The City of Kamloops has included a 2.76 per cent increase in property taxes in its provisional budget for 2020.

Finance director Kathy Humphrey says that would put the average property tax at $2,267 per household, and increase of $61 from this year.

“We’ve got almost four-and-a-half million dollars of increases in our budget, and offsetting by the revenue with our anticipated growth of 1.25 per cent, we estimate that to be about $1.4 million dollars. It brings us to requiring just over $3 million dollars more in the budget this year. Last year’s budget was around $112 million dollars of tax funding, this year we’re looking at just over $115 million.”

The provisional budget for 2019 called for a 3.38 per cent tax increase before it was finalized much lower, at 2.26 per cent.

And policing costs make up a large part of increased spending for next year, at $928,000. Humphrey says the Kamloops RCMP would be at 136 officers at a full complement.

“That was an increase last year from 130 to 136 (officers), so we had a three-year plan to gradually bring that up to full funding. So we moved to 130 last year, we now are funding 133, and the plan for next year is to add the budget funding for the final three officers.”

She says adding three full-time equivalent positions at the detachment will mean an extra $295,000 in spending. Meanwhile the city will be spending an extra $633,000 on its portion of RCMP costs, which is 90 per cent; the federal government pays the other 10 per cent.

Humphrey expects the budget for 2020 to be finalized in mid April of next year.

“The final roll for BC Assessment doesn’t get into our hands until sometime after the first week of April,” she says, adding there will be a number of consultation sessions between now and then and supplemental budget items will also have to be finalized.

Details for the public can be found here, as well as information on when public budget meetings will be happening.

Watch this story for updates today.