The Town of Irricana will be lowering both residential and business taxes for the second year in a row.
According to Ted Coffey, Irricana chief administrative officer (CAO), the Town dropped its business taxes from a mill rate of approximately 12.1 in 2017 to 11.8 in 2018. This meant a savings of $26.32 per $100,000 of assessed property value, according to Coffey.
In 2019, the mill rate for business taxes is being lowered to 9.8 – a further savings of $207 per $100,000 of assessed property value, according to Coffey.
He said he is proud of how hard the municipality works to lower taxes and eliminate expenses for citizens.
“Our mandate is, we actually want to lower your taxes,” he said. “[Town councillors] all live here, too. It affects our bottom line.”
Council’s decision equates to a reduction in business taxes of just less than 20 per cent in two years, Coffey said. He added residential tax rates have dropped about 7.5 per cent in that time.
According to Coffey, there are a number of community benefits to lowering taxes, including making Irricana more enticing for both potential residents and businesses.
“We feel if we can show, year after year, a steady decline in taxes, we're going to be a far more attractive community,” Coffey said.
The Town is introducing other initiatives to save its citizens money and to become more attractive – he said since he began as CAO in June 2018, not a single councillor has put in an expense claim.
“Not putting in claims is more of a lead by example,” he said. “It's not all that much, but it's a very visible thing.”
Recently, Coffey said, the municipality completed a land sale for almost $300,000 – unloading land he said the Town had no use for, and putting the proceeds towards paying off its debt.
Coffey added the Town is sharing these details with the public in an effort to be more open about its operations.
“We [used to] go into camera meetings and make decisions that nobody knew about,” he said. “Now, it's complete openness and complete transparency. We publish information that we're not required to.”
He said he believes Town council has a mandate to meet citizen’s basic needs while operating at a low cost.
“You were elected to run the infrastructure at the lowest possible cost. That is our job,” Coffey said.
