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THUNDER BAY – The majority of residential property owners will see their tax bills rise between $51 and $150 this year.
Thunder Bay city council on Monday voted to approve their 2017 tax policy, which sets out a 3.48 per cent increase to the residential tax levy.
Of the 40,277 properties in the residential class, nearly 30,000 will have an increase in the range between $51 and $150.
The budget passed earlier this year came in with a gross levy increase of 3.59 per cent.
Administration presented three options to council, with director of revenue Rob Colquhoun recommending a tax mitigation shift strategy, which is designed to attempt to equally share the increase across property classes.
“The goal of that strategy is something council has approved for the last number of years and it’s within the legislative parameters trying to share the overall tax increase or tax burden proportionally to what it was in the last year,” Colquhoun said.
Meanwhile, administration presented the 2016 year-end city fiscal update which showed a favourable variance of $2.7 million. That came nearly a year after the city was projected to be in the red by more than $3 million.
The report from administration recommended dividing the $2.7 million up into reserve funds with $1.1 million for the stabilization reserve fund, $1 million for the capital general reserve fund and $600,000 for the WSIB reserve fund.
Coun. Larry Hebert asked whether that surplus could be used to partially offset the tax levy increase for this year.
“There would be a significant number of administrative adjustments,” city treasurer Linda Evans replied, noting property tax payment amounts have already been calculated and would have to be overhauled.
