No hint from Kelowna council on where it will fall on projected tax increase

KELOWNA – After a lengthy presentation on Kelowna’s financial status today, Kelowna city council made no comment on the projected 4.4 per cent 2019 tax increase.

The closest anyone came today, Dec. 10, was Coun. Luke Stack who asked why a proposed Infrastructure Tax was set at 1.95 per cent and not two per cent. He was told by finance director Genelle Davidson that it was a number that was comparable to other municipalities and was reasonable.

It will only offset about nine per cent of the projected $477 million shortfall in infrastructure funding by 2027.

“That doesn’t resolve our infrastructure shortfall,” Stack said. “It just takes a step in the right direction. We still need to find another 81 per cent through federal and provincial government grants and other innovative methods to resolve that deficit.”

He did not hint at where he might fall on the magnitude of the infrastructure tax.

Davidson pointed out that a number of other strategies have been proposed and will be discussed further next year.

Council will go through the 2019 provisional budget in detail on Thursday, Dec. 13, after which time a clearer picture of the actual tax rate for next year will be determined.


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics