Education property taxes in Bruce County are going to stay the same for the fifth straight year.
During Thursday’s county council meeting, council heard a report from the corporate services department regarding a letter from the provincial Ministry of Finance.
The tax rate will remain at 0.153 percent, but council says that while it sounds nice for the taxpayer, it isn’t great for municipalities.
Kincardine Mayor Ken Craig says that while he doesn’t want to push for a tax increase, “In the last 10 years, our municipality has lost in excess of $700,000 in taxes because of this seemingly great initiative by the province to hold the education tax at the same rate.”
He says that while the tax rate may stay the same, it means that municipalities get less.
Craig adds, “It’s a declining balance that the municipalities get. I hate to push for a tax increase, but it ties in nicely to the proposed AMO financial arrangement with the province. There’s a whole lot of fingers that tie it together.”
Warden Chris Peabody said that he was spoken to both by Bruce-Grey Owen Sound MPP Rick Byers, as well as Grey County Warden Brian Milne.
He said that he would ask the county’s CAO to set up a meeting to have the discussion.
“We all know that at both levels [of government] we seem to be picking up more and more costs for different services, whether it’s conservation authorities, or schools, or LTC,” says Peabody.
Meanwhile, the 2024 business education tax rates will remain at 0.88%. BET rates were reduced to that amount in 2021 in order to benefit business properties.
