Lacombe City Council placed their stamp of approval on the 3.26% property tax increase last night.

The City will collect $18.37 million in tax revenue this year, when the school and Lacombe Foundation requisitions are factored in.

Mayor Steve Christie says he understands not everybody is happy with the increase, but deems it necessary.

“It’s based on the service level that we are accustomed to living to, and people didn’t want to see the service level changed, in fact they asked for more. So, is it important, yes, it’s important to maintain the service level that we’ve been asked to maintain.”

A typical home assessed at $281,000 will see a total annual increase of $134 dollars or 4.92%, with nearly $60 the school tax requisition.

Overall residential growth was significantly lower than forecasted, and when compared with the 2017 budget, the City's actual assessment growth generated $195,000 less in municipal tax revenue than budgeted.

Christie says there wasn’t much of a choice in this tax increase.

“Things are costing more money, insurance is more money, fuel is more money, and therefore the City pays more money as well. To keep up the current service levels it costs us more therefore it costs people more, hopefully we can make that change next year”.

In order the maintain the original tax increase of 3.26% that Council set in December, Council approved $27,508 from the 2016 operating surplus which typically goes into reserves and several other small budget adjustments to balance the books.

Tax notices will be mailed by the end of the month with the deadline to pay without penalty June 30th.