The way we pay for 911 services is going to change, slightly increasing the property tax requisition for people living in the Strathcona Regional District.
The North Island 911 Corporation (NI911) has chosen one of the three options they had discussed for a new funding model for the service. Where previously the service had been funded entirely based on property value assessment, that has now changed to be 50 per cent assessment and 50 per cent population.
The reason for the change is that in recent years, assessed property values have fluctuated dramatically between regional districts, leaving some users paying far more than others for the same service.
“Of the scenarios, all of them involved an increase for the Strathcona Regional District,” said SRD director Claire Moglove, who sits as representative on the NI911 board. “This increase is the least of the different scenarios. This is the best option for the SRD in terms of any possible increase.”
Moglove told the Mirror in November that the requisition would increase by around 40 cents for a home valued at $100,000, or $2 for a $500,000 house. That equals roughly one per cent.
The increase will be in place for three years at first to see the impact to tax requisitions.
“This is a significant compromise from the Nanaimo Regional District and the Comox Valley Regional District,” said Moglove. “They really wanted to see some of the funding be based on call volume, and I opposed that quite vociferously mainly because the way they were calcluating the call volume, I just had issues with it.”
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