Photo of rural area of the Thompson Nicola Regional District/via TNRD
The Thompson Nicola Regional District board has finalized this year’s budget, while also approving a 5 year operating plan.
The overall tax increase across the whole of the TNRD is going to be 8.3 percent for this year, which is down from the initial estimate of 8.9 percent in December.
“Several specific changes have contributed to the 2024 tax requisition increase, including a new five-year Solid Waste and Recycling contract, an increase in the annual Grant-in-Aid program budget, temporary resources in 2024 for the Finance and Facilities departments, a new staff position to support Cybersecurity needs, a remuneration increase for firefighters at the nine TNRD fire departments, and wage increases for BCGEU employees and the Board of Directors,” noted the TNRD in a release after the passing of the 2024 budget at the board meeting on Thursday.
Due to the complexity of in the way in which tax rates are calculated within the Regional District, the rates for each municipality and electoral area will differ.
In Kamloops, which pays by far the most into the TNRD budget, the tax requisition for residents for this year will be down slightly from last year.
It comes as other areas of the TNRD, such as Area B — covering the Blue River area — saw their proportion of the regional assessment increase, mostly due to the addition of the Trans Mountain Pipeline into the assessment rolls.
“The new assessment values [in Area B] jumped up to 126 million,” Chief Financial Officer Carla Fox told the TNRD board on Thursday. “Right at that point, the amount of the requisition that Area B was paying increased by 38 percent.”
But because Trans Mountain will absorb the majority of that increase, the actual tax hit for residents in Area B is going to be much lower than the 38 percent assessment.
Fox says the same should hold true for most property owners throughout the TNRD.
“A majority of the class that increased was utility class. That is your pipeline,” noted Fox. “What that did right away, as soon as they jumped up, all the municipalities portions [of the overall tax assessment] went down.”
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- Electoral Area assessments
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- Municipal assessments
Meanwhile, Fox has outlined their projections for their financial reserves over the next 5 years, which shows them continuing to trend upward, which she argues is fiscally prudent, rather than politically expedient.
“You can see in other areas, when their major infrastructure goes down and they can’t afford it, the taxpayers are not happy.”
One area where residents will see a hit is in user rates for utility services, where average rates are to increase in the double-digits, per year, in most rural areas over the coming 5 years.
Utility rate projections throughout the TNRD
“Our staff departments have made a concerted effort to reduce expenses and other costs where possible while maintaining consistent service levels. This work has been important given the state of the economy and continued inflationary pressures, which have increased costs of service delivery,” said Scott Hildebrand, TNRD Chief Administrative Officer, as part of a release following the approval of the budget.
