City of White Rock staff presented Council with a draft 2022 financial plan at a Finance & Audit Committee meeting on Monday evening. Council now begins a comprehensive review process finalizing the plan prior to final approval by the legislated May 15 deadline.
As a part of the process, the City is inviting citizens to review the draft plan and provide comments until February 16, 2022. Comments received will be summarized and shared with Council for consideration during the process. The draft plan can be reviewed, and comments submitted, by visiting www.talkwhiterock.ca/financialplan.
The draft plan recommends an overall combined property and utilities tax increase of $279 or 4.9% for an average single-family home and $103 or 4.2% for a strata home. These figures represent the combination of a proposed property tax increase of 6.1% and proposed utilities tax increase of 2.5%.
The proposed increase is a result of the need to grow capital funding while maintaining service levels and keeping operating costs in check. It reflects a substantial contractual increase in policing costs, includes previously approved commitments, and provides a modest increase to protect for inflation in asset improvement funding.
A series of department-specific presentations will occur March 1 – 9, 2022. These meetings are open to the public who are interested in understanding more about the factors affecting the budget decisions. Meetings can be attended in-person or livestreamed. Meeting information and agendas can be found at whiterockcity.ca/councilmeetings.