Quinte West council has officially approved its 2021 operating budget.
At a special budget meeting on February 8, councillors raised concerns about the proposed 1.97% increase for residential property tax and requested that staff find a way to lower that number before approval.
At Monday’s Quinte West council meeting staff returned the budget with two options for lowering the proposed residential property tax increase.
The first option, which council eventually decided on, was to remove the 2021 commitment of $200,000 to the Natural History Museum project and to reduce the transfer of $100,000 to the Insurance Reserve to better reflect the recent changes approved by council on insurance premiums. This option would result in a 2021 property tax increase of 1.47%.
The second option involved further using the $285,000 of the 2020 surplus to cover the costs of expiring commitments to various community groups for a 1.0% increase in property tax. This option would reduce the amount of surplus funds put into the Capital Reserves for potential capital projects.
After a brief discussion councillors elected to go with the first option of a 1.47% residential property tax increase.
This translates to an average increase of $46.93 per year based on an average home value of $250,000. The figures used to calculate property tax and average home value came from the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation.
To see the budget breakdown click here.
