At the May 2 Council meeting, Red Deer County Council passed first reading of the 2023 Tax Rate Bylaw. Tax rates vary on individual properties and are based on their market value assessment.

 The new tax rate for Community Services will increase to 0.9423 from 0.65, and Protective Services will increase to 0.7751 from 0.70. Increasing these rates decreases the Municipal rate accordingly.

This Bylaw allows the County to collect $49.4M in taxation to achieve our budgeted work plans for 2023. Administration is presenting a 0.93 mill rate increase to farmland property, and a 1% increase to residential in 2023. Farmland is assessed based on prescribed rates from municipal affairs.

Dave Dittrick, Director of Corporate Services explained “that in 1991, farmland properties contributed over 20% of municipal taxes; and now In 2023, the taxes collected amount to 3%, which does not cover the cost of providing agricultural services, let alone services such as graveling and maintaining our roads.”

Mayor Wood also noted that “inflation is an economic reality in Red Deer County,” he added that “we’ve kept our taxes low and extremely competitive compared to other municipalities.”

Except for the Provincial Police levy, all other requisition rates are being reduced or staying the same.

The Province requires municipalities to levy Education Property Taxes on their behalf based on our assessment values. Those rates have been reduced due to increases in our assessment and a slight reduction in the total requisition dollar amount. Their actual requisition will decrease this year by $284,557. Rates, will decrease as follows: Residential and Farmland – 2.4248 (2022 - 2.6285); and Non Residential – 3.6333 (2022 – 3.8809).The seniors housing levy reflects the requisition that we are charged from the Parkland Seniors Housing Foundation. Based on this requisition, Administration is recommending setting the Seniors Housing Levy rate at 0.0182 (2022 – 0.0194).

 Provincial requirements for a Designated Industrial Property (DIP) levy reflect the cost to administer the province’s program to centralize all industrial assessment. The legislated DIP requisition for 2023 is 0.0746 (2022 – 0.0766).

Taxes are due on June 30. A 6% percent penalty will be applied to any unpaid balance on July 1, November 1, 2023 and March 1, 2024. If you are currently enrolled in our Monthly Tax Installment Plan, no additional payment is required at this time