Property tax notices are finally going out on Monday in the City of Swift Current.
"(People will) have until the end of July to pay their taxes," said Mayor Al Bridal. "There have been some glitches in the system. That's why it's taking so long to get these out. There will be 972 new assessments going out with some tax notices because there were some problems with some of the assessments. Those people will have 30 days to pay their taxes, but also those 972 will have 30 days to appeal their assessment.
"There's been a glitch in several glitches in the system and that's why it's taking so long. Normally we have taxes out by the 1st of June, and they're paid by the end of June."
The late notices have caused the city to dip into savings to make up for not having tax revenue at the usual time.
"The city relies on taxes to pay our bills," Bridal said. "The sooner we get the money in in the year, the sooner we can pay our bills. We're paying them anyway, but we've had to take out of savings to pay them. Once taxes start coming back in, that money will go back into savings."
Having to dip into those savings will cause some financial losses for the city.
"I ran a business for a number of years and the one thing I always thought was very important to make sure staff got paid and suppliers got paid," Bridal said. "We feel the same way here at the city. We need to make sure our staff is paid, and our suppliers are paid. If there's a financial consequence because we've had had to take some money out of savings, that's just life."
He noted the city is already working on correcting the technical problems they had so the tax notices will get out on time in 2026.
"We're already looking at it right now," Bridal said. "We're definitely changing how we do things and why we did things and some of the software and some of the information. We should have all these processes in place so that when we come to next year because this taxation, it never quits."
Bridal added most of the 972 corrected assessments are commercial properties.