By Chad Klassen

TNRD sets 2019 tax rate, most areas to experience savings

Mar 28, 2019 | 5:08 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Thompson-Nicola Regional District board approved the 2019 budget at its meeting on Thursday afternoon with most areas and municipalities looking forward to a tax decrease this year. 

The drop in the tax rate depends on where residents live within the TNRD with 17 of the 21 areas enjoying a break. Residents in those areas are benefitting mostly from cost savings in solid waste management, including the regional district’s decision to join the Recycle BC program that pays civic organizations to collect recyclables. It’s all helped to save the TNRD $1 million in the budget this year. 

“If someone says to me, ‘what’s the tax rates in the TNRD? I say it depends on where you live,’” said TNRD Director of Finance Doug Rae. “With some cost savings that we’ve been able to realize, we’ve just update our 10-year solid waste management plan with some new contracts in place for the work to be done.”

Among areas experiencing the biggest tax savings in 2019 are the Village of Ashcroft (13 per cent drop), Lytton (11 per cent decrease), and Electoral Area “I” (Blue Sky Country) that includes Spences Bridge, enjoying a 12 per cent decline this year. 

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Five areas within the regional district, including Tobiano and Loon Lake, will have the decreases in solid waste management offset by the costs to run their fire departments. The regional district will provide those five areas with $150,000 in funding every year to operate the fire departments.

“Last summer, we had public ascent processes whereby the people in those service areas voted in favour of having the TNRD take on running those fire departments,” noted Rae. “They include Loon Lake, where we’ll be working on constructing a new fire hall there, and they include Tobiano, where there’s a new fire hall being constructed there.”

But Loon Lake, part of Electoral Area “E” (Bonaparte Plateau), will have a 8.79 per cent decrease in its taxes, while Tobiano, part of Electoral Area “J” (Copper Desert Country), will in fact experience a jump in taxes — up by nearly seven per cent.

Coupled with tax dollars towards its fire department in Tobino, residents in Electoral Area “J” will be paying a one-time cost for the TNRD to conduct work in the Cherry Creek area in preparation for the upcoming flood season. 

Kamloops and Sun Peaks are among the four of the 21 areas within the TNRD not benefitting from the tax decrease. The City of Kamloops, already part of the Recycle BC program, doesn’t benefit from the TNRD change in waste management, seeing about a one per cent increase, or $1.32 for the average residential taxpayer, according to Rae. 

Sun Peaks, meanwhile, experienced a signficant increase in its property assessments.

“They get the benefit of those changes in taxes, that $1 million decrease, similar to other areas. The difference for them is, their assessment has been growing so quickly, mostly in terms of market rates,” said Rae. “So not adding a lot of new taxpayers into the tax bases, simply saying you’re average residential property’s now worth 25 per cent more.”