By Clark Stork

Reassessment takes $50,000 from Melfort city coffers

Jan 15, 2018 | 9:54 PM

Melfort city council was taken back by a recent property reassessment that will likely cost taxpayers over $50,000.

On Monday evening during a report provided at Melfort’s council meeting, it was reported that a commercial property appealed their assessment resulting in a large discrepancy. The Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) reassess properties every four years. City treasurer Sandy Peterson said they expected variances between the city’s rates and SAMA’s, but not this much.

“We expected there may be a few adverse decisions, but we didn’t expect that it would be to the extent of the assessment value being decreased by over half,” Peterson said.

Peterson could not release the property that was revaluated. She did say the commercial property was classified under “income approach” during their taxation process. She said any other commercial properties assessed under the same classification could see changes to their taxes in 2018.

“I should knock on wood, but we’ve been really luck with our assessment appeals, we’ve not had assessments decrease drastically,” she said.

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While an appeal is in the works, Peterson said administration needs to plan without the revenue that is taken from the 2017 budget.

“We have to right now because the board decision is final for 2017 and it will effect 2018 until we get to the next step,” she said.

Peterson couldn’t estimate a time frame for a final decision following the appeal, she said “we’ve never had an appeal go further, so this will be a new process for me.”

Clark.stork@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @ClarkStork