Alfred-Plantagenet approves its 2018 budget

Alfred-Plantagenet taxpayers can expect to see their property tax notices in the mail soon.

Council gave final reading and approval for the $12,176,590 budget during its February 6 meeting. The 2018 budget is about $140,000 less than last year’s budget.

Township Chief Administrator Marc Daigneault said, during a later interview, that property owners can still expect a possible three per cent increase in their overall property tax figures because of the provincial evaluation process. «The value of property (overall) has increased by more than three per cent, so that gets figured in too,» Daigneault said.

The Municipal Provincial Assessment Corp. (MPAC), which evaluates all property in Ontario on a four-year basis, determined that in the past fouryear period, from 2014 to 2018, for Alfred-Plantagenet Township has seen the overall value of the township’s total combined lands within its boundaries increased by about 15 per cent. The MPAC evalua- tion for a municipality is spread out over a four-year period, so the township’s property tax notices include a three-per cent MPAC evaluation calculation. Individual properties may also have different total evaluations, depending on factors like whether or not there have been any improvements to the site.

«I think that overall it (MPAC evaluation) is a good thing,» said Daigneault. «Landowners are getting more value for their land. Agricultural land value, for example, has more than doubled. That has a huge impact because we have a lot of agricultural land.»

L’augmentation projetée des taxes pour Alfred-Plantagenet est de 3%.