More than 30,000 Kamloops homeowners are facing a preliminary property tax increase of 3.36 per cent in 2019.
The provisional number was released during the first day of budget deliberations.
Under the City’s five year plan, next year’s proposed property tax hike was around 2.7 per cent.
Mayor Ken Christian says council has some tough decisions to make to get the number down.
“The proposal that you’ve placed before us would result in the largest tax increase in the city of Kamloops in the last decade,” Christian said. “So the challenge for us is pretty evident in terms of how we would approach this going forward.”
Christian notes more than 60 per cent of the proposed tax hike comes from the downloading of costs from the B.C. government.
The 3.36 per cent hike translates to about $65 extra, for the average home assessed at $300,000.