COVID grant helps keep tax hike down

With financial assistance from a provincial COVID-19 restart grant, Summerland council has drafted a 2021 budget containing a modest 1.65% tax increase while putting away more than $1 million for a rainy day.

If the budget is approved as written following deliberations last week, it will cost the owner of an average home assessed at $592,000 an extra $22 annually.

The relatively low increase is possible thanks to the $2.7-million restart grant. Approximately $900,000 will be used to make up for losses in 2020, while another $545,000 will go into the 2021 budget to offset operational and capital costs.

That will leave the district with $1.3 million in the bank to help cushion unforeseen blows.

“Council always tries to keep the (proposed) property tax increase as low as possible, while still providing the services residents require and moving ahead on priorities,” Mayor Toni Boot said in an email Monday that acknowledged the restart grant “helped considerably.”

“Council recognizes that most everyone — families and business owners — experienced a degree of income loss in 2020, so keeping the property tax rate low was important.”

Local politicians in Penticton and Oliver have also decided to bank large portions of their respective restart grants in case more trouble is ahead.

“There is still much uncertainty on what 2021 will look like. Public health orders have limited the types of activities that are allowed, which in turn limit the revenues the district can collect,” finance manager David Svetlichny wrote in a report to council.

“It is estimated that the district will not be back to normal revenue collection until 2022 or 2023. Having this unallocated funding will help curb any additional COVID-19-related revenue losses in the next two years and will provide some stability in those areas that need it.”

All of the draft financial plans sent to council were “predominantly prepared as status quo budgets” that incorporated increases in contractual costs and inflation, noted Svetlichny.

And while council left the proposed budgets largely intact, it did nibble away at the edges of some items: the consulting budget for education and marketing related to solid waste was trimmed from $65,000 to $22,000; and two annual unlimited yard waste collection days were added at a total cost of $10,000.

Residents will face a new $65-per-tonne charge for white wood and $25-per-tonne charge for green waste at the landfill.