Is your municipal tax bill too high?
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- Published on Saturday, 01 June 2013 11:15
- Written by Michael James | © DrumhellerMail.com
Over the past two weeks, Drumheller residents have received their annual tax assessments in the mail.
Bill Wulff, Acting Director of Corporate Services for the Town of Drumheller, took some time explain to inSide Drumheller how municipal taxes are calculated and how residents can appeal.
“We get this often. Someone will come in saying their taxes are too high. We say they can’t appeal their taxes, just their assessment. Then, they say their assessment is fine and they don’t want the value of their house to go down,” said Wulff.
The only avenue of appeal, for residents who disagree with their taxes, is the market value assessment of their property.
To determine property taxes, the market value assessment of the property is multiplied by the tax rate, education tax rate, and Senior Foundation requisition rate.
Tax rates were set earlier this year at 0.0072268 for residential and 0.0115074 for nonresidential. The education tax rate is 0.0027096 for residential and 0.0038132 for nonresidential. The Seniors Foundation requisition is 0.0003953.
For example, a property assessment of $170,000 would result in property taxes of $1,228.56. However, with the addition of the Education Tax and Seniors Foundation requisition, the total property taxes become $1,756.39.
For every $1,000 removed from the market value during an appeal, property taxes are reduced by $10.33 for residential and $15.72 for nonresidential.
During the appeal process, an assessor is brought in to do a thorough inspection of the property to determine it’s market value. Any major construction on the property will affect the market value and, by extension, property taxes.
“If you have an appeal, the assessor will be visiting your property,” said Wulff. “The assessment is based on the market value of your property, so if you can sell that new garage for $15,000, your assessment will go up that much.”
Normally, the market value for a property is determined using a mass appraisal process. Assessors examine property sales in a neighbourhood, then apply the average per cent increase or decrease to the remaining properties.
“The assessment is really mass appraisal. Instead of having someone come into your house and look at absolutely everything, what happens is, they look at the sales in that neighbourhood. So, if all the houses went up by an average of six per cent, that is applied to every other house in that neighbourhood,” said Wulff. “That’s why there is an appeal process in place.”
Also, any major construction is considered when determining market value. Assessors visit properties that are granted development permits.
Overall, residential taxes saw an average increase of $96, with some properties seeing less and others more.
The increase is largely due to increases in both the Education Tax and Drumheller and District Seniors Foundation requisition, neither of which the Town of Drumheller has any control over.
Residents wishing to appeal their assessment may do so at Town Hall by filling out an appeal form.
Beard Bros. auction manly manes for DCHS cancer survivor
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- Published on Saturday, 01 June 2013 11:00
- Written by Michael James | © DrumhellerMail.com
The third annual Beard Bros. auction, dubbed Beards and Bands, is going under the clippers on June 1 at Kaleidoscope Theatre.
The evening will have the famous beard auction, where people can purchase the rights to give one of the Bros. a haircut they’ll never forget.
Proceeds from the auction will go towards former Drumheller Composite High School student and two-time cancer survivor Vince Rovere’s Relay for Life efforts.
“Basically, just after High School and then a few years later he survived through cancer twice. He’s campaigned as much as he can ever since,” said Eric Neuman, who is organizing the event.
Eric Neuman (left), Chris Capobianco, and Ramon Nagesan, with fellow Beard Bros. Phil Wolters and Dan Lambert will let their beards and hair be the canvas for the upcoming Beards and Bands on June 1 at Kaleidoscope Theatre. Proceeds from the event will go towards former Drumheller Composite High student and two time cancer survivor Vince Rovere.
Each participant will sport their new style for 24 hours after the event.
“We’re planning on doing something, like grocery shopping or going to the bar to make people aware of what’s going on,” said Neuman.
After so long with the beard, some of the Beard Bros. are looking forward to being clean shaven.
“I can’t wait. Especially on hot days, my face heats up and remains insulated most of the night,” said Neuman. “I have more beard than most men my age, so people were more enticed to feel it or comment on it.”
Neuman is being joined by Chris Capobianco, Phil Wolters, Ramon Nagesan, and Dan Lambert. Neuman has been preparing for the shave for months.
“I’ve been growing my beard since September 4,” said Neuman. “It’s an extra large canvas this year.”
Spring Clean-Up future debated: Problems force reevaluation of program
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- Published on Friday, 31 May 2013 15:26
- Written by Michael James | © DrumhellerMail.com
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The annual Spring Clean-Up, conducted by the Town of Drumheller, may undergo some changes after a host of issues plagued this year’s garbage collection.
Tammi Nygaard, manager of Drumheller and District Solid Waste Management, was disappointed with how the cleanup went this year.
“We’ve got some problems. We need to sit down, debrief, and come up with some better suggestions for next year,” said Nygaard. “We had a lot of issues this year. In the last couple years, we were doing quite well getting the message out that things needed to be separated and sorted. People were doing a good job of that.”
The biggest problem faced by crews was residents were not sorting the items they put out.
“The problems we experience this year had to do with sorting and separating. The public were just piling things up into huge piles, so when the guys got there, it was a huge mess. It took a lot of time to sort things and collect it all,” said Nygaard.
Another problem faced by crews were scavengers. Though Nygaard felt it was good that residents were reusing some of the items, their methods left something to be desired.
“There were a lot of people going around and scavenging ahead of the trucks. There were some that even did it on the same day the trucks were going through and getting in the way. They (scavengers) would make a mess of the piles,” said Nygaard.
Crews also hauled away an excessive amount of demolition materials. In years past, crews only collected a half-tonne truck worth of demolition material.
Lastly, Nygaard felt not all of what was collected belonged to residents in Drumheller.
“The public are abusing it. We think some of the stuff was imported from outside of the community. The guys go to these houses every year and every year they have these huge piles. It doesn’t make any sense how a person can collect that much waste in just one year,” said Nygaard.
In the end, 202 overtime hours were accrued by staff, compared to the last two years where no overtime hours resulted from the cleanup. The cost, so far, has been estimated to be $119,000.
Now, the future of the cleanup is up for debate. The Town will work on modifying the program to make next year smoother and reduce costs.
At the Monday, May 27, meeting of the Committee of the Whole, Drumheller Town Council expressed a desire to keep the cleanup running, but felt crews could be more selective in what they take.
“Maybe it’s a matter of complacency. Continued complacency regarding sorting could result in the program getting scaled back to the point where it’s not the same as what people want,” said Councillor Jay Garbutt. “I think all would be in agreement to do away with anything that would be considered an abuse of the system, in particular setting limits on what the amounts and be and empowering (crews) to not pick up what they think is abuse.”
Overall, the amount of items collected was up 25 per cent over last year.
