Summerland keeps tax hike to 1.65%

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.”