Jasper Municipal Council approved a swath of immediate financial relief measures for residents during its special meeting on Tuesday (Aug. 13).
CAO Bill Given said administration developed these recommendations based on experience from other places and what staff were seeing on the ground in Jasper.
“Obviously, everybody well understands the impact of the wildfire and the destruction of property, and the municipality wants to ensure that we're not increasing the burden on residents and businesses at a very difficult time,” Given said. “The overall intent is to ease the burden on residents. We will have a number of discussions about what the future looks like. These are steps that administration identified [that] we can take immediately.”
Council authorized the immediate suspension of preauthorized tax payments on all damaged or destroyed properties.
Given said administration had already acted to stop withdrawals but now wanted council to fully authorize this measure.
The municipality will also defer collecting property taxes as of July 22, and any penalties on outstanding property tax amounts won’t be applied for July 2024.
Administration will return to council with a report outlining the options and cost associated with refunding property taxes the period of July following July 22 on damaged or destroyed properties.
“While some people may have signed up for monthly payments and may have only made some of the monthly payments for the portion of the year, other people may have paid all of their taxes at once on the tax payment deadline,” Given said. “Administration would like to examine what the implications and costs would be associated with refunding that because obviously there's more complexity there.”
In addition, council authorized the immediate suspension and waiver of all water, sewer, solid waste and recycling charges on damaged or destroyed properties as of July 22.
Penalties on outstanding utility payments from May and June will be waived for all properties.
As for the financial impact on the municipal government itself, administration will return to council with a report recommending options or strategies to mitigate the loss of utility and property tax revenue.
“Obviously, many of these immediate measures and some of the other measures going forward will mean a loss of revenue for the municipality,” Given said. “As we go into re-entry, recovery and rebuilding, the municipality is actually going to have additional expenses. There are provincial and federal programs available for that that we are applying to for those additional expenses, but we will need to do some more work to identify how the municipality will fill the gap in our revenue from the amount of properties that were destroyed.”
The town of Jasper has lost about $283 million in property values.
According to Given, this equates to just over $2.2 million in municipal property taxes, education property taxes and Evergreens Foundation requisitions.
He added that there would be significantly more discussion going forward around the financial impacts on the municipality as an organization and steps that can be taken to support residents and businesses.
Mayor Richard Ireland said he supported all the recommended measures but noted that the definition of “damage” would need to be refined over time.
“We know for sure the homes that were destroyed, the extent of damage will vary, and that will be something where, down the road, I think we will need to be able to add some clarity,” Ireland said.
Coun. Scott Wilson also supported all the recommendations and agreed that the definition of "damage" would need to be refined.
“In my mind, I think if the property is habitable, it may not fall within the parameters of ‘damaged’,” he said.
“There may be some exterior type of work that may or may not inhibit somebody from inhabiting the property, but yes, if we can build that out a bit more, that would be great.”
Council plans to have weekly special meetings at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesdays for the foreseeable future.
