2021 Tax Rate Bylaw

Magrath’s Town Council has worked diligently to keep the Town’s mill rate the same since 2018. Unfortunately, in 2021 rising and new costs from The Chief Mountain Solid Waste Commission, the Province’s Rural Crime Initiative, and other contracted service increases have outpaced the Town’s revenue growth in 2020 to a point where no reasonable alternative other than an increase to the municipal mill rate exists. The Town Council has therefore proposed a 3% increase to the residential property mill rate which will raise the Town revenues by $46,005. 

The Province’s new Rural Crime Initiative is putting a significant burden onto all small municipalities in Alberta and is something our Town will need to be addressing for the next several years. The first invoice received represents a new $42,866 expense to our budget this year. This new policing invoice is scheduled by the Province to increase each year until 2024 where the Town’s estimated future cost for this initiative will be $128,695. Additionally, Chief Mountain Regional Solid Waste Commission has raised their requisition rates across their service area for 2021 by 5.9% increasing their invoice to the Town by $3,751.

Additionally, as part of a standard audit conducted by the Ministry of Municipal affairs in 2018, one of the required outcomes was that the town needed to adjust its minimum tax rates to comply with S. 357 (1) of the Municipal Government Act. This section states that the town may only have one minimum tax rate as opposed to two. To comply we needed to raise the vacant property minimum tax to be the same as the minimum tax for improved property in the 2021 Tax Rate Bylaw.  

  

The Magrath Town Council and administration recognize the high fiduciary responsibility required for handling public funds and have worked creatively and hard to control and manage all other budgetary costs. However, the policing initiative is impossible to absorb into the current budget and together these two increases completely represent the Town of Magrath’s mill rate increase.  

The Draft bylaw can be found on the website's draft bylaws section, or by simply clicking here.

Second and Third Reading of the  2021 Tax Rate Bylaw will be on May 11th and Property Tax Notices for 2021 will be sent out on Friday May 14th.