2010 tax increase sliced to 3.8% in West Kelowna

Jason Luciw - Kelowna Capital News Published: February 01, 2010 6:00 PM

Some extra money has been found to off-set tax increases in the District of West Kelowna this year, keeping a little extra money in the pockets of property owners. Just over $243,000 was remaining in West Kelowna’s budget last year because some one-time projects were not undertaken. The municipality was also able to find “efficiencies” in some of its departments, said chief financial officer Jim Zaffino. Council had three options for spending the extra cash, Zaffino stated. One would be to increase a contingency fund from $330,000 to $574,00. Another option would be to add the funds to build reserve accounts. The third would be to reduce the municipality’s 2010 property tax increase, which was forecast to be five per cent going into Monday afternoon’s budget deliberations. By applying the $243,000 toward the 2010 budget, the tax hike would then go from the projected five per cent to an increase of 3.8 per cent, said Zaffino. Based on an average home in West Kelowna, assessed at $492,000, taxes would then go up $51 this year, instead of the $67 increase expected under the five per cent scenario, a difference of $16. Council voted unanimously to use the $243,000 to offset taxes.

Coun. Duane Ophus said council had gone through the budget with a “fine tooth comb,” and could afford to reduce the tax burden for residents this year. “When we find that we’ve got $234,000 at the end of the day that has not been allocated to a necessary expenditure (then) we should be, in the current economic climate, doing our very best to minimize the tax increases that have to be passed on to the residents in the district,” Ophus commented. Mayor Doug Findlater noted that he was never keen on the five per cent tax increase to begin with. However, during a preliminary budget meeting back in December, the remainder of council defeated the mayor’s motion, which asked staff to come back with a budget scenario using a three per cent tax increase. “Being someone who advocated three per cent at one point, I’m very happy to see it move in that direction,” said Findlater. Meanwhile, after the meeting media asked Zaffino why council would need a $330,000 contingency fund again in 2010, noting that council had only used $1,500 from the discretionary account in 2009. Media questioned why council couldn’t take additional money from the seemingly large contingency fund to reduce tax increases even further in 2010. “Just because it was not needed last year doesn’t mean it won’t be needed in 2010. It’s an insurance policy,” Zaffino responded. In a new municipality a $330,000 contingency is not unusually high because a newly incorporated community would tend to have more “unknowns” to deal with, said Zaffino.