In a recent change to how Revelstoke residents receive their property tax notices, utility invoicing will now be separately billed. The move, based on a Dec. 12 council resolution, aims to solve confusion and free city resources.
One reason the change was implemented is to reduce the number of residents who confuse an increase in utility charge with property tax increases, according to Evan Parliament, City of Revelstoke chief administrative officer. With the previous billing model, staff frequently responded to residents who were concerned that an increased utilities bill was actually part of property tax increases that far exceeded planned 3 per cent raises.
“We were constantly trying to answer concerns and complaints on the overall tax increase on property taxes by saying, ‘your increase really is associated with water, sewer, garbage fees, which is combined with your tax notice’,” Parliament explained to the Mountaineer. “It was then that the city decided we needed to separate them.”
Additionally, Coun. Matt Cherry, who proposed the change in billing, explained in a social media post the previous billing would be a future hurdle for city staff due to software limitations.
“Municipal software is set up to have completely separate modules for property taxes and utilities,” Cherry wrote. “Our current software requires custom modifications to point the utility billings to the property tax notice. Without the change implemented this year, we would likely have issues if we were required to implement a new financial software in the future.”
Resident feedback
Some residents impacted by the change voiced concerns about the cost of such a shift, while noting the previous system provided a singular place for both payments.
“It was more convenient and clearly itemized keeping all payments for city-provided services and taxation in one simple document system,” Revelstoke resident Mike MacNeil wrote to Revelstoke Mountaineer in an email response to a newsletter that highlighted the upcoming change in billing. “The change introduces more accounting, payment tracking and processing which adds cost. For what benefit?”
While acknowledging resident concerns over cost and resources, Parliament explained technology would help rein in costs and effort.
“With technology and software today, once it’s implemented it’s like a machine. It just runs itself.”
The separated utilities invoicing will also increase transparency around how much money per resident goes toward water, sewer and garbage services.
“We have two separate funds, a water fund and a sewer fund, from core services,” he explained. “They’re supposed to be self-funded. In other words, they’re not supported by taxes, they’re supported by users. We want to be fully transparent, let people know that the water fund has so many dollars going in, so many dollars going out – paid by the users who use water… same for the sewer fund.”
While the change was announced on the city’s website and posted publicly in a Jan. 22 Facebook post, Parliament said city staff and council didn’t provide adequate notification.
“I want to make it clear that the city accepts responsibility for not rolling out the first notice to let everybody know of the separation,” Parliament said, noting that a staffing shortage was part of the drop in communication.
Notice of the upcoming change was only mailed to property owners who qualified for an installment plan the city is implementing alongside the new billing structure.
“It shocked a lot of people when they found out that we were separating the bills when the city ideally should have sent out two notices prior to the rollout.”
Utility invoices will be mailed out Thursday, March 28 and payment will be due Tuesday, April 30. Property tax notices will be mailed out Friday, May 31, and payments will be due Tuesday, July 2. Utility invoices not paid in full by April 30 will incur a 10 per cent penalty on the remaining balance. More information and how to set up the Residential Utility Installment Plan can be found on the Residential Utility Invoicing Change FAQs sheet.
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