By Sebastian Kanally
An objective for Osoyoos over the next four years is to increase the proportion of user fees accounting for town revenue at least three per cent. This was among the considerations and objectives of the financial plan that was adopted at Town Council on Jan 10, 2023.
The 5-Year Financial Plan was presented by Jim Zakall, Director of Financial Services and it lays out the Town’s funding sources, distribution of municipal property tax rates, and permissive tax exemptions.
The plan was given a first, second and third reading at the December 13, 2022 open meeting and was adopted Jan. 10 with no further discussion.
The budget results in an overall increase to an average single-family residence valued at $631,900 for the 2022 tax year of $283.29 per year for Taxes and Utility Fees.
The top sources of proposed revenue for 2023 are municipal property taxes accounting for 11.47 per cent, and grants accounting for 18.99 per cent of total revenue.
Sales of service and user fees are a substantial portion of planned revenue. User fees sit at 18.36 per cent, and sales of services at 6.95 per cent. This includes the many services that are charged on a user-pay basis, such as water and sewer usage, business licenses, cemetery, landfill, building permits, etc.
The town plans to increase the proportion of these user fee services to total revenue at least three per cent in the next four years.
In addition to the above, a noteworthy percentage of total revenue is transfers from funds at 27.96 per cent. These transfers come from the reserve funds which sits at $4,802,123 for 2023 and is planned to be spent over the next five years with the majority in the next few years and declining slower thereafter.
The total of all the sources of revenue proposed to be raised in 2023 is $27,861,771.
As concerns the distribution of property tax rates, the percentage of total property taxation that rests on residential properties is 82.32 per cent, and business sits at 16.95 per cent. All others such as utilities, farmland, etc, are less than 0.2 per cent each. The total dollar value of all property taxation is $3,195,629.
