By Dylana Milobar

TNRD provisional budget sets stage for potential tax deduction

Dec 20, 2018 | 4:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — It’s not something that happens very often, but it would make for a nice New Year’s gift for residents in the Thompson Nicola Regional District.

There’s a chance that TNRD residents may end up paying 1.1 per cent less for their taxes next year.

The TNRD board was presented with the provisional budget this afternoon (Dec. 20), which sets the stage for next year’s spending plan.

Manager of Environmental Services, Jamie Vieira, says the potential savings are largely due to changes made to the TNRD’s solid waste opeartions last year.

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“So TNRD joined the province-wide Recycle BC program, which shifts the cost away from the taxpayer and on to the industry to pay for that recycling,” he explains. “So that’s equating to a projected savings of about half a million dollars for joining Recycle BC.”

Along with no longer paying to haul away recycling from remote depots, Vieira says the Thompson Nicola Regional District also divided up some recycling operating contracts to save money.

“So the contrators who operate our landfills and transfer stations went to tender in 2018, and we re-structured the tender and we broke up that contract into three different contract areas,” he explains, “and through the tender process, we’re projecting savings just shy of  million dollars per year with that contract.”

TNRD Director of Finance, Doug Rae says the savings will be felt throughout the district, but won’t extend to the City of Kamloops.

“Inside the City of Kamloops, they don’t have that benefit because they aren’t paying in to that service. Its about a one per cent, or about a $1.30 increase to the average residential property.”

Now, the provisional budget will be used for public consultation leading up to the presentation of the annual budget in March.

“Which will incorporate the new information from BC Assessment on property assessment values, and that’ll change somewhat the amount of taxes in each area the TNRD services.”

With 118 different services in the regional district, Rae explains, the exact amount of change taxpayers will see won’t be known with certainty until the 2019 assessment.

“So that’s 118 essentially, individual budgets. So if you live in Clearwater, your taxes might be different than Blue River, might be different than outside of Merritt, that sort of thing, because you’re getting a different combination of services.”

While changes can still be made to the annual budget in March, so far it looks like many TNRD taxpayers could reap the money-saving benefits.