Vermilion will see a 3.52 per cent increase in taxes for 2018. The town’s Council initially predicted a tax increase of 5.45 per cent, however after reassessing came back with a lower number.
Mayor of Vermilion Caroline McAuley says that it’s never nice to have an increase in taxes, but is pleased with the outcome.
“What we were trying to do is looking at reviewing the services that we provide and keeping the tax rate as low as we could. We had projected earlier in our first reading a much higher rate and we were able to cut it almost in half once we saw what the education rate was going to be and really looked at our service level.”
The education tax saw an increase of 2.73 per cent from 2017, that did factor into the decrease of municipal taxes. Tax payers will pay just over $1.7 million for school requisitions in 2018, an $45,207 increase from the year before.
The town also saw low assessment growth in 2017 with little to no new businesses coming into the community. McAuley says that no new business means less tax revenue.
“With the economy the way it was, this was a much more difficult year and we had virtually no growth, so that also is always an impact.”
Property owners will see a 2.7 per cent increase in residential and 3.8 per cent in non residential. McAuley says that homeowners can expect to pay $11 to $16 dollars a month on average depending on the assessment of their property.
The town Council has committed over $22 million in capital spending including, the $16 million Waste Water Treatment Facility. So far the plant has received $10 million in grant funding from both federal and provincial governments.
“There is pressure, an expectation from our government that we would have this plant operational by December of next year 2019. We’re working hard to move that forward just because we have somewhat of a deadline to meet.”
McAuleys adds that they are going to borrow approximately $4.5 million to complete the project, which is currently in the design phase of development.
The municipality will be collecting a little over $5 million for the services they provide in 2018.