BOWDEN - Town council has passed a bylaw authorizing tax collection to balance its 2018 budget.
That bylaw was passed during a May 14 council meeting. The budget itself was approved April 23. As Mountain View Publishing reported earlier, it features a two per cent tax increase.
Total revenue is expected to be $2,101,015.40, so $958,993.37 will be needed from taxpayers in order to make the 2018 budget work.
Municipalities must also collect school taxes. This year, that figure in Bowden is $295,509.87.
The budget calls for $780,831.21 to be collected from residential taxpayers, $130,378.01 from non-residential machinery and equipment sources, plus a total of $47,784.14 via various orders-in-council. The budget also calls for $83.51 in industrial property tax.
Acting chief administrative officer Jacqui Molyneux told council this year's taxes include revenue from farmland and industrial land the town annexed earlier this year.
"Overall, our mill rate is high, but for a town our size it's OK," Mayor Robb Stuart said.
"I remember the one year, quite a few years ago, we raised -- we tried to attract businesses by lowering the business rate. But then we had to kick the residential rate up about twice what we lowered the business rate down (to) so it didn't work out very well," he added.
Molyneux said this year, the mill rate -- the amount per $1,000 of the assessed value of property -- went up to almost eight.
"But it didn't go up an awful lot," she said, adding, "my assessment went down a couple of thousand. My taxes are going up, not even $50."
"I think overall most people didn't take much of a hit for a two per cent increase," Stuart said.
Stuart noted tax notices have to be out by June 1.
He and other councillors thanked Molyneux for the many hours she spent on the budget.
