Coaldale Town Council passed second and third reading of the Town’s 2024 Property Tax Bylaw at a special council meeting held earlier this week.
While the bylaw approves a 4.13 per cent total increase in residential and non-residential property taxes, it does so on the basis of a 5.2 per cent decrease in the residential mill rate and a 2.5 per cent decrease in the non-residential mill rate.
These decreases in the Town’s mill rates were approved to help offset increased costs associated with inflationary growth in both residential and non-residential property values.
“As a Council, our goal is to keep property taxes as affordable as possible to attract new residents and boost our commercial and industrial growth,” says Mayor Jack Van Rijn.
“When we learned about the substantial increase in property values and what that would mean for residential and non-residential tax bills, we decided to lower our residential and non-residential mill rates. This way, we’ll be able to provide our residents and business owners with at least some financial relief from the effects of high inflation, which is making everything less affordable – including owning property,” adds Van Rijn.
For the average residential property in Coaldale, taxes will increase by $138 per year or $11.50 per month, with almost two-thirds of this increase coming from provincial requisitions for education spending.
On average, Coaldale residents will pay 8 per cent less in annual municipal property taxes than residents in the Town of Taber and 9 per cent less than residents in the City of Lethbridge.
Coaldale’s non-residential tax rate will remain among the most attractive in the region, coming in at 29 per cent lower than the Town of Taber’s and 54 per cent lower than the City of Lethbridge’s.
According to Director of Growth and Investment Cameron Mills, Council’s move to reduce the Town’s mill rates points to its long-standing commitment to avoid unnecessary tax increases – even in the face of high inflation. “As the Town’s 2023 Comparative Analysis illustrates, Council’s resolve to steer clear of needless tax increases isn’t a one-off and actually reflects a larger trend that goes back to at least 2019.”
Published in December of last year, Mills notes, Coaldale’s 2023 Comparative Analysis is designed not only to provide Town residents and business owners – both current and prospective – with a better understanding of Coaldale’s financial and operational performance, but also with a better understanding of how Coaldale’s municipal operation stacks up against the municipal operations of eight other, similarly-sized and/or neighbouring municipalities. The municipalities include Blackfalds, Drumheller, Edson, Innisfail, Lethbridge, Lethbridge County, Ponoka and Taber.
In keeping with the Town’s previous Comparative Analyses, the Town’s 2023 Analysis includes a number of positive findings, especially with regard to municipal taxation.
“What we found is over the last four years, residential and non-residential mill rates in almost all of Coaldale’s peer and neighbouring municipalities increased – and in some cases by over 10 per cent,” adds Mills.
“But in Coaldale itself, the residential mill rate decreased by 5.29 per cent, while the non-residential mill rate decreased by 3.41 per cent. What this effectively means is with its comparatively low tax increases, the Town’s 2024 Property Tax Bylaw pushes Coaldale further down this competitive path, keeping it an attractive place to move to or grow a business in for the foreseeable future,” says Mills.