City Budget Planning

The municipal budgeting process is a planning tool that enhances your local government's accountability and service delivery and sets out their legal expenditure authority. Local governments must annually adopt a financial plan in accordance with the Local Government Act and the Community Charter. The planning period must include the current fiscal year and the next four fiscal years (five-year plan). Legislation establishes requirements and deadlines for adoption of financial plans by May 15 of each calendar year.

LET'S CONNECT

The City's budgeting process is a year-round commitment, and public input is always welcome as staff and Council build the five-year financial plan for adoption. To learn more about the City financial planning process and ways to provide your input on the services your tax dollars pay for check out the information provided below.

From October 2024 to January 2025, managers will present their department’s business plan for the year ahead. The draft five-year financial plan, capital expenditures plan, utility budgets, and tax rates all come forward at this time as well. These presentations are given at Committee of the Whole meetings for which there are several scheduled in the coming months (check out Key Dates for upcoming meeting). Residents are encouraged to attend these meetings (either online or in-person at City Hall), to listen and learn, and ask questions.

BACKGROUND

With an estimated 20,000 residents, the City of Port Alberni manages and delivers a wide-range of facilities and services including essential ones like your drinking water, solid waste (garbage) and liquid waste (sewer) disposal, fire, policing and more - your municipal tax dollars pay for all of this and much more. Each year the City works to create a balanced budget that funds these essential services, maintains facilities and infrastructure and ensures adequate service levels are provided on a continual basis. With limited resources available, the budget helps in determining which projects, services, infrastructure and initiatives have the highest priority and will produce the greatest positive impact in the community. 

Here is a breakdown of how your 2024 tax dollars were allocated across the many City services based on the average Port Alberni household.

CHALLENGES

Every budget cycle presents its own challenges and poses difficult decisions for your City Council to make. As a council of seven, your elected officials aim for a balance between setting a reasonable tax rate and delivering services expected by residents and businesses. Common challenges include:

• The budget must balance
• There is an increased downloading from other levels of government, increased pressure to provide additional services; and increasing regulations that necessitate higher standards of care
• Aging infrastructure and increasing construction costs
• Increased non-controllable expenditures such as hydro and insurance

REVENUE

Municipalities use a variety of revenue sources to pay for a wide range of services that residents and businesses depend on and use regularly. User fees attempt to align the value of a service to those who use the service (eg. water, garbage) whereas property taxes (taxation) are a stable and reliable source of revenue for services that are hard to fund on a user-pay basis (eg. police and fire).

PROPERTY TAX & ASSESSMENTS

Tax revenue is made up of property taxes (residential, commercial, light industrial and heavy industrial); together they made up 82 per cent of the total revenue for the 2024 tax year.

Your property taxes are based on the assessed value of your property as determined by BC Assessment, an independent third party who values all property in British Columbia. Taxes are calculated as:

Rising assessments do not always mean that property taxes will increase

The most important factor is not how much your assessment has changed, but how your assessment has changed relative to the average change for your property class. For example, if your assessment increases by 20 per cent but the average assessment increases by 30 per cent, your taxes will likely decrease. But if your assessment increases by 40 per cent and the average assessment increases by 30 per cent, your taxes will likely increase.

HOW DO WE COMPARE

Port Alberni has some of the lowest taxes in the province for similarly sized municipalities (that have a population between 15,000 and 40,000), with total taxes and charges on a representative house less than the provincial average in 2024.