Kamloops council has said no to raising a 911 levy for residents with a landline.
The levy helps cover the cost of Kamloops Fire Rescue dispatch service.
Staff had proposed raising it from 75 cents per month to $1.25, totalling an extra $6 per year for households with a landline. The city says there hasn’t been a cost increase since it was introduced more than 20 years ago.
“It’s provincial government that allows us the ability to assess a levy, and it’s based on landlines. As we’ve seen over the last number of years, the reduction of landlines basically your taxation level has gone up every year to compensate. Because the cost of doing the dispatch doesn’t change, other than to go up,” community and protective services director Byron McCorkell says.
Councillor Denis Walsh was one of several councillors to say raising the levy would unfairly target some residents.
“It’s isolated to landlines, which to me, definitely doesn’t seem fair that you’d penalize landline users to subsidize all other residents that use 911, which we all have to have availability. And the bulk of those residents are probably the senior population.”
Mayor Ken Christian says the city is not able to charge that levy to cell phones, and says changing that is at the province’s discretion.
He says it’s been brought up by local governments at the Union of B.C. Municipalities.
“And the debate always goes in and around the connectivity of some of the more rural areas of the province and no access to cellular telephones. And that becomes sort of a side issue about connectivity. And until they get province-wide coverage, I think there’s a reluctance to accept that change.”
The number of landlines in the city is dropping each year. The city collected $327,000 from the 911 levy in 2015 and expects to only collect $180,000 this year.
The city expected to collect an extra $66,000 from landline users this year if the levy had been raised. Instead, that extra amount will be collected from general taxation.
Approving the levy would’ve meant an overall property tax reduction of 0.06 per cent this year. Councillor Arjun Singh points out those savings wouldn’t have been realized by anyone with a landline.
Nonetheless, the tax increase for 2021 in Kamloops will be the lowest in more than 20 years, as its likely to come in at 0.93 per cent.
