For the Municipality of Killarney-Turtle Mountain 2025 is a reassessment year with an average assessment increase across the municipality of 16.1%. The highest impact is on agricultural properties with an increase of 27%. Residential properties saw an increase of 8.8%.
"However, after deliberations and back-and-forth discussions, we were able to decrease our mill rate and fully offset that increase," shares Mayor Janice Smith. "As a result, our rate payers will not experience a significant increase."
In knowing the increase in property assessment council tried to mitigate the impact by holding the line on operating expenses. With the grants they have been able to secure, along with healthy reserves, the municipality is still able to tackle a multitude of roadwork projects, utility projects, and capital purchases.
Despite the challenges of rising costs, they were able to reduce the municipal mill rate by just over 15% to help offset the average reassessment increase.
Taking into account the increase by the Turtle Mountain School Division, their total mill rate will decrease just under 8.5%. What this means for ratepayers is that residential properties should see a slight decrease and agriculture properties will see an average increase of 16% rather than the full 27%.
So, for example a property in town assessed at 300,000 will see a decrease of roughly $14.00 while a quarter section assessed at $500,000 will see an increase of roughly $450.00.
"We are in hard times right now, and families are struggling with rising costs everywhere," shares Mayor Smith. "We are also feeling the pinch due to the increasing costs of equipment, supplies, materials, and wages that come with running the municipality. However, we know that we have to keep our municipalities moving forward and continue doing things, because if we stop, we won't progress."
The recent announcement of a federal grant to purchase a new Handi-Van for Killarney, as well as a sizeable provincial grant to do their landfill upgrades, the municipality has been able to pass this positive turn of events to their taxpayers.
"We thoroughly reviewed this budget. We are still undertaking many projects, and it's wonderful that we have some funds coming from both the federal and provincial governments. This support is really helping, and we will see many projects across the municipality this year, which is great," add Smith.