county taxes?

[cowman]

My county hasn't set the budget so not sure if we are getting an increase or not, but the county to the south is proposing 11% and the county to the north is also proposing an increase.
Now I know they have to keep up the roads, and I know the taxes have been kept down the last few years due to the money rolling in from the oil companies.
I would suspect any added increase could cause hardships to some landowners? Cattle are in the tank and my hog farmer neighbor tells me it is darned tough in the pig business right now! The grain farmers seem to be smiling a lot lately and who knows what the future hold for them?
Anyway...my question...Do you think a tax hike is justified at this time?...and will it affect the fall municipal elections?

[coppertop]

cowman, counties have been faced with huge increases in the cost of paving, staff wages, power costs, fuel costs etc. One thing to remember, is that your county, as others in areas of huge growth, has seen a large increase in assessment. This means that you would be paying more on your property due to the increased assessment even without a mill rate increase.
In my opinion the increase in assessment should be ample to run most counties without raising the mill rate, but I was always a councillor that preached living within our means vs spending like drunken sailors.
I am willing to bet that there are some councils that will pay the price of a mill rate increase come election time.

[cowman]

Believe it or not my land taxes actually went down last year...although very small!
But in the last several years the tax increase has been miniscule or non existent...while the appraised value went up! They just kept lowering the mill rate!
Of course the drilling rate was feroscious and the buildings just kept going up in the business parks and gasoline alley!
Not sure just what will happen this year? Red Deer county isn't some paragon of virtue...and I think they have been running the reserve kind of low...to cover some of their more outrageous spending sprees! It will be interesting to see how it goes?

[coppertop]

This municipality did not lower the mill rate so most taxes took a significant jump. Mine went up 20%. The CEO advised council not to lower the mill rate because they needed to build up the reserves after the previous council drained them down to zero.

[Horse]

Coppertop you must have been a lonley voice in the wilderness if you advocated living in your means as most public minded consulors have a far higher standard than the Hoy Poly and just cant seem to let something like a matching grant slip past them.

[coppertop]

I wasn't popular with many residents who demanded that their road be paved, even if it meant depleting the county financial reserves down to a dangerously low level, and I wasn't too popular with folks who demanded multi-million dollar recreation facilities, one after another, when neither the county nor the local town could afford to build them.

[cowman]

Coppertop: I think that is what Red Deer County has been doing...lowering the reserves so everything still looks rosy? Now mind you the money has been rolling in, so maybe that isn't entirely the case!
About 2000 there was a big shake up in Red Deer County when they found the CAO was stealing? $3.5 million to be exact! The council had to scramble to get peoples minds off the fact that no one was minding the store! Basically 95% of the staff went down the road and they brought in a whole new gang and went on a spending spree!
New office and shop...about 300% over original cost projections!
Massive expansion of the planning department!
Studies on everything...for big bucks!
Really dumb decisions on gravel purchases!
And finally a complete gong show on the transfer site! Close to 300% of original estimate...and still counting!

In addition they made several other blunders...probably the biggest being taking over Springbrook from federal government with a net liability of $20 million...and still counting!
Another winner was the Ridgeview landfill. Probably dropped $7 on that little nightmare!
Bringing in a goofy tender system...that cost them around $1 million on one gravel deal!
Completely letting costs get out of control with "advanced technology"...laptops, cell phones, a truck for every Tom, Dick and Harry! lucrative expense accounts....and just generally every little perk imaginable for both staff and council!
Upping councillor renumeration to $30,000 honorarium...it is interesting in 2002 under a FOI request the reeve recieved $95,000 the deputy reeve $89,000 the next councillor $87,000 and the lowest paid councillor $43,000!
Red Deer county is not run like a good business? In fact in many ways it is run just like the province? When the money is rolling in so fast you have to pack it out in wheelbarrows...well just about anyone can look good?

[coppertop]

I am going to suggest that the money your Reeve tells you they are saving by contracting equipment for public works, is a drop in the bucket to what you seem to feel they are wasting everywhere else ! You better throw in some huge costs for legal counsel, consultants etc. for the battle against the city of Red Deer over any annexation bid, and you will see why they need to increase the mill rate. Growth costs most municipalities, particularly if they have the liabilities you have indicated.

[farmers_son]

Annexation...Our family was talking about that just the other day.

Why is it that the cities can annex land from rural municipalities? Why should that resource go to the cities once it starts to generate some serious tax revenue. As long as the land is poor the taxes can go to a rural municipality. If development happens and the land can support more taxes then it must go to the cities and the rural people living in the rural municipality make do with less while having to support the same level of fixed costs on a smaller tax base.

It is unbelieveable what rural Alberta puts up with.

[cakadu]

You bring up an interesting thought, farmers_son, and I will pose a question that I haven't yet formed an answer to myself.

Should a rural municipality try to be an urban municipality? Can it become one, given that there are entirely different considerations for a rural municipality versus those for an urban one? Given that infrastructure costs a great deal to maintain, can a county come up with the needed revenue to support increased infrastructure? Let's face it, the county can make a whole lot more taxes off of those acreages than they can farm land, but do we want the land chopped up into acreages? How feasible is that, given this explosion in drilling activity? That will curtail most any intense development.

[coppertop]

Linda, the county usually does not make a huge amount of money off residential assessment. You have to consider all the services that country residential demands. Recreation, increased fire and ambulance service, paved roads etc. The real money maker for municipalities is power and pipeline linear assessment and machinery and equipment assessment plus commercial and industrial.

As far as annexation goes, the MGA allows urban centres to file to annex lands from adjacent rural municipalities if those lands are necessary for the growth of the urban centre. Annexation for people and assessment is not allowed, so the urban centre must come up with a very good reason for lands that contain people. For example if there were a number of undeveloped parcels near some that were developed, the urban centre may request the ability to annex those lands so they can have further residential or commercial development.

As far as rural Alberta putting up with it, it is written in legislation, and rural municipalities have input into every single amendment to the MGA.

[cakadu]

Copper, I agree with you that if the infrastructure costs more than what you will get from it - then the municipality has to ask if it is a solid investment - Smart Growth principles at work there. In many places in the U.S. for example, for every dollar they get in revenue from infrastructure, they spend $1.50. Not exactly cost effective.

I know out here, the county makes far more tax revenue from those 5 acre parcels than they do off quarter sections.

Given your background, how do you feel about rural municipalities becoming more urban?

Should rural municipalities try to run themselves like their urban counterparts?

[coppertop]

Linda, I feel strongly that there has got to be somewhere left in this province for agriculture to exist on the landbase necessary. I also believe that country residential multi-parcel subdivisions should not be approved unless they can hook on to municipal services. I do not agree with the drilling of numerous wells to service several acreage developments, nor to I agree with multi onsite sewage mounds scattered all over the landscape. However, with the economy the way it is, and people demanding to own their little parcel in the country and build their huge homes, what my opinions are don't really matter. In this area many farmers objected to allowing more than one parcel per quarter section in 2000. Now, the same farmers are lined up with subdivision applications for three parcels out per quarter, and yet some of the same farmers come in to planning commission meetings to register their objections because their adjacent neighbour wants to take three parcels out of his or her quarter section !!!

Having lived through a dozen amendments to the land use by-law, and several changes to the number of parcels per quarter, my opinion is that there should NOT be subdivisions allowed within the set back of existing confined feeding operations, and the maximum parcel size should be no more than 5 acres. Most of these subdivisions are for residential use, and the people have no intention of having livestock or keeping a ten acre parcel groomed and landscaped, hence, much of it goes to weeds.
Within a mile of my home there are 8 small parcels, some of which run small businesses, but have not bothered to get a development permit from the county. Some of them complain bitterly to anyone who will listen when the local feedlot owner hauls silage past their home, but they don't seem to think there is anything the matter with them running trucks in and out of their property several times a day for their own business. I find that those raised in a rural setting at least understand what goes on in the agricultural community, but most seem to come from cities and have no clue what to expect.

[cowman]

Actually those five acre parcels are a money loser and so is farmland? At the local townhall meeting the Reeve said that.
The real money is in industrial/commercial, as well as pipelines/leases etc.
Anyone who thinks Red Deer County can continue to operate, in the manner they have, without the revenue from the industrial parks and gasoline alley...isn't living in reality?
ALL residential and ALL farmland does not pay even 30% of the revenue! Farmland pays 11%!
Could the county survive without those industrial lands? Well of course....but don't expect your roads to be maintained. Expect to pay much higher taxes. Expect to pay higher gargbage fees, higher permit fees, much higher police and fire costs.
To even think it would be business as usual shows a complete lack of understanding county finances! It is a good thing that the councillors we have in there at least understand that!

[farmers_son]

Given the reaction to Stelmach's choice of Ministers I think it is very clear that there is a rural urban split in this province.

If there is a urban bias in the Municipal Government Act that does not make it right even if rural municipalities had input into changes to the MGA.

Why does it have to be mandated in the Municipal Government Act that cities grow and rural municipalities shrink?It seems to me that at least portions of most rural municipalities are indistinquishable from their city and town counterparts. Those developed acres and the associated tax base would be necessary for the operation of the rural municipality.

Rural people have aspirations just like city people. We like good roads and government services just the same as the city or town dweller. Whether the MGA allows it or not, annexation of the rural taxation base and the redirection of those tax revenues from rural to urban is wrong.