ST. PAUL – Town of St. Paul residents will see a slight mill rate increase this year, but might see higher increases in their tax notices.
On April 14, Town council passed the 2025 Tax Rate Bylaw.
During discussions, Town of St. Paul Chief Financial Officer Mitchel Bachelet explained the mill rate will only increase by 1.5 per cent.
The municipal mill rate this year is 10.0766 for residential and 19.6518 for non-residential per $1,000 of assessment, compared to 9.9218 for residential and 19.3499 for non-residential properties last year.
In a follow-up with Lakeland This Week, Town of St. Paul Mayor Maureen Miller said taxes are increasing to help with increased expenses, but also because of "our need to rebuild reserves." Rebuilding reserves, which has slowly depleted over the years, is important to ensure the town has money for future investments, explained Miller.
Although, as the projected increase in revenue from higher mill rates is minimal, the Town hopes to avoid deficits in the future to help rebuild reserves, but also to balance deficits from previous years. In 2023, the Town had over $400,000 in deficit, compared to a roughly equal surplus in 2024, as per the Town's draft audited financial statement.
Most of the overall higher increase in tax this year that taxpayers will notice is due to increases in provincial requisitions, and not the Town's increased mill rate, particularly the increases in the Alberta School Foundation Fund (ASFF) and municipal seniors' housing requisitions by the MD Foundation.
Year-to-year tax change
This year, the Alberta School Foundation Fund (ASFF) rate increased by 6.9 per cent, or 2.57 to 2.75 for residential properties, while the rate increased by 18.75 per cent for non-residential properties or 3.67 to 4.36.
Meanwhile, the MD Foundation rate increased by 45.8 per cent from 0.49 to 0.72 for both residential and non-residential properties. The MD Foundation manages low-income housing and rental programs for seniors (65 and older) as well as families, across the St. Paul region. This includes Sunnyside Manor, which was originally built in 1960. Work is being done to replace the large senior housing complex.
During the meeting, "While 45 per cent increase seems like it should be a lot more significant than a 1.56 per cent increase, it's actually only $20 really on the dollar change," said Bachelet.
Providing an example, Bachelet said that overall, residential properties assessed around $250,000, in addition to the mill increase, will see a $140 increase in their tax notices, or 4.3 per cent overall increase on their property tax notice.
Non-residential properties assessed at around $500,000 will see an overall increase of about $609, or 5.18 per cent total increase.
Change in net municipal taxes
The Town is projecting to see a three per cent increase in collected tax revenue in 2025, compared to 2024.
Last year, the Town collected $4.86 million in tax levies from residential properties, including farmland and mobile. It is budgeted to collect $4.92 million in tax levies this year, or an increase of about $58,000.
Meanwhile, the town collected $3 million from non-residential properties last year, and is projected to collect $3.18 million this year, or an increase of $119,000.
Discretionary provincial and federal grants in lieu also slightly increased this year.
Overall, the Town levied $8.31 million in total last year, and is projected to collect $8.56 million this year, or an increase of three per cent.
