The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Thompson city council voted in favour of their 2013 financial plan April 29, resulting in a 2.26 per cent increase to the residential mill rate. The mill rate increase will result in an additional $76 in property taxes for a home assessed at $200,000. While in 2012 the net taxes on said house were $2,658, in 2013 net taxes will be $2,734. Mayor Tim Johnston was pleased with the work of his budget committee, stating this year was a challenge. 'In my 10 years on council it's likely that 2013 was one of the most challenging,' said Johnston, 'I say that because we knew that there were a number of challenges with known increases that we have little ability to impact, especially with our contracts with things like the RCMP and things along those lines.' Despite the increased mill rate, Thompson still ranks among the lowest property tax rates for cities in Canada according to MoneySense magazine's 2013 Best Places to Live in Canada list _ 16th lowest in fact. Thanks to a census revision that showed an additional 294 residents, the city will see a $51,000 increase in revenue. The city has also approved a 4.75 per cent increase to fees and fines, consistent with the 2012 tax increase. As with years previous, grants-in-lieu of taxes account for a significant portion of the city's revenue with $7,129,783 in total, and $6,470,668 of that amount coming from nickel miner Vale. Expenditures for the 2013 budget year are weighted heavily in protective services such as police, ambulance, fire and emergency, and animal and pest control. Protective services as a whole account for $8,946,236 of the $26 million in expenditures, with policing accounting for around $5.1 million. The city was bound to many contractual expenses as Johnston mentioned, though they were able to decrease non-contractual expenses by a total of $470,000. _ Matt Durnan, Thompson Citizen
