motion in January that the board direct staff to update the 10-year tax rate from 2014 and 2024, and that the board direct staff to produce a similar document which contains the total contributions.
“The reason that was put on the January agenda was we were going through the financial planning process as a board and there is a lot of concern around the total cost of services and service delivery,” said Gisborne. “Over a 10-year period, taking a look at the tax rate, which is based on per $100,000 [of assessed value], can be a little bit confusing because property values change fairly dramatically. For our decision-making process, looking at total amounts is very helpful.”
Electoral Area C director and board chair Clay Brander said the cost of fulfilling the previous motion is going to require three days of staff time to do so. He said that concerns him because it’s quite a bit of time and money to do it.
“I wonder if there is an easier way for the finance department to provide us with the information,” said Brander. “Is there some way to make this an easier process to go through?”
Greenan said staff need to know what the board is looking for in terms of reporting.
Brander said he wondered if some of the challenges could be taken out of the request to make it easier to fulfill and take less time.
City director George Doubt said he is sensitive to what staff was saying, that there is significant cost to provide extra detail. He said what has been provided by staff provides a good indication of what has changed in the taxation.
“This is valuable as it is to show an historical change in the tax rates,” said Doubt. “For me, that’s enough information.”
Fall said if the information was easy to provide, he would be in favour, but given that it would be three days of overtime, and not in time to consider for this year’s budget, it would appear to be a poor use of staff resources.
Electoral Area D director Sandy McCormick questioned the additional staff time and said she was satisfied with the information that had been received.
The finance committee voted to receive the 10-year tax rate summary, with Gisborne and Electoral Area A director Jason Lennox opposed.
Fall gave notice of motion that the board intends to bring forward a recommendation to the April 3 finance committee meeting regarding a more fulsome discussion on the 10-year tax summary.
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