Iqaluit council adjusts residential, commercial property taxes

Iqaluit Coun. Kenny Bell describes his views on the city’s property tax increases to Mayor Mary Wilman, left, at the April 14 Iqaluit council meeting. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

Passage of Iqaluit’s budget for 2015 has come down to one final decision from city council: exactly how much property tax on houses and commercial properties will rise.

Complaints by the city’s private businesses drove council’s finance committee of the whole to reconsider proposed tax increases on commercial properties last month.

Councillors left that meeting, March 21, with an agreement to increase taxes collected on homes by $409,500, and decrease the amount collected from commercial properties by the same amount.

Councillor Kenny Bell resigned his position as chair of the committee at the start of their meeting, saying he could not get information from administration and councillors on cutting costs.

“I think the new proposed mill rates are out to lunch and this committee and council are out to lunch as they have lost touch with reality,” Bell told Nunatsiaq News April 1, when asked about the meeting’s results.

Bell repeated his views again, at council’s most recent meeting April 14.

Council could not pass any mill rates on single residential and commercial properties at the meeting, however, because they had none to look at.

“I thought we’d be getting a bylaw which would give us the actual numbers,” Bell commented.

Instead, council found themselves faced with a simple recommendation to increase the amount collected from homes — or single residential properties — by $409,000 and decrease the sum collected from commercial properties by the same amount.

“I feel that we’ve been asked to approve something on a blind note,” Mayor Mary Wilman said. “I am not at all comfortable with this proposed recommendation.”

The city’s director of corporate services, John Mabberi-Mudonyi, who also served as acting chief administrative officer for the city in March, reminded council that they had made the recommendation at the meeting.

“When we deliberated at the finance committee meeting, this is what you came up with,” he said.

Coun. Romeyn Stevenson pointed out that the recommendation only changed two aspects of the draft budget, which council agreed to Dec. 23: mill rates for single-dwelling residential houses, and commercial.

Mill rates for Iqaluit’s three other types of properties — classified as multiple-dwelling residential, industrial, and institutional — would not change, he said.

They range from $24.50 in taxes per $1,000 evaluation on multiple-dwelling residential properties, to $49.27 per $1,000 evaluation on institutional properties, he said.

The recommendation died, four votes to three, when Mayor Wilman broke a tie decision by council. Coun. Stephen Mansell was the only councillor not in attendance, due to illness.

“For me to really decide what I’m voting on, I really need to see everything down in front of me, on all categories” of property, Wilman said.

“I think it’s important that each and every one of you to know exactly what it is you’re voting on, and be content with it,” the mayor told councillors.

Council ordered city administration to present the mill rates to council at the next meeting.