City Notebook: Urban-rural divide on property taxes

By Collin Gallant on December 14, 2024.

This week came the obvious comparison from certain expected circles about the tax freeze in Cypress County and tax hike in Medicine Hat (council debates a 5.6 per cent hike on Monday).

So, of course, the question is: what’s the difference, and if one can make it work without increasing tax bills, what’s wrong with the other?

Cypress County will, remarkably, bring in about 10 per cent more tax revenue in 2025 compared to this year, despite the tax freeze.

Now, if you know how tax rates work, you know that can only be accomplished by increasing the assessment base. The current jump obviously comes from new renewable energy projects coming online and spreading out the assessment base.

Much the same situation occurred last year in the County of Forty Mile, which recorded a $3-million increase in linear assessment revenue in a single year. That county’s entire population is about 3,500, making it a relative bonanza.

Cypress County’s fortuitous situation (six green energy projects in operation, eight more permitted) also coincides with a multi-year plan to raise local tax rates from the lowest in the province to the 80th percentile. (That leaves four out of five counties with higher rates).

That’s regardless of current-year budget needs, and is meant to head off annual cash crunches and begin now to absorb declining oilfield assessment.

As such, Cypress County will also put one-quarter of its entire tax request, or $10 million, into reserve funds for future needs.

Attracting industrial growth, putting money aside for the future and holding the line on taxes seems like a winning campaign slogan on seven days out of seven.

In the city, by contrast, cash reserves and building a solar plant are the biggest bones of contention.

City budget

Major capital projects not included in the proposed city budget, but destined to come up at some point:

– The Medicine Hat Stampede is also requesting more than $20 million in grants and loans to move forward with provincial funding to replace and upgrade grandstands at the exhibition grounds.

– Council also approved a new priority list this fall including the need for staff to begin planning to build a new recreation facility in the city’s far south, ostensibly to replace the Crestwood Rec Centre, two single community rinks, or both, likely at a cost over $60 million.

– The Medicine Hat women’s shelter, as well, has said it is preparing a request toward an ongoing $6-million redevelopment.

Those would likely arrive at council as budget amendments in the new year, the News is told.

A look ahead

Council meets Monday to finalize the 2025-26 city budget. Some portions of a new regional economic development strategy will be unveiled.

100 years ago

Walter Huckvale was returned for a fifth year as mayor with the largest majority in city election history on Dec. 9, 1924, the News reported.

He topped alderman and challenger R.B. Davidson by a count of 996 to 553. Hatters returned Dr. Gershaw as school trustee and also endorsed the fireman’s question (hiring one more so each could take one day off per week) by a three-quarters majority.

The “Fascisti” organization of Benito Mussolini had launched worldwide branches, including five in Canada, the Italian leader boasted in Rome.

Samuel Gompers, onetime head of the Cigar Makers Union and current American Federation of Labor leader, died.

What would be a better Christmas present than a Westinghouse Radiola from your local retailer, the Assiniboia Music Co. on Third Street? Potentially, bottles of the five different whiskies advertised in the News on a single day as the Alberta Liquor Board system was instituted.

Collin Gallant covers city politics and a variety of issue for the News. Reach him at 403-528-5664 or via email at cgallant@medicinehatnews.com.