McKillop reeve, councillor ready to revisit budget in bid to ease huge tax hike

REGINA A tax critic just elected to the RM of McKillop council says he wants to comb through the budget that led to a massive tax hike for ratepayers — and the reeve says he’s ready to join him.

The rural municipality on the shores of Last Mountain Lake had been dealing with “considerable dysfunction” on its previous council, according to provincially appointed inspector Carol Ingham’s report.

Ingham was brought on by Government Relations Minister Warren Kaeding soon after ratepayers blasted a tax increase that reached 130 per cent for residential properties, plus an $850 base tax on improvements.

Garry Dixon was among those beating the drum for tax relief.

He trounced an incumbent councillor caught up in a conflict of interest dispute, with Dixon earning 402 of 614 votes.

“It had a lot to do with the frustrations, said Dixon, who was on council years previously.

“A lot of ratepayers were wanting to get new councillors in place because of the tax implications.”

The new council, which includes two other fresh faces, met for the first time on Friday morning.

Dixon said it passed a motion to revisit the budget and the tax rate.

“The whole financial situation needs to be looked at,” he said.

“( We) have to go back to the budget and see whether it is a realistic budget, and what can be slashed out of it.”

Reeve Howard Arndt said he’s also anticipating “significant change” to the budget.

He said he expects some tax increase to remain, but hopefully something more in line with what ratepayers have deemed “acceptable” in the past.

He said the RM has already discovered some creative ways to cut the fat, while spreading out the remaining hike more evenly among residential and agricultural ratepayers.

“The lakefront people and the acreages, like myself, got hit extremely hard,” he said of the previous tax increase. “I don’t think we did a good job of doing that.”

He said he’s learned the RM can cut nearly $1 million in expenses by deferring payments into a lagoon reserve and a depreciation allowance. He said they’ll be refilled in the future.

“It’s not a practice you want to repeat over and over again,” Arndt said.

The challenges facing the RM may be less severe than some critics had previously feared.

While Ingham noted problems with the way council functioned, she concluded that the RM does not appear to be in financial difficulty. She noted that it’s well below its debt limit and has rarely touched its line of credit.

“During the inspection and interviews, no factual evidence of theft, fraud or misappropriation of funds was discovered,” she added. Arndt called that a vindication. Dixon said council now has to move forward to implement Ingham’s recommendations, which include a call to complete financial and management audits of the RM.

In her report, which was submitted to Kaeding on Sept. 15 but only later released to the public, Ingham also called for the appointment of a supervisor. Kaeding appointed Vern Palmer to fill that role on Sept. 27.

Dixon said Palmer has already proposed some “good ideas.”