Williams Lake city council voted in favour of adopting their 2025-29 financial plan bylaw on March 28 at a regular council meeting.
The financial plan was adopted after a lengthy budget process and includes a 3.2 per cent tax rate decrease by the city.
This does not necessarily mean residences tax bills will go down, because tax bills are calculated based on the city's tax rate and property assessments. The city does not control property assessments.
However, the reduction in the city's rate could lessen the blow for some property owners who have had increases in their property values.
Mayor Surinderpal Rathor, who had just returned from a local government leadership forum in Richmond, said from what he heard from other municipal leaders, Williams Lake might be the only municipality dropping their tax rate in B.C.
"I received a lot of compliments from different mayors," said Rathor, said the question leaders kept asking him was "how are you doing this?"
While there was a lot of debate about whether or not to lower the city's tax rate, given concerns over rising costs, deferred capital projects and aging infrastructure, the plan was adopted to defer millions in capital projects to 2030, outside the current plan.
"Before you get upset if your taxes if your taxes are going up, no, the municipality has done the best they could do to lower their taxes," said Rathor, explaining how the city collects taxes for other jurisdictions and does not have control of property assessments.
Rathor said while councillors had a variety of views, in the end, he said they all respect where one another are coming from.
His message for taxpayers was he hopes to establish trust the city will not collect funds before they need them.
"I'm not going to worry what's going to happen next year," he said, noting he wants to develop trust with the community he won't take money and "put it in a safe."
"Be ready, when the city needs the money, we're going to come to you," he said.
