The city’s budget for 2016 has been set, but the size of the increase you’re going to see on your tax bill will depend on where you live.
On Monday, the city adopted its five-year financial plan, which included a 2.65 per cent tax increase for this year to cover the cost of inflation and wage increases.
The tax increase works out to $42.95 on the average residential property valued at $826,821.
While Mayor Derek Corrigan expects most residents to be comfortable with the tax increase percentage, he noted for some the increase will be much larger, depending on their property assessment.
“It’s not the tax rate that’s bothering people; it’s the assessments that are bothering people and the inequality in the assessments,” he told the NOW, noting for some, the increase could be 20 to 30 per cent.
He also suggested there is a growing gap between how much single-family and multi-family homeowners pay, adding a bigger part of the burden is falling on the single-family homeowner.
The city has spent months grappling with the issue, after property assessments in Burnaby and around the region skyrocketed.
The average increase for a typical single-family home in Burnaby ended up between 15 to 25 per cent. In some cases, homeowners have seen their property values rise by more than 30 per cent.
The city has looked at a number of ways to soften the blow to taxpayers, even asking the province to freeze assessments at 2015 levels; a request that was denied.
The city is taking $1.2 million of an operating surplus from 2015 and putting it in the 2016 budget to help minimize the impact of the property tax increase.
But the city technically does have more to give. Burnaby has an $8.6 million surplus left over from last year’s operating budget, according to a 2015 financial report.
When asked why not use more of the surplus to lower the tax increase, the mayor noted the $8.6 million figure is just a small percentage of the overall budget for the year. He also pointed out the additional $1.2 million being used from the 2015 surplus.
“It’s OK; we’re staying in the black, but it doesn’t leave a lot of money,” Corrigan said.
The city was originally looking at a tax increase of 2.95 per cent.
The total operating and capital budget for 2016 is $583.4 million.
Under provincial legislation, the city is required to adopt the financial plan bylaw on or before May 15.
