Residents of a small town in B.C. are suffering from shock and confusion after receiving a municipal tax bill that is nearly 35 per cent higher than last year.
“I’m a homeowner from Princeton that lives on the river that flooded our town … a lot of us are still struggling to get caught up with all our losses,” Global News viewer Laurie Obey wrote. “Now we have been hit with very high taxes.”
Some are of the understanding that it was to cover costs related to the flood but town officials said that’s not the case. There was no municipal funding for flood relief. They also said the town knows that the cost may be a bit of a “shock to the system” but explained there’s no way around the hike.
“We had two major sources of tax increases here,” said James Graham, finance director for Princeton.
“The first was the operational taxes which all municipalities across the province are facing. A lot of municipalities are doing double-digit tax increases.”
Princeton’s operational property tax increase was pegged at 9.975 per cent for 2023.
But that’s not all people are seeing when they get their bill. Through an alternative approval process, residents of Princeton also approved the borrowing of $7 million to improve water and sewer infrastructure within the municipality.
“That (cost covers) a couple of very old sewer pipes and an infrastructure master plan that will update a couple of deficient waterworks that weren’t meeting WorkSafe requirements, amongst other things,” he said. “With our agreement with the province, we have to pay that back, obviously, in a 30-year loan. So the first installment of that 30-year loan also was added on to this year’s taxes.”
That means the total municipal tax burden on Princeton residents went up about $303 and is now, for an average homeowner, about $1,150. Last year, the bill was around $848, which was only an increase of about $44 from the year earlier.
Though it is a significant cost jump, when put in a larger context it is understandable. Graham said that in 2022, the town of Princeton was ranked 154 of 161 B.C. towns and cities for tax burden.
“So you know, it was a little bit of a shock to the system this year, but the overall increase is a one-year kind of increase to cover that loan,” Graham said. “And more consistent numbers should be coming in the future.”