qathet Regional District (qRD) directors gave unanimous approval to adoption of the 2025 to 2029 financial plan.
In discussion at the March 26 board meeting, Electoral Area D director Sandy McCormick said she had been asked by a Texada Island resident who wanted to know about the status of the tax increase.
McCormick said she started looking through the budget and discovered it is not an easy question to answer. She said on the annual requisition comparison for Area D in the budgetary report, it indicated an 11.17 per cent change in requisition in 2025 from 2024. She said, however, when she looked at the tax rate between last year and what is proposed for this year, that’s only about a three per cent increase. In another area of the budget, it shows a 10 per cent tax change.
“I don’t know which number is the right answer,” said McCormick.
qRD manager of financial administration Linda Greenan said it is complicated. The page in the budget that shows the 10 per cent tax change shows average change per average household on Texada, she added.
“That’s based on an average household and the reason it doesn’t equate exactly with the requisition change is because the denominator changes because the assessed values change each year,” said Greenan. “If the assessed values stay constant and the average home values stay constant, then it would be an apples-to-apples comparison, but in this case, because all those variables change, it is approximately a 10 per cent increase in what taxpayers can be expecting, or about $80.60 for an average home.”
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said he had a question about a spreadsheet in the report that has the tax rate per $100,000 and cost per average home comparison for 2024 and 2025. He said residents had seen a news article with a 25 per cent requisition increase and were wondering if their taxes were going up 25 per cent.
“My first response was no,” said Gisborne. “As I understand it, the total requisition with this financial plan for Area B is a 15 per cent total requisition. “When I look at the chart, with the tax rate per $100,000, it was $197.91 in 2024 and $213.89 in 2025. Are those numbers accurate?”
Greenan said those were the correct numbers, based on the BC Assessment 2025 completed roll values. She said the numbers will later be based on the 2025 revised roll values, but generally, the change is not significant.
“They should be close,” said Greenan. “In Area B, they can expect to see about $184 increase per average home.”
Gisborne said he has undertaken calculations, and if nothing changed in assessment, then Area B taxpayers would be looking at a roughly eight per cent tax increase for their properties. He asked Greenan if his math was correct.
Greenan said if nothing changed, it would be approximately eight per cent.
Greenan said she wanted to mention that on the qRD website, there is a tax assessment calculator, so anyone can go on the website and put in their property assessment value for this year and last year and see what is expected for their taxes. She said at this point qRD has to estimate school taxes and taxes from other taxation sources.
“Rates for the regional district and qathet Regional Hospital District will be accurate,” said Greenan.
During adoption of the five-year financial plan, Gisborne said he wanted to say he planned to vote in favour of the bylaw, but it doesn’t mean he agrees with everything in it and everything qRD has decided to spend money on.
“The reason why I will vote in favour is because I support the work the board and the finance committee has done,” said Gisborne. “Part of my job is representing Area B, and there are concerns, but also my job is to uphold the will of the regional board as a whole, so while I support the bylaw. We can work on what is happening with our 2026 budget and let’s make sure we get on it before it becomes March 2026.”
The board unanimously carried the five-year financial plan.
According to a spreadsheet in the financial plan, cost per average home in City of Powell River for 2025 will be $542.63, in Electoral Area A, $1,670,12, in Electoral Area B, $1,360.89, in Electoral Area C, $1,514.38, in Electoral Area D, $905.01 and in Electoral Area E (Lasqueti Island), $1,425.52.
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