The majority of proposed increases are related to contractual and safety obligations that we are mandated to meet due to the many labour contracts that the City has with multiple unions and staff cohorts. We are also continuing to see impacts of inflationary increases, which residents experience as well and must be accounted for in City budgets. In addition, there have been major cost increases in things like road salt and other amenities that residents may not realize also have cumulative impacts on municipal budgets.

Due to Provincial legislation that implements a capped rate on the municipal tax rate applied to qualifying port properties, increases can also not be shared equally across tax paying classes.

As the community is aware, infrastructure replacement needs that were deferred during challenging financial times have been necessary to prioritize over the past few years, and these projects continue to be needed despite limited finances. Some come with the possibility of financial penalty if not completed (wastewater treatment) and others have the potential (water treatment). These projects continue to be strategic goals that put cost pressures on our utility rates if we are to maintain the current level of service.

Local governments can't run a deficit. Every year we have to ensure that we collect enough taxes and fees to operate for that year.

When we have to borrow for capital projects, repayment costs have to be considered in future budgets.

Approximately 64% of taxes billed to property owners are for services provided by the City of Prince Rupert (library and property tax). The City collects the remaining taxes on behalf of other authorities including:

• Provincial government (for school taxes)
• Northwest Regional Hospital District
• North Coast Regional District
• BC Assessment
• Municipal Finance Authority

Your municipal taxes pay for:

• Police Services - 21%
• Fire and Rescue - 18%
• Parks and Recreation - 16%
• Roads and Transit - 14%
• Airport Ferry - 7%
• Grants to Community Organizations - 5%
• Corporate Services and Human Resources - 4%
• Engineering and Civic Properties - 4%
• Finance and IT services - 4%
• Planning, Development and Economic Services - 4%
• Governance - 1%
• Bylaw Enforcement - 1%
• Cemetery - 1%

Services such as water, sanitary sewer, and residential garbage collection are billed separately from property taxes. User fees (collected through utility bills) support the operating costs of these services as well as the replacement of aging infrastructure.

Property taxes are calculated each year based on the BC Assessment value of each individual property. The City takes in information provided by BC Assessment about changes to overall property values, and adjusts the property tax rates according to the average increase or decrease in values according to property type. Generally speaking, if your property assessment decreased more than the average homeowner, your taxes are likely to decrease. If the BC assessment value of your home increased more than the average owner in Prince Rupert, your taxes may also increase. Taxes may also increase in relation to the average value of property depending on the inflationary increases experienced by the City with respect to mandated services and community driven services.

BC Assessment provides property assessments at the start of each calendar year. If you would like to dispute the valuation of your home or property, please contact BC Assessment directly. All disputes must be initiated prior to the end of January.

Our Budget document (see the Documents section after October 27th) will answer that question more fulsomely. We currently have an aggressive slate of ongoing renewal projects working to address water quality issues, implement wastewater treatment, move towards development of a new fire hall building, and other critical infrastructure priorities.

Major projects that have been completed over the past few years included the full renewal of our 100 year old dam and building of an access road to it, the mandated replacement of our RCMP station, Cow Bay marina and breakwater asset and revitalization of our heritage rail station (both funded by grants), and design works for a pilot form of wastewater treatment that we are now seeing constructed on Park Avenue and hope to deploy throughout the community to meet mandated wastewater treatment needs.

Aside from the above, a major step was the commissioning of a study on the state of our water and sewer lines. This work was a pre-cursor to achieving significant Provincial and Federal grant funding for the BIG Project to replace failing piping infrastructure in the areas that are in the worst condition and have the highest consequence of failure. With that work now well under way, we are advocating for the additional funding required to implement a secondary form of water treatment to enhance the reliability of local water quality.