Irricana Town council voted in favour of creating a Term of Reference for a committee to oversee operations and rentals of Town-owned buildings, Sept. 16.
The municipality owns four buildings and the groups will be made up of seven residents and user groups.
The Irricana Lions Hall, Irricana Community Hall, Irricana Fire Hall and the Irricana Town Hall will all be included in the committee.
Currently, there is a board that regulates the use of only the Irricana Town hall.
“The board has routinely engaged all of the stakeholders to review contracts, strategic planning for operating and maintenance and deal with rate requests,” administration told council in a written statement.
“The board has been successful in improving the building with the partnerships created with the stakeholders and the building is constantly being improved over time with careful planning and budgeting. In terms of success, this board has fulfilled its mandate according to the Terms of Reference and should, therefore, translate to other buildings.”
No date was set for the creation of the Terms of Reference or when the group will officially take over the buildings.
Provincial reports shows Irricana on par
The Provincial government has created a Financial Indicator report for towns throughout Alberta, and the results for Irricana show that the Town is on par with most towns its size in terms of taxations, population and expenses.
“The report is intended to serve as a tool that may assist council and administration with operational decisions,” the financial indicator report stated.
“The comparative measures may be useful in assessing past performance and for budget planning. Each municipality is compared to a group of similar size urban municipalities, or to rural municipalities with similar tax base.”
The report focuses on data collected from 2006 to 2011. Figures for 2012 were not available.
Irricana’s residential tax rate in 2011 was lower than the median town with 10 per cent compared to the average tax rate of 10.6 per cent.
The Town’s non-residential tax rate in 2011 also came under the median at 12.4 per cent, where towns with similar populations are charging 17.4 per cent for commercial operations.
Tax collection rates, however, were far below the average, according to the report, with just 79 per cent of taxes collected in 2011, compared to 92.5 per cent for other communities.
“We don’t know why the rate was so low,” Alvin Melvin CAO of Town of Irricana said. “We don’t know why people aren’t paying their taxes. Last year, I think the rate went up, and it’s a higher (collection) rate.”
The Town has only used 16.9 per cent of its total allowable debt limit, where other communities were using 26.4 per cent of their debt limit.
