Town of Olds administration told council that the town's 2012 education property tax requisition has increased by 9.85 per cent from last year.
Town of Olds is expected to pay a requisition of $297,997 for 2012.
“As everyone is aware, it will be added on to the municipal tax bill when it goes out to ratepayers,” said Terryl Allen, director of corporate services for the Town of Olds.
“As council is aware, we are really just the agent for the Alberta government to collect and remit taxes on their behalf.”
In the 2012 capital and operating budgets passed last December, council approved a 3.4 per cent municipal tax increase.
“Within that budget, we did already the Mountain View Seniors' Housing requisition. The rate had come down ever so slightly from last year's requisition,” said Allen.
“We did not have at that point in time the education tax requisition.”
As a result of the education property tax requisition increase, the town's bottom line residential tax rate would increase by 4.4 per cent, while the non-residential tax rate would increase by 3.6 per cent.
For example, an average residential property assessed at $300,000 would have a property tax bill of approximately $2,465.49, while an average non-residential property assessed at $720,000 would have a property tax bill of approximately $8,180.66.
Council was not surprised, having been appraised of the education property tax requisition increase from Mountain View County, which dealt with it earlier this winter.
“The provincial government and the people have said that they want a better education system and this is like a result of that,” said Mayor Judy Dahl.
“We need to be clear and careful about what we ask for, because the province is getting a better education now, with more money.”
