Lake Country eyes 6.45% tax hike

[Castanet News]

Lake Country council will be considering a 6.45 per cent property tax hike during next week's budget discussions. In a meeting set for Tuesday Dec. 3, the...

[Noshortageofdrivers]

Time to fire the whole council

[RIKK]

That would result in 32.97 % in 3 years time...........
Amazing how the District talks about "without placing excessive burdens on the community."
Getting too old for this nonsense
We were always taught not to spend more then you have.

[phosphorous]

Since 2013, the compounded tax increases in Lake Country are now > 100%.

[wellcoboy]

time to remove these people and find a candidate that will clean house and reduce operating budget.. these people are already on notice that tax payers are getting *bleep* off. and should be worried that tax payers will put a stop to this nonsense of ripping us off ...

[Tack]

6.5% Vernon, 6.5% lake country. 4.4% Kelowna. Like I said earlier, Kelowna is doing a much better job than most cities in dealing with increased population and aging infrastructure. I havnt read lake country's budget yet though, so there may be good reason.

[Babba_not_Gump]

If Lake Country gets away with a 6.45% increase, consider yourselves lucky. Kamloops is projecting a 9.67% increase.
Last year they stuck us with 9.55%.

And they haven't even started on those $250 MILLION monuments to themselves. Which of course will go waaaaay over budget, guaranteed.

[Jamz]

This is obviously a wrong idea when Canadians are struggling so much and lining up at food banks! Why would it be a good idea to make people suffer more?

[Captain Klutz]

Hmmm, and just announced yesterday was the purchase of the old BC tree fruits property on bottom wood lake Rd for $9.1 million by the district of Lake country. Let's see, 9.1 million divided by approx 17,000(pop of Lake country) equates to $535 from each and every citizen. For something that wasn't even known about til it was announced and without any input from the constituents. That is a harsh pill to swallow.

[77TA]

What was the tax hike last year? 17% I believe. Hey, I don't mind paying taxes if they are used properly to benefit the residents of our district but growth should be balanced with expenditures. You can't just keep jacking up the tax every year without something to show for it. Disclaimer I haven't looked at the budget yet and I'd love to hear from anyone that has insight.

[Larry Ball]

the mayor and city council need to give their heads a shake after a 2 year increase of 27% and the removal of garbage from our taxes and make it a aditional charge they spend close to 9 million on the old packing house and plan on turning it into a multi-use facility using our tax dollars and have the nerve to figure we are all stupid and will have no problem having tax hike after tax hike to pay for it. we all need someone to help get their heads out of their *bleep*.

[scotty2hotty]

That doesnt seem that bad to me. House prices have skyrocketed, so you gotta pay the piper.

[GINNI]

Irresponsible and unacceptable: last 2 year tax hike amounts to nearly 30%, local infrastructure crumbling, roads, no sewer for lake side communities. Stay within budget, cut salaries, projects, capital expenditures etc instead of charging longtime locals on fixed incomes unrealistic taxes. Also stop spending on frivolous expenses such as new signs, park acquisitions, fruit packing house etc. This is not the time. People are moving back to Alberta because of prohibitive costs here. Again: stay within budget or otherwise quit and let others do the job.

[trock]

That doesnt seem that bad to me. House prices have skyrocketed, so you gotta pay the piper.

And here lies the problem. Acceptance.

[Tack]

That doesnt seem that bad to me. House prices have skyrocketed, so you gotta pay the piper.

And here lies the problem. Acceptance.

Actually the problem in the original statement lies in that house prices going up doesn't necessarily mean property tax goes up. If the city need $x million to run and there's y thousand houses. It's (simplified) x divided by y. Your house price only matters relative to others as a proportion of what you pay. The city still needs the same dollars no matter the house prices.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mi ... ed%20value.

I havnt read the whole budget document yet. But for the past year people are complaining about the 17% increase, I think they forgot that lake country hit the threshold where they're required to find the rcmp at a greater proportion (70% up to 90% now) due to hitting the 15k population threshold. Huge expense change that caused the huge increase.

On page 6 if the draft budget plan, people can check out where the funds are intended to be spent

https://letstalk.lakecountry.bc.ca/2025 ... ncial-plan

RCMP,. infrastructure, general inflation & wage increase, transit, fire equipment reserve, 6 new FTE.