County gets $23,178 back as part of Provincial Education Requisition Credit

By Peggy Revell on March 21, 2018.

Cypress County will be receiving more than $23,000 in funding back due to the new Provincial Education Requisition Credit.

“We’re just really pleased the government stepped up,” said Cypress County Reeve Richard Oster, as the local county alongside others has lobbied the government for the past year for the funds.

The funds are basically a retroactive reimbursement — counties pay education property taxes to the province, and counted in this calculation are oil and gas properties, even if these have gone under. Because the properties have been shut down, counties couldn’t recoup the lost revenue through property tax.

The PERC credit means Cypress County will have $23,178 returned.

“It’s just going to go back into our general revenue,” said Oster — where the funds were originally pulled from to pay the education tax in the first place.

The program is retroactive to 2015, which is when oil prices began to fall. It will operate until 2019.

A total of $3 million will be dispersed to 37 communities following the first round of PERC applications.