Mountain View County council has approved the cancellation of tax levies totaling $43,846 and penalties of $271,336 to realize a bad debt expense totaling $315,182.
The move came during a recent regularly scheduled council meeting.
The situation involves twenty-six manufactured home tax rolls with outstanding balances totaling $37,702 ($8,669 in levies and $29,033 in penalties), and six linear tax rolls with standing balances totaling $277,479.
Companies on the linear write-off list are Petro Uno Resources ($127,531), Woof Oil and Gas Ltd. ($75,168), Berry Creek Resources ($66,191), Waldron Energy Corporation ($4,067), Enquest Environmental Services Corp. ($2,860), and Lyleton Corporation ($1,659).
"There are a small group of tax accounts which have been deemed to be uncollectable for many years and remain outstanding for various reasons," CAO Tony Martens said in a briefing note to council.
"Administration is requesting council to cancel the outstanding tax balances for the listed accounts. Following a council decision to cancel the tax balances the bad debt expense will be realized. This will remove these specific accounts for tax receivable."
Historically for the 2001 to 2008 tax years, manufactured homes were assessed to the manufactured home owner as opposed to the landowner and since the 2009 tax year bylaw changed to the landowner being the assessed party, council heard.
"This change has greatly reduced the inherent collection issues for property taxes for manufactured homes," he said. "In many cases the manufactured homes have been sold, removed or abandoned and the county was not informed."
The Municipal Government Act gives council the authority to "cancel, reduce, refund or defer the payment of taxes where council considers it equitable to do so."
ROAD WORK PROJECT APPROVED
Meanwhile, councillors have approved remedial roadwork in the Netook Crossing Business Park east of Olds.
The move also came during the recent regularly scheduled council meeting.
The work will be done by developer Prodev Limited Partnership.
In 2016 the developer hired a consultant to determine the cause of the road failures of the internal roads at the site, administration said in a briefing note to council.
The county's operational services department had contracted an engineering firm to review the report.
"Administration supports the developer proceeding with the remedial roadwork in accordance with the recommendations, and release a portion of the securities equal to the cost of the work as it is completed by the developer and inspected to the county's satisfaction," he said.
"Further, administration recommends hiring a consultant to oversee the work being done by the developer to ensure it meets all related specifications."
NEW COUNCILLOR FINANCIAL TRAINING
In other news from the recent council meeting, councillors approved the audit committee's recommendation to provide the newly elected council (following Oct. 2017 election) financial literacy training from the county's external auditors at a cost of no more than $3,000 funding by existing budgets.
"The audit committee thought it would help council to have this training to understand the county's finances," said Martens.
"There are a small group of tax accounts which have been deemed to be uncollectable for many years and remain outstanding for various reasons."CAO Tony Martens
