City council has approved two bylaw amendments that deal with property assessment preparation deadlines and the purchasing policy at city hall.
Council gave three unanimous readings to both bylaws during its recent regular meeting. Since there was no dissent, the bylaw amendments went into effect immediately.
Assessment deadlines
Section 174 (2) of The Cities Act legislates the annual due date for preparing the property assessment roll for cities, with that date being April 1 of every year. However, the bylaw amendment extends the due date for this year to May 1.
This change happens because the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) will deliver the assessment file late this year to city hall. This will prevent the department of financial services from meeting the legislated deadline.
“In the past, the city has received the final assessment file no later than March 1. The late delivery of the file will not give the department of financial services sufficient time to review, test, and upload the file into the taxation system to meet the legislated deadline above,” a council report said.
The report added that a section under The Cities Act allows council to extend the due date for “council-related matters” if the legislated deadline cannot be met.
Purchasing policy
Council approved a motion during its March 14 regular meeting to direct city administration to amend the city’s purchasing policy and amend the city administration bylaw to make the adjustments legal.
The amendment to the purchasing policy changes three items in the document: guidance is added around the pre-qualification process for tenders and requests for proposals, the approval limits on changes orders are updated, and a process to handle disqualified bidders has been added to the policy.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, April 11.
