City hall faces a regular struggle with property assessments because some residents appeal their assessed value every year even when a provincial body rules in favour of the municipality.
Year-to-date, the City of Moose Jaw is up roughly $320,000 in tax revenue compared to the budget for the year. These additional tax dollars were a result of successful property assessment appeals that city hall made to the Saskatchewan Municipal Board (SMB), according to city administration.
However, during that time, the municipality lost $344,903 in tax revenue after property owners successfully appealed their assessments. This has resulted in an overall loss of tax revenue of $24,903.
City council established a reserve worth $337,500 earlier this year to cover these losses, which means the reserve has absorbed most of those losses year-to-date.
According to the proposed 2021 budget, from 2014 to 2020, the City of Moose Jaw lost more than $117.9 million in assessment appeal claims, translating into a loss of tax revenue of $1.57 million.
The value of the lost assessment appeal claims and loss in tax revenue for the past six years was:
- 2014: $19.5 million / $279,430
- 2015: $7.9 million / $101,714
- 2016: $5.7 million / $93,188
- 2017: $16.2 million / $204,103
- 2018: $11.4 million / $151,190
- 2019: $31.1 million / $403,458
- 2020: $25.7 million / $340,645
“There are still a number of local board of revision decisions outstanding that, once rendered, we are estimating will result in around $300,000 in additional appeal losses for 2020,” finance director Brian Acker said in an email. “Therefore, at the end of 2020, we expect actual tax revenues to be very close to budgeted tax revenues for the year.”
Acker talked about property assessment appeals during the most recent city council meeting, as part of a broader discussion about the third-quarter financial report.
“It is a revolving door,” he said in response to a query from Mayor Fraser Tolmie about the cycle with appeal losses.
While the municipality was successful with its appeals and earned $320,000, most of the appeals are for one year only, which means the property owners continue to appeal “over and over and over again,” Acker continued. The local appeals board continues to rule in favour of the property owners, which means city hall receives less revenue. It’s then a slow process to receive a ruling from the provincial appeals board.
“… the money we gained from the Saskatchewan Municipal Board appeals will be lost again by new appeals (from property owners),” he added, so the cycle will continue to repeat even when the SMB rules in favour of the municipality.
The next regular city council meetings are Dec. 7 and 21.
