OSOYOOS TIMES-March 3, 2010

By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times

Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) board and staff members spent six-and-a-half hours at a special meeting on Feb. 25 trimming the regional district’s proposed budget.
The RDOS budget that received first reading from the board on Feb. 18 included an overall tax requisition of $13,460,590.
Jim Tarves, the RDOS’s acting finance manager, said as a result of the meeting, that number has dropped to $12,913,491.
Such a decrease, he said, was possible because surplus monies and reserves can be used to offset some of the proposed tax requisition.
The new requisition number is still up from 2009, where the overall tax requisition for the RDOS was $11,953,318, a difference of more than $960,000.
Tarves said part of the reason for the increase from last year is due to a reduction in provincial grants.
For example, he said, the basic regional district grant from the province has been reduced by $245,470 this year.
The RDOS also has lower surpluses this year compared to 2009, Tarves added.
Osoyoos’s share of the proposed 2010 tax requisition is $676,766.
That’s up by $9,875 from 2009, but it’s more than $89,000 below the requisition amount for Osoyoos contained in the original budget proposal that received first reading.
The new requisition amount for Osoyoos landowners breaks down to 51 cents for every $1,000 of assessed value.
That’s up one cent from 2009.
The largest requisition increase for Osoyoos contained in the proposed budget is for general government at $115,640.
In 2009, that figure was $97,834 and Tarves said the $17,000 increase is again due to the reduction of the basic regional district grant.
General government funding is used to pay for items such as board honorariums, travel expenses and housing costs for staff, he said.
Rural Area A’s share of the proposed 2010 tax requisition decreased from $905,007 to $839,647 thanks to the Feb. 25 meeting.
That’s still a 20 per cent increase from 2009.
If this requisition rate is approved, Area A landowners will experience a tax hike of 34 cents for every $1,000 of assessed value.
The 2009 rate was $1.33 cents and the 2010 rate would be $1.67.
Prior to Feb. 25, Area A faced an average tax rate of $1.81 for every $1,000 of assessed value in the proposed 2010 budget.
The largest increase in requisition amounts for Area A relates to Anarchist Mountain fire services.
In 2009, the requisition amount for that service was $119,580.
That amount has increased this year by more than $108,000 to $227,915.
The original requisition amount for the fire service before Feb. 25 was $196,998.
Tarves said he was unsure why that amount has increased so much for 2010 or why it was increased during the budget discussions on Feb. 25.
Area A Director Mark Pendergraft was unavailable for comment on the reasons for the increase before press time.
While the overall tax requisition amount for the RDOS went down after discussions on Feb. 25, the proposed total expenditures amount for 2010 went up.
The expenditures amount that received first reading on Feb. 18 was $39,770,650.
That figure was increased to $39,917,161 following the Feb. 25 meeting.
The increase, Tarves said, is due to requests for service improvements from RDOS residents.
The proposed date for adopting the 2010 budget is March 18.
The RDOS is hosting an information session on the proposed 2010 budget at 7 p.m. on March 15 at the Sonora Community Centre.
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