The City of Kamloops is hoping to bring taxes paid by major industry more in line with what is charged in other cities with the proposed mill rate for this year’s budget.

Finance director Kathy Humphrey says heavy industrial businesses in Kamloops pay more than their fair share in taxes.

“It really is quite high compared to other municipalities in the province, so we’ve done those adjustments and so that’s what we’ve now presented to council,” she said.

“It’s up to them to say, yes this looks good, or we’d like to make some shifts between the classes for different groups to pay less or to adjust it accordingly.”

The average heavy industrial mill rate, calculated using 12 comparable cities in BC for 2018, was $23.36 per $1,000 of assessed value.

The Kamloops mill rate was $73.34 per $1,000 of assessed value and staff are hoping to reduce it slightly to $71.81 per $1,000 of assessed value

“It has reduced not by a ton, and it’s still really high within the overall province, but at least it’s on a downward trend,” Humphreys added.

City council will decide on the proposed mill rates at tomorrow’s committee of the whole meeting.