Homeowners to see 5% tax hike

By Ken Johnston
Editor

If you thought you were going to see a drop in your property taxes due to a lower assessment by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation this year, your savings will not be as great as you thought.
Rainy River Town Council passed its 2013 budget and tax rates Monday evening and residential taxpayers are in for an average of 5% increase over last year.
Town Clerk Veldron Vogan explained, "All we did was bring revenues even with 2012 levels. We lost (property) values in the assessment." MPAC did a reassessment of the entire town and property values dropped by 7.87%.
At the April council meeting Finance Committee Chair told council, "With the new MPAC property assessments it looks like we will have $13,000 less tax monies (if rates stay the same) to work with once all the who gets reduced and who was increased is worked out. We all need to sharpen our pencils."
However, the news is not all bad. If you are a commercial property taxpayer, you will actually get a tax break. "We shifted some of the tax burden from commercial to residential. It will be noticeable for businesses but not so much for residential as it is spread over the largest portion of taxpayers and we have only a small commercial base here," explained Vogan.
The total tax levy required to run the town for general purposes is $505,047 and for educational purposes $92,124 for a total of $597,171.
The following municipal tax rates were passed Monday:
-Residential/farm 1.69%
-Multi-res. 1.88%
-Commercial 2.87%
-Com. Vacant 1.97%
-Industrial 3.46%
-Ind. vac. 2.25
-Pipeline 4.8%
-Farmlands .4%
The following educational tax rates were passed Monday:
-Residential/farm .21%
-Multi-res. .21%
-Commercial 1.26%
-Com. Vacant .88%
-Industrial 1.26%
-Ind. vac. .82
-Pipeline 1.26%
-Farmlands .05%
Other Business
•Council hired four students to work with 4008/tourism and public works. They are Annagen Wood, Kendal Stamler, Karl Drackert and Kathryn Abbott.