Prince George, BC – By a vote of 6-2, Prince George City Councillors have voted to spend as much as $60-thousand dollars to ‘top up’ the Permissive Tax Exemption for local non-profit organizations this year.  And the hard work of one such organization, may bode well for future years.

At last night’s budget meeting, the majority of Councillors voted in favour of approving the one-time grant to help local groups caught off-guard by a decision last fall to cap Permissive Tax Exemptions at 97-percent.  As part of the City’s grant program, it offers these tax exemptions to approximately 160 organizations, including social service agencies, churches, and the museum.  But when Council learned in the fall that the exemptions, at $1.2-million dollars (or 1.54-percent of the tax levy), would be breaking the city’s policy of only allocating 1.5-percent of the levy to fund them, it passed a bylaw imposing the cap on all groups.

During last night’s public input session, Dawn Hemingway, who sits on four boards for local social services agencies, reminded Councillors that the groups work on shoe-string budgets.  "Anything that is taken away from that is really going to make a difference in terms of service provision."

Earlier in the budget process, Council was told the cost of a one-time grant to fund the City’s portion of the tax would $80-thousand dollars, with an additional $40-thousand needed to cover the portion the City collects on behalf of other municipal governments like the Regional District and School District.  Last night, staff presented revised figures of $40-thousand and $20-thousand, respectively.  Councillor Dave Wilbur said he realized Council’s decision in the fall had left local non-profits scrambling.  "It seems to me that the $60-thousand dollars that we’re talking about is very meaningful for the non-profits, but it’s .08-percent of the project," said Wilbur.  "And, consequently, I’m fully in support of this service enhancement.  In my view, not only is it significant for them, but it’s the right thing to do."  However, Wilbur said he would only support such a grant this year, giving the groups time to account for the clawback in future years’ budgets.

Councillor Garth Frizzell said he, too, was in support of the enhancement and offered that the picture could look significantly different next year thanks to some hard work done by the Chair of the Board and the CEO at The Exploration Place.  Frizzell explained that the museum’s value was assessed at $6-million dollars – a figure that had never been challenged in the past when it had the 100-percent exemption from the city.  This year, however, Tom Dielissen and Tracy Calogheros appealed the assessment.  It was revised to $3-million dollars and, because the group is a non-profit, the taxable amount is only $96-thousand dollars.

"I guess that the museum is likely one of the most highly valued buildings among the permissive tax exemption group," said Frizzell.  "Their virtual erasure from this exemption cap suggests that we should be significantly below that cap as we move into 2013."  Frizzell said, if other non-profits follow suit and have their values re-assessed, the City will have several years of being well under the 1.5-percent cap.

Councillor Cameron Stolz and Mayor Shari Green voted against the one-time grant.  Mayor Green said the decision to cover the three-percent hit should have been made in the fall.  She said the Finance and Audit Committee suggested the across-the-board cut as a fair way to deal with the issue and Council could have turned it down at that time.  "So the cost of that then would have been the $40-thousand dollars," said Green.  "But (today) it’s also another 20 (thousand dollars) because of this add-on that we’ve put ourselves in the position of, in terms of the regional district piece and the other authorities that we collect for."

"We’ve got a 20-thousand dollar ‘oops’ here, in my mind, around this table because we didn’t make the decision in October."

As for what 2014 holds in light of the new assessment for The Exploration Place, the City’s Manager of Financial Planning, Kris Dalio, said he hasn’t yet seen the change in assessment, but, says, if the information is correct, the City would be well under its 1.5-percent cap.