Those calling Creston home will have to deal with a slight increase in their property taxes in 2024.
Mayor Arnold DeBoon says, due in part to inflation, the increase will be around 7.3 per cent.
“If you look at other communities, I think there are few that have a lower tax rate this year. They’re going to be relatively high just because of the impact of inflation on our operational budgets.”
DeBoon says the inflationary increase alone this year is around six per cent itself.
He adds that they can expect increases like this to continue as long as inflation increases year by year.
“The impact of inflation this year is higher than normal and it affects everything. You can see it in groceries and fuel. We’re not exempt from those impacts. They impact us as well as our operations.”
He says every year they make an effort to ask themselves and the public what they are willing to cut to reduce the impact of taxes.
“The answers we get are that people are generally happy with the service provided by the town. When you look at snow removal, road repair, and the many other things that we do, people aren’t inclined to tell us to reduce anything,” explained DeBoon.
“Over the years, we’ve kept the level of service the same, just the costs continue to rise and we don’t have savings to pass on.”
Those services include road repair, snow removal, water treatment, sewage treatment, storm sewers management, sidewalk repair, policing, emergency services, corporate services, development services, and much more.
DeBoon says, in years of low inflation rates, there have been smaller jumps.
“But, due to COVID and the way the economic situation is globally, it’s expensive to do things and it continues to get more expensive.”
DeBoon says they don’t have an official figure yet, but they are getting close.
