Vegreville Town Council increases Taxes by Five Percent

Vegreville Town Council increases Taxes by Five Percent

 Michelle Pinon - News Advertiser

Vegreville residents and businesses will see a five percent increase to municipal property taxes in 2024.

That news was delivered along with the 2024 operating budget and five-year capital plan at town council’s Dec. 11 regular meeting.

With the increase, a household or small business with an assessment of $300,000 can expect to pay approximately $11 and $27 more per month respectively for municipal property taxes.

According to a news release issued by the Town, “Additionally, beginning in 2024 there will be an increase in fees of $4.80 per month on utility bills. The breakdown of this $4.80 is an increase of $2.00 to the residential garbage collection fee, an increase of $2.30 to the residential and non-residential sanitary sewer service charge and an increase of $0.50 to the flat charge for water service.”

 The carbon tax and other inflationary pressures were cited as reasons for the tax increase. Mayor Tim MacPhee stated, “We know five percent sounds like a lot, but it is an unfortunate sign of the times that our municipal dollars don’t go as far today as they did even just a year ago.

 Vegreville, like every other municipality in the province, has faced soaring costs due to inflationary pressures including a rising carbon tax that has resulted in higher heating and fueling bills. We’re also dealing with rising policing costs, which are also totally outside of our control as a municipality.

 It's with that in mind that I’d like to commend senior administration for bringing forward a budget that showed restraint while also not cutting services that are essential to Council’s goal of attracting new residents, visitors, and industry to our community.”

 MacPhee added, “I want to thank administration for showing exactly what it costs to operate the town because it’s not a good plan to try and live out of your reserves, rainy day funds. Some of those reserves are lower than what their top up says they need to be.”

 Coun. Taneen Rudyk said, “It’s a difficult balance to be able to provide the level of services that people deserve and ask from us and still be able to maintain something that’s affordable for both the residents and businesses that live here currently and will live here in the future.

So, all those considerations have been taken into account and we will have variance reports throughout the year to be able to evaluate where things are in terms of the impacts because we made some decisions last year. For example, paper billing, somewhat short term pain and discomfort resulted in saving money useful for operations.”

 Rudyk said there were a lot of discussions and deliberations that came before they reached the point of passing the budgets, but felt that in the end, “I feel satisfied we were able to keep it affordable to our residents and businesses.”

Councillor Len Bullock commented, “I think there’s been lots of consultation done on the budget and we spent a lot of time on it. Not all of us agreed on everything, but we’re all supporting it going forward.”

Chief Administrative Officer Sandra Ling pointed out that, “Council held two budget deliberation meetings, both of which were open to the public and streamed on YouTube to allow residents the opportunity to view the meetings live or at another time that worked best for their schedules. These meetings were held on Nov. 16 and Nov. 30. Following those meetings there was a two week span prior Council’s official approval of the budget to ensure rate payers had an opportunity to discuss concerns or ask questions that may have arisen from the initial deliberations with members of Council.”

When asked whether there were any cutbacks, Ling responded by saying, “There were no cutbacks to staff, programing, or services in this year’s budget. One of the major tasks assigned to our senior administration and management team was to look for efficiencies within their department’s budgets to help ensure as low a tax increase as possible without cutting the services offered to our residents, visitors, and businesses.”

Ling went on to say, “This thought process aligns with Council’s 2022 – 2025 Strategic Plan, specifically Strategic Goal #2: Growth and Strategic Goal #3: Quality of Life. By cutting services to offset rising costs outside the control of the municipality, we would risk lowering a resident’s quality of life and hindering our ability to attract new residents, visitors, and industry to our community.”

In terms of 2024 capital projects, the most expensive is the forced main replacement from the lift station to the lagoons at more than $3.8 million. Some of the other projects include: the purchase of a new fire engine, paving of 47th Avenue from 48th to 49th Street, new bleachers and lights at Diamond #3 of Riverview Park and the first phase of wayfinding signage throughout Vegreville.