Tax Shifting comes to Williams Lake??

On Wednesday, your Williams Lake City Council will meet for a 4th time to consider the 2012 Budget and 2012-2016 5 Year Financial Plan.  The link to the Agenda is here

Two items of note:

1) Staff will request that Council consider approving a new position: Energy/Planning Technician.    While Victoria has imposed new requirements on local governments relating to OCP's, relating to climate change goals, - I'm wondering if either Victoria should put up money for this position, seeing as they've required additional work upon local governments for OCP Planning or, in the alternative, the region's local governments (Wells, Quesnel, Williams Lake, 100 Mile House and the Cariboo Regional District) should pool resources together for a common position that all local governments in the Cariboo-Chilcotin would require

2) As my readers' are aware - Mayor Cook has stated that her Council will be looking into the issue of tax shifting (shift how much one tax class pays - ie: shift 1% of taxes paid by Industry to Residential).  This issue is not new in this area as the City of Quesnel has been doing exactly this over the last few years (shift 1% or less from Industry to Residential)

Williams Lake City Staff propose the following:

Note, these scenarios do not come with what Council needs to do to achieve them (0% tax hikes, regardless of tax shift) and they should so Council/taxpayers' know what the consequences to City Services are... before we say 0 or 3% tax hike with a 0 or 1% tax shift.  Please remember that numerous communities are going through the same discussion that Williams Lake will now go through like Quesnel, Kamloops, Castlegar and a number of local governments on Vancouver Island.  Should Williams Lake entertain the thought of tax shifting...?

2012 Tax Rates -- 0% tax hike and no tax shift: (Numbers below are preliminary)

Property Tax Class	Tax Rate in 2011 (per $100,000)	Tax Rate (Proposed) in 2012 (per $100,000)
Residential	$526	$527
Utilities (rate at provincial max)	$4,000	$4,000
Major Industry	$8,843	$9,032.78
Light Industry	$3,472	$4,100.060
Business/Other	$1,120	$1,122.141
Recreation/Non-Profit	$1,483	$1,486.140
Farm	$1,840	$1,830.271

2012 Tax Rates -- 0% Tax Hike with a 1% Tax Shift:

Property Tax Class	Tax Rate in 2011 (per $100,000)	Tax Rate (Proposed) in 2012 (per $100,000)
Residential	$526	$533
Utilities (rate at provincial max)	$4,000	$4,000
Major Industry	$8,843	$8,682.570
Light Industry	$3,472	$4,050.800
Business/Other	$1,120	$1,145.950
Recreation/Non-Profit	$1,483	$1,503.060
Farm	$1,840	$1,295.190

2012 Tax Rates -- 3% Tax Hike with a 0% Tax Shift:

Property Tax Class	Tax Rate in 2011 (per $100,000)	Tax Rate (Proposed) in 2012 (per $100,000)
Residential	$526.027	$545.00
Utilities (rate at provincial max)	$4,000	$4,000
Major Industry	$8,842.57	$9,330.40
Light Industry	$3,471.79	$4,251.00
Business/Other	$1,120.44	$1,154.01
Recreation/Non-Profit	$1,483.35	$545
Farm	$1,840.48	$1,902.05

2012 Tax Rates -- 3% Tax Hike with a 1% Tax Shift:

Property Tax Class	Tax Rate in 2011 (per $100,000)	Tax Rate (Proposed) in 2012 (per $100,000)
Residential	$526.027	$549.50
Utilities (rate at provincial max)	$4,000	$4,000
Major Industry	$8,842.57	$8.896.40
Light Industry	$3,471.79	$4,203.67
Business/Other	$1,120.44	$1,192.41
Recreation/Non-Profit	$1,483.35	$549.50
Farm	$1,840.48	$1,253.41