Province Hands Out Community Grants
Prince George, B.C.- Each November, the Provincial Government delivers grants to 56 communities throughout B.C. in lieu of taxes. For Prince George, the amount this year is $1,813,345.91.The grants are payable on land owned by the Provincial Government such as courthouses, provincial government office buildings and warehouses. The grants are meant to reimburse municipalities for services which benefit government properties such as sewer, roads and fire protection.
Schools and hospitals are exempt from municipal property taxes and are not part of the grant equation.
Other communities in the region have received the following:
Burns Lake – $8,887.72
Dawson Creek – $121,389.00
Fort St. James – $35,828.56
Fort St. John – $142,670.12
Hazelton – $24,088.63
Houston – $309.36
Prince Rupert – $49,475.35
Quesnel – $59,397.34
Smithers – $127,036.64
Terrace – $116,167.88
Wells – $1,186.07
Williams Lake – $60,217.79
Comments
Knowing this Mayor and Council they’ll spend it foolishly. I see another photo op in the Mayor’s future.
Houston, $309.36, wow, what will that buy, one 20lb fire extinguisher?
So what they are saying is – they are paying their property taxes, to the communities for the services the community provides to the Province, 6 months after everyone else, and we should celebrate this. OK. Great spin!
I would be interested to know if this “grant” adds up to the same amount if they were simply to just pay the taxes instead.
LOL, instead of calling it taxes owed by the our provincial government to our municipalities, they call it “grants”. And the pathetic part about this is; they are using our tax dollars to pay the municipalities for property tax on provincial owned infrastructure (courthouses, government service buildings, etc.) built and paid for by our tax dollars, for services provided in them, which is AGAIN provided by our tax dollars!
Yet they still have the nerve to call this a government building property tax a GRANT?
*Shakes head*
Imagine if the church paid taxes on their land?
The exemptions to churches in 2015 totaled 188K. The grand total for all exemptions including churches was $1.5 million.
$1,813,345.91 almost the exact shortfall in the amount of NDIT money that the city wanted to give the developers of the new downtown hotel in Revitalization Tax Exemption Early Benefits. Story finally coming out on what it took to get Faulty Towers hotel back on the rails…a mountain of public money up front.
Better watch to see that the money does not come in the front door and right out the back:-(
Faulty Towers? ThaThanks is a good one! Thanks for the laugh!
There’s an interesting read in the Citizen about that deal. I had posted the link but I think it was deleted.
Another mangled sentence – discovered after posting…..Sorry!
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