Taxes

I agree with many of the concerns out there that city taxes are high and continued increases are not acceptable, however, I don’t agree that taxes are high because of over spending by council. Taxes need to keep up with basic inflation, which was around 4.5% from 2003 to 2008. Northern Alberta experienced inflationary rates at closer to 5.5% during the same period. This means that in order to keep up with inflation alone, taxes needed to go up by a minimum of 5.5% per year. In order to keep up with service demands and infrastructure needs, the actual tax increases were higher than that.

2009 was different because of the recession which saw near zero growth, and if anything, reduced inflation. However, due to shortfalls in provincial revenue, provincial grants were significantly lower than what was pledged. The City of Grande Prairie was forced to increase taxes in 2009 in order to make good on projects that had already begun. By 2010, council was able to adapt to the shortfalls and slow down in the economy. The tax increase was set at the decade’s record low of 2.8%.

When it comes to municipal taxes, it has become clear why the rates continually rise – the city of Grande Prairie has grown with an unhealthy mix of residential, commercial and industrial tax base. Also, many of the new residential subdivisions were designed to cost more operationally than previous neighborhoods.

Changes have been made to policies by this council so that future councils will have an easier time managing costs. The new Inter-municipal Development Plan (IDP) will provide the city with more land to increase our industrial tax base. Changes to the Municipal Development Plan (MDP) have ensured that new subdivision development will cheaper to manage in the way of snow removal and other operational costs. Electronic agendas will ensure that we don’t waste time and money on producing mounds of paper that council will need to sift through. Unfortunately, all of these changes will take time before residents will feel the impacts on their tax bills.

Don’t get me wrong, there will still be many challenges ahead. The need for a new RCMP building, recreational facilities, roads and other services will continue to be on the list of demands. Prioritizing is one way of dealing with the needs, but a more comprehensive and sustainable plan needs to be laid out. As a person understands city planning and politics, ideas of how to meet service demands while keeping taxes low become clearer and clearer. I have my own ideas of how to make this happen as do some of the other council members and future candidates. My suggestion to the public is to ensure your choice for mayor is able to provide you with a plan for the future of this city.