Launching Saskatchewan’s education tax action in next year’s provincial budget will largely depend on timing and the economy, says Jim Reiter, MLA for the Rosetown-Elrose constituency.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that this will be implemented in the next budget in 2009,” said Reiter, who spoke Nov. 13 at the midterm convention of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
Reiter was charged with finding a long-term solution to the education tax on farm property.
He noted that in the year since the Saskatchewan Party became government, it has reduced the education portion of property tax on agricultural land by increasing the property tax credit to 47 percent, and 12 percent for urban homeowners.
Read Also
Manitoba extends Crown land rent freeze
Manitoba government links the continued rental rate freeze on grazing and forage leases to economic and environmental challenges facing the industry
Reducing the education tax further is a priority for the Saskatchewan government, Reiter said, along with reducing the provincial debt and increasing spending on infrastructure.
“This, too, will help sustain economic growth and ensure all women and men from across the province benefit from our prosperity,” said Reiter.
As a past RM administrator and SARM board member, Reiter said he has been concerned about the property tax issue from the RM perspective for a long time.
Reiter will deliver his report on education and property tax in January 2009 and he said farm families should look forward to it.
“This issue has been studied to death…. we’re reviewing quickly the work that’s been done.”
Besides welcoming private and public input on the subject, Reiter said he looked at what other jurisdictions in Canada have done, most notably Manitoba and Alberta, “to see what works well, what doesn’t work well there. Hopefully what we get at the end of the day is get some kind of best practices sort of approach in Saskatchewan.”
Reiter said Saskatchewan’s kindergarten to Grade 12 system costs $1.5 billion a year, $900 million of which is raised from property tax and $600 million from provincial funding. With the education property rebate of $150 million, that provides essentially a 50-50 split between property tax and provincial funding.
“I know that in a perfect world many of you would like education tax totally removed from property,” Reiter said.
“The fact is, what we need is long-term sustainable funding to make sure we have lower property taxes and it just wouldn’t be fiscally responsible for me to recommend that it be completely removed. This isn’t an easy problem to fix and I know you all know that,” said Reiter.
He hopes a solution is implemented in next year’s budget, but “markets are in turmoil right now … but, I’m here to tell you if the long-term solution isn’t implemented in 2009, we’ll still provide the promised increases to the property tax rebate and ag land will get a 56 percent rebate next year.”
