Mountain View Seniors' Housing (MVSH) is making a $181,228 tax requisition from the Town of Olds in 2014, almost double the amount it requested last year.According to Mountain View County reeve Bruce Beattie, who also sits on the MVSH board, the money is needed to subsidize what low-income seniors pay to stay at the lodge."That requisition covers off that difference between what they can afford to pay and what we need to have to operate our lodges. So that's basically a subsidy to the low-income seniors," Beattie said.He added the requisition amount from each town has not increased in 10 years.The lodge can charge residents a maximum fee of $1,829 for space at a lodge.In a May 14 email from Greg Weadick, the acting provincial municipal affairs minister, to housing providers, the amount of guaranteed monthly income for residents in the provincial Seniors' Lodge Program will increase on July 1.So of the $1,829 MVSH charges seniors, residents must be left with $315, an increase from $265.Residents pay the other $1,514 with help from the tax requisition subsidy.Beattie said MVSH determines the size of subsidy a resident receives after looking at that resident's income tax return from the previous year.There are about 190 residents across MVSH's four lodges in Olds, Didsbury, Carstairs and Sundre and roughly 87 per cent of those residents have their fees subsidized, Beattie said.Sam Smaldon, the chief administrative officer for MVSH, said low-income subsidies have been financed by deficits over the years.“In that time period, the requisitions were kept at a sum of money rather than a tax rate, and the sum of money did not keep up (with what the previous rates had yielded),” said Smaldon.“We did not have enough revenue to cover our expenses, thus creating the deficit.”According to Norm McInnis, chief administrative officer for the Town of Olds, the increased demand for cash from each town is determined by MVSH's previous financial position.“What the Housing Act says is that they can requisition based on last year's deficit. So they know how much they need based on the deficit that they ran in the previous year,” he said.“So this big increase is because they're trying to cover the deficit from member requisitions better and they're still not covering the entire deficit but they are moving closer to covering the entire deficit through requisition, which is what the Housing Act allows them to do."~With files from Kevin [email protected]
