File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Hospital Funding

Hospital district moves to make province pay for Sun Rivers, Sienna Ridge residents’ tax share

Sep 13, 2023 | 3:36 PM

KAMLOOPS — Taxes collected from residents in Sun Rivers and Sienna Ridge do not get passed along to the Thompson Regional Hospital District (TRHD). Now, the district is sending the bill to Victoria.

The TRHD funds about 40 per cent of capital equipment purchases within its boundaries. It is supported by a portion of taxes taken from thousands of properties in the region, amounting to $16.4 million this year.

However, Sun Rivers and Sienna Ridge, located on the Tk’emlups Reserve, do not pay into that fund. They are subject to the federal government’s Locatee Lease Policy, and the board feels taxes collected via that policy are sufficient.

Chair Mike O’Reilly says the TRHD board has voted to decrease its tax requisition by about $271,000 in 2023, accounting for money that it feels residents of those two communities should be contributing.

“The assessed roll for Sun Rivers and Sienna Ridge is now about $920 million,” O’Reilly told CFJC Today. “Approximately half the size of Merritt is not contributing through tax dollars to the hospital district and, by default, the rest of the residents are making up that shortfall.”

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By not collecting that $271,000, the board hopes to make the province responsible, rather than the remaining property owners in the region.

“As Sun Rivers and Sienna Ridge grow, without receiving hospital tax dollars from them, it is putting more pressure on every other contributor within the [TRHD],” added O’Reilly.

Local politicians will travel to Whistler next week for the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, where they will meet with provincial cabinet ministers. O’Reilly says one of those meetings will be between TRHD board members and Finance Minister Katrine Conroy. He hopes to raise this issue with the minister at that meeting.