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Area D Director Addresses 5 Year Financial Plan, Rural-Grand Forks Impacts

The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary has adopted their five year financial plan, which saw a tax increase to Area D residents. RDKB Chair/Area D Director Roly Russell says despite maintaining minor taxation increases for the last few years he’s been involved, this year saw a 10% increase.

He says that it’s largely in part to changes to fire services:

“The rural Grand Forks fire service, on the horizon we have a number of fire engines that are on the end of their life span according to the regulations we have to follow, regardless of whether they’re working well we have to replace them after 15 or 20 years….”

An expansion to a fire hall was another expenditure.

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Russel says Aquatic Centre improvements are another costly project:

“We finalized the budgets and we included a large amount for the budget for that project, and it looks like we’re hoping…. we got good news that we might be able to come in significantly under budget on that project, and that will not change taxes for this year but that means taxes next year would not be as hard hit.”

He says last year’s watershed referendum didn’t cause a significant increase, but is certainly something new for the area:

“We just made a hire for that role as a staff position, and so that’s an exciting project to see how it unfolds going forwards and how much value we can get out of that….”

Russell adds the process of determining taxation is done with a good line of sight for long term planning. The RDKB held a number of Town Hall meetings to receive public feedback on both their budget, and five year financial plan. Public feedback was also received through their new public engagement tool. Stay tuned for a general oversight of the RDKB’s five year financial plan that covers all included areas.

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