Moose Jaw’s Catholic school division expects to generate about $4 million this year by levying its own property taxes and mill rate, a move designed to protect its constitutional rights.
During their recent board meeting, trustees with Holy Trinity Catholic School Division voted to adopt the education property tax mill rates that the provincial government established for the 2022-23 taxation year. The mill rates include:
- Agriculture: 1.42 mills
- Residential: 4.54 mills
- Commercial/industrial: 6.86 mills
- Resource property: 9.88 mills
In the 2020/21 fiscal year, the school division collected $4,088,184 in education property taxes. For 2022-23, with assessment growth factored in, the division expects to receive $4,168,000 by levying its mill rates.
About four years ago — during the time of the Theodore Court Case — all eight Catholic school divisions in Saskatchewan moved to protect their constitutional rights to exist and operate as religious educational organizations by enacting mill rate bylaws, explained chief financial officer Curt Van Parys.
The Ministry of Education allowed the organizations to enact those bylaws, but they were required to pass an annual resolution to set the education property tax mill rates by April 20 and notify the ministry and area municipalities by May 1.
“Our school division — as well as a number of other school divisions — have the option to deviate from provincial rates, but there really is no financial advantage associated with that,” Van Parys said.
“So if we were to, for example, set our mill rates higher than the provincial mill rates, the ministry would reduce our grant by an equivalent amount, and if we were to set our mill rates lower … the ministry would say, ‘Oh, things are looking good,’ and they wouldn’t adjust the grant.”
The levying of educational property taxes and mill rates is expected to generate about $20 million for all 28 school divisions in Saskatchewan to support pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 education.
“So bottom line, (we’re) preserving our constitutional rights as Catholic school divisions and adhering to what the ministry has decreed we need to do to make sure those rights are preserved,” added Van Parys.
The next Holy Trinity board meeting is Tuesday, May 24.
