Cariboo RD Board Starts Review of Budget 2023

Courtesy of the Cariboo Regional District:

The Cariboo Regional District’s Board of Directors has started to review cost estimates, budget proposals, and business plans for Budget 2023. The preliminary budget was presented by the CRD’s chief financial officer at the Finance/Budget Committee meeting, held on December 8.

The preliminary budget accounts for continued inflationary pressures, resulting in an increase of 4.1 percent over the total tax requisition for 2022. However, not every service will see a uniform tax increase, with certain services seeing higher increases compared to 2022. Tax requisitions for some fire departments, for example, will increase by ten to fifteen percent to support the replacement of expired firefighting equipment, while other functions such as sub-regional recreation will see increases below the 4.1 percent overall increase.

Individual property owners will also see varying levels of changes to their taxation depending on which services they contribute to, changes to their property’s assessed value, and the final tax rate established by the Board for each taxable service.

The Board has requested staff to undertake further refinements of the budget, which will be presented for further consideration at its January 12 committee meeting. The revised budget will also incorporate changes any changes to property assessments which will be released by BC Assessment on January 2.

The CRD will seek additional feedback on the proposed budget starting in mid-January. Under the Local Government Act, the Board must adopt a balanced five year financial plan for 2023-2027 by March 31, 2023.

More information about the 2023 budget is available at: https://www.cariboord.ca/budget/