The District of Kitimat council’s budget talks continued this week and a motion was passed for staff to consider a 3.75 per cent tax increase.
Originally, council tabled a four per cent increase and it has been a point of discussion during previous meetings about potentially bringing that figure down. During discussions council considered setting it to 3.5 per cent but deemed that to be too low of an increase. At the beginning of budget discussions council had a large deficit to try to overcome and throughout the various meetings has managed to find itself in a surplus situation.
“We’re very fortunate we have increasing revenues coming in, in the future years from Coastal Gas Link and LNG Canada, we’ve got $300,000 that has been freed up from projects that were completed or being deferred,” Coun. Mario Feldhoff said.
With the targeted 3.75 per cent tax bump $225,000 of the $300,000 will be going to the reserves. A point that Councillor Terry Marleau spoke on.
“The pattern of our reserves are not an upward trend, and our reserves are important within a community,” said Marleau.
He went on to say that it was council’s job to maintain the reserves, Marleau also commented that his intention was not to put out an outcry or that council is in a bad position.
Discussions continued as the cost of living as well as inflation were considered when talking about the tax increase.
Staff informed council that if they did pass the motion to consider the 3.75 per cent increase then staff would then report back with a new spreadsheet on the impacts of the lower tax hike.
The motion was passed five to one with Marleau voting against it..