Prince George’s City Council received a quick update on the RCMP retroactive pay that they believe should be covered by the Federal Government.
This happened during tonight’s (Monday) meeting as they discussed the bylaws to set this year’s tax rate.
“Thanks to Council and other local governments there’s been significant advocacy efforts through UBCM (Union of BC Municipalities) and FCM (Federation of Canadian Municipalities), and UBCM has scheduled an update with local governments which we are reserving for, which would be I believe around the first week of May. And if there’s an noteworthy items rising out of that we’ll report to council on an update,” said City Manager Walter Babicz.
Council also discussed the new tax rate, and Director of Finance Kris Dalio gave some explanation on what people can expect to see.
“The Financial Plan Bylaw sets how much money we are going to collect to run our operations. The Tax Rates Bylaw determines how it will be divvied up between residential, business, and industrial. And that is brought to the Finance and Audit Committee, they selected option two.”
“A quick summary of that option number two is that we set the residential rate to try and mimic what a 3% tax rate increase would be to residential homes. We set the business rate multiple to be reduced to two and a half to one. And then the remainder of the money that we needed to collect was split among the other tax classes,” added Dalio.
He said that even if there’s an error in their calculations or adjustments they’ll need to collect that money at some point, noting that the Hospital tax rate was incorrectly set last year, so around $25 is going to be collected to rectify that.
The City also received an in-depth look at what the Exploration Place has in store when it reopens, and looked at the Emergency Programs being utilized in the City.
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