Last weeks public meeting on budget preparations provided a few interesting tidbits of information from City Hall.
With the city putting together its budget forecast for 2008, the city hosted a Monday night open house of sorts to underline their fiscal concerns and expectations for this year.
Among some of the details outlined on Monday were that CityWest will once again, for the third year in a row miss its target of providing 2 million dollars in revenue for the city, instead cutting its expected contribution to the city’s bottom line to one million dollars.
Also on the horizon, the city hopes, is some tax revenue from the Watson Island facility owned by Sun Wave Forest Products, a one time potential pulp mill owner and operator, but currently more of an offshore and absentee landlord. The City has put their request back on the books for 1.2 million in taxes from Sun Wave, a fifty percent cut from the past expectations of 2.5 million from the property. Still it’s more of a wish that a sure thing for the 2008 tax year, as Sun Wave is currently appealing its assessment.
All was not deficit financing at City hall however, Chances Gambling Centre is expected to be sending a cheque for somewhere around 400,000 dollars from their operations on 1st Avenue West, while the Fairview Container Port will provide 650,000 dollars in tax revenue, plus provincial funds that top up the capped rate of taxation on ports in BC.
From 1999 to 2003 the City spent monies in anticipation of revenues that never materialized, resulting in a 5.5 million dollar shortfall taken from their various surplus funds; they also went a further 4 million into debt to maintain operations during that period. Since 2003 they have been working on balancing their finances and addressing their deficits by taking, (from their point of view) a tighter control on spending.
How the CityWest reduction and the continuing dispute over the Sun Wave monies affects the bottom line remains to be seen, with more discussion surely to follow.
The Daily News provided details on the city’s tax hopes in Friday’s paper.
City expects mill owners to contribute $1.2m taxes
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Friday, April 25, 2008
Page three
The city of Prince Rupert is putting Skeena taxes back into its budget, but at a severely reduced rate.
With the city putting together its budget forecast for 2008, the city hosted a Monday night open house of sorts to underline their fiscal concerns and expectations for this year.
Among some of the details outlined on Monday were that CityWest will once again, for the third year in a row miss its target of providing 2 million dollars in revenue for the city, instead cutting its expected contribution to the city’s bottom line to one million dollars.
Also on the horizon, the city hopes, is some tax revenue from the Watson Island facility owned by Sun Wave Forest Products, a one time potential pulp mill owner and operator, but currently more of an offshore and absentee landlord. The City has put their request back on the books for 1.2 million in taxes from Sun Wave, a fifty percent cut from the past expectations of 2.5 million from the property. Still it’s more of a wish that a sure thing for the 2008 tax year, as Sun Wave is currently appealing its assessment.
All was not deficit financing at City hall however, Chances Gambling Centre is expected to be sending a cheque for somewhere around 400,000 dollars from their operations on 1st Avenue West, while the Fairview Container Port will provide 650,000 dollars in tax revenue, plus provincial funds that top up the capped rate of taxation on ports in BC.
From 1999 to 2003 the City spent monies in anticipation of revenues that never materialized, resulting in a 5.5 million dollar shortfall taken from their various surplus funds; they also went a further 4 million into debt to maintain operations during that period. Since 2003 they have been working on balancing their finances and addressing their deficits by taking, (from their point of view) a tighter control on spending.
How the CityWest reduction and the continuing dispute over the Sun Wave monies affects the bottom line remains to be seen, with more discussion surely to follow.
The Daily News provided details on the city’s tax hopes in Friday’s paper.
City expects mill owners to contribute $1.2m taxes
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Friday, April 25, 2008
Page three
The city of Prince Rupert is putting Skeena taxes back into its budget, but at a severely reduced rate.
Dan Rodin, the city's chief financial officer, told residents at a public meeting this week that the city is expecting tax revenue from the Watson Island pulp mill property, currently owned by Sun Wave Forest Products.
In 2008, the city has assumed it will see $1.2 million from the property, which in the past had been assessed at upwards of $2.5 million.
"In regards to the pulp mill, it has been assessed taxes for this year. We have every expectation they are going to pay them," said Rodin.
However, Sun Wave Forest Products has appealed their assessment to the B.C. Assessment Authority and is going through the lengthy process of a review.
In anticipation of a reduced assessment, the city has dropped its expectations of revenues from the property to $1.2 million and doesn't anticipate the assessment process for Sun Wave being resolved until sometime in 2009.
Sun Wave is not operating the mill, but is generating some revenue through leasing out some facilities. The Watson Island site has two tenants including the Quickload Terminals Container Examination Facility and the Coast Tsimshian.
The city got into a deficit position between 1999 and 2003 when it continued to spend taxes it anticipated receiving from the pulp mill's owners. Unfortunately, the various owners never did pay those taxes.
During those years, the city spent close to $5.5 million from its water, sewer and telephone surplus funds as well as going into debt by an additional $4 million in order to continue its operations.
According to Rodin, the city does not have to repay the surplus funds to itself, as those were not dedicated reserve funds. Since 2003, the city has focused on rebalancing its budget and reducing its deficit position. In order to achieve these goals, it has had to take a tight position on spending.
The city is also planning on another revenue reduction in 2008. The city has only budgeted for a $1 million contribution from CityWest. This would be the third year in a row the municipally owned communications company has contributed $1 million, instead of the $2 million it used to contribute to the city's coffers in the past when it was operated as a city department.
However, there are some improvements in income for the city.
In addition to taxes from the Chances Community Gaming Centre, the city is anticipating about $400,000 in gaming revenues.
"We have had a few chats with people at the casino and they have advised us to use the figure of $400,000," said Rodin.
And the city is getting more revenue from the new operations at the Fairview Container Terminal, about $650,000. The tax rate for port properties is capped by the province, however the city receives a $1.3 million top-up grant from provincial coffers to offset the lost revenue from the tax cap on port properties.
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