On Tuesday, city council will discuss budget items that can be reduced or cut to bring the tax increase down to zero (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

PROVISIONAL TAX INCREASE

City of Kamloops pare proposed 2021 tax increase to 0.49 per cent; more cuts could be on the way

Nov 18, 2020 | 4:15 PM

KAMLOOPS — After Kamloops council vowed to get the 2021 property tax increase down to zero per cent, City staff have been working to cut down on expenses.

Staff have put forward a 0.49 per cent provisional tax increase — down from the original projection of 3.9 per cent. The City may dip into some reserves if needed, but it will also utilize nearly $7 million dollars in COVID-related funding from the province.

“The province gave us the COVID-restart-for-local-government money, so then we will use that to add revenue into our budget to cover the lost recreation revenues. We’ll use it to cover the lost parking revenue, all of that,” said Director of Corporate Services Kathy Humphrey. “Then a bunch of the costs that are overtime specific to COVID, so plexi and PPE [personal protective equipment] and that sort of stuff we’re going to offset all of those. That basically drops us down to half a percent.”

The City plans to pull $970,000 out of the police reserve, saving two million dollars from this year due to reduced staffing levels. Those funds will help cover more revenue losses and expenses.

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City staff and council have until April to finalize the budget and set the tax increase. In the next five months, they will monitor the COVID-19 landscape and see how that might affect the numbers.

“We’re assuming that everything’s going to keep operating. We’re assuming that we’re not going to a complete shutdown again, all of those sorts of assumptions,” said Humphrey. “Between now and then, there are a ton of things that could happen, but basically we’re only planning to use half of the restart money, so we still have about $4 million sitting there if we need it. If things make a turn for the worse, we’ve got a little bit of reserves sitting there to adjust.”

Next week, council is set to discuss cutting more services to get to zero. Among the choices is reducing hours at Westsyde Pool and cutting back on operations at Memorial Arena.

PROPOSED SERVICE LEVEL REDUCTIONS

Westsyde Pool
Reduced Hours – $200,000 to $600,000

Memorial Arena
Reduced Hours – $220,000

Civic Buildings
Temperature Reductions – $200,000

City Calendar Publication
Reduced – $25,000

Street Light Inspections
Eliminated – $20,000

City Hall
Reduced Hours – $6,500