In his final policies and priorities committee meeting as reeve, Div. 6 Coun. Paddy Munro signalled his intention to maintain a freeze on residential and commercial property taxes in 2012.ìCost of living, inflation ñ that's acceptable. But no way am I going to support raising taxes,î Munro said at the outset of P&P's preliminary discussion of the 2012 budget on Sept. 28.And in characteristic fashion, he prefaced his remarks with the comment: ìMy big issue with the budget is there's just too much razzle-dazzle.îIn an environmental scan presented by corporate services director Greg Wiens, the department floats the idea of increasing residential taxes after two years of an average zero tax rate increase on unimproved properties.ìFor 2012 council may want to consider a residential tax increase,î the report says. ìCompared with the 10 municipalities that the county has compared our tax rate with over the last number of years, the county's combined residential tax rate for 2011 was the lowest of the group.îA combined residential tax rate comparison table shows Mountain View (at 4.56) below Lacombe and Wetaskiwin counties (4.61), Rocky View (4.86), Foothills (5.33), Leduc (5.47), Sturgeon (5.6), Red Deer (6.0), Parkland (6.1) and Wheatland (7.54).ìFrom 2004 to 2011 the cumulative inflation in Alberta has been 16 per cent and the cumulative increase in residential taxes has been 12 per cent,î the report says.Tax rate assumptions in the report predict growth from residential properties to be two per cent, while the net assessment increase for non-residential properties is set at three per cent ñ a slight increase over this year's level of just over one per cent. The average increase over the last 10 years has been just under 7.6 per cent. Linear tax assessments, primarily for oil and gas, are expected to go up by two per cent.The report does not recommend salary increases and notes that the staff reorganization carried out earlier this year resulted in salary cost reductions of $400,000. Slightly over half was the result of the elimination of positions.With no cost of living adjustment for staff in 2009 and one per cent given last year, the report recommends a 2-3 per cent increase for 2012. Each percentage of increase has a budget impact of 95,000.Special P&P budget meetings are scheduled to begin Oct. 24, with the full budget to be presented Nov. 25 and submitted to council for approval with preliminary tax rates on Dec. 7.
