Final Regina property tax hike trimmed to 3.3%

Mondaywas a good news-bad news kind of night as Regina City Council passed its final operating budget.

Council decided property taxes will go up by 3.3 per cent.

That works out to about $81 extra for the owner of a typical single-familyhome worth $300,000.

From the taxpayer's perspective, itcould have been worse, however.

Just three week ago, council had been looking at a 3.9 per cent increase a figure thatwas changed slightly to 3.8 per cent before Monday night's special budget meeting.

Then city officials announcedthey hadrecrunchedthe numbers and realized that 2016 tax revenue will be about $1 million higher than was earlier anticipated.That allowed councilto cut the proposed mill rate increase from3.8 per cent to 3.3 per cent.

Mayor Michael Fougere said he gets many calls and letters from citizens about tax hikes and council is listening to them.

"This is prudent that we're looking at this [reduction in the tax increase]," Mayor Michael Fougere said. "It is not affecting any program, any service that we have in the 2016 budget."

Utility hike also scaled back

Councillors also voted to trim back water utility hikes from six per cent to five per cent.

Originally,a typical four-person family with a dishwasher, two bathroomsand a washing machinewould have to pay about $100 a year more for water.

But many city councillors say they heard the most negative feedback from the public about the utility rate. Councillor Barbara Young moved a motion to reduce that increase to 5 per cent.

"When I talk to people, the one thing that they ask about in the budget that they're having difficulty with is the utility rate that has gone up every year," she told the meeting.

Now, the 2016 water and sewer billincrease has been trimmed to about $80.

It's the last budget council will pass before the fall 2015 municipal election.

Tax notices for individual property owners go out in the spring.