Seguin residents will be seeing a tax hike this year.
This comes after council passed its 2023 Operating and Capital Budgets during their meeting on May 1.
According to council, this year’s Operating Budget sits at $18,194,492, the Capital Budget is $7,705,771, and the 2023 municipal residential tax rate is 0.387224%.
Council says the budgets, which were already approved in principle in February, have had some necessary changes done to them since then, mainly because of external levies and updated information from third parties.
Michele Fraser, Seguin Township’s CFO and Treasurer, says the budget passed on Monday is the culmination of all the decisions that have been made by council in the last five and a half months.
“The in-principal budget that we passed a couple of months ago contemplated a 7.25 per cent municipal tax rate increase. After various adjustments in the finalization of the year end,, we were able to bring that down to 7.12 per cent for a municipal tax rate increase. And when you combine it with the education rate which is unchanged in 2023, the average ratepayer in Seguin will see a 5 percent increase in their taxes,” she says.
In 2023 Seguin residents will pay $25.74 more on a $100,000 tax assessment, pushing the amount to $540.22. As for residential properties which on average have a taxable value of around $500,000, the owners will be paying nearly $130 more this year bringing the average 2023 residential property tax bill to $2,725.70.
Ann MacDiarmid, Seguin Mayor, says council was aiming for something like a 5.4 to 6 percent increase when the rough budget was done. “So we have actually come down from our original projection to 5 per cent,” she says.