Photo: Dustin Godfrey

The City of Penticton has officially approved an operating budget for 2017, which includes a 4.36-per-cent bump to property taxes.

That number has been taken down from a proposed five per cent increase to the tax line, and means an average house will be paying $86 more than last year, based off of 2016 tax multipliers.

That drop of 0.64 percentage points came from a number of decreases to the budget throughout the three-day process, including a decrease to the RCMP contract, by remaining at 44 members, a cut to economic development and one to training.

The largest change, however, comes from the municipal share of revenues coming from the casino, which will add another $100,000 to city coffers – $10,000 of which will go straight to the Penticton Indian Band.

By the budget overview, council was faced with a 4.42-per-cent tax bump, but managed to cut that more by shedding some of the funding allocated to expanding Sunday bus service and increasing the municipal share of the casino money up from $90,000.

The five per cent bump to taxes would have meant just $10 more per person per year, and councillors largely appeared happy with that drop, voting 4-3 in favour of the budget.

“I, for one, am happy. We started at a five per cent increase that we were looking at. We managed to put away some money for construction deficit,” Coun. Max Picton said.

“We’ve also shown that we are still continuing to move forward as a city by at least investing in the future of our mainstream development and that…. with a slightly over four-per-cent tax increase, to manage to accomplish all that is quite commendable.”

Of the 4.36 per cent, 2.1 percentage points will go to an infrastructure fund to help pay for the infrastructure deficit, while 1.5 percentage points are to make up for inflation, leaving just 0.76 percentage points for operational budget changes.

Not everybody was happy, though, with some councillors looking to be able to drop that to a four-per-cent increase, which would have equated to an $80 bump to the average household.

While she did vote against the budget, Coun. Helena Konanz chastised other councillors for coming out against the budget without bringing their own ideas to the table.

“I don’t think it’s right for anyone to sit here and go against this budget unless they come up with some ideas for alternatives,” she said. “That’s why we’ve been sitting here for three days straight to come up with ideas. And I came up with a few ideas, and maybe they were good, maybe they were bad, but at least I’m looking at alternatives. So if anyone has an idea that they might not agree with in this budget … go at it.”