Spring budget adjustments were part of the agenda for this week’s Town of Olds council meeting.
Sheena Linderman, Director of Corporate Services for the Town of Olds, points out that the 2025 Operating Budget climbed by just over $500,000 to nearly $36.4 million and the Capital Budget for this year moved up by more than $730,000 to over $6.2 million. She says “so for the average residential single family home that would be an increase of approximately $112 or $9.33 a month, that is again just the municipal portion. Once you add in that education school tax which has increase substantially, especially for residential residents, about a 17 per cent increase. So you would be looking at $268 annually or $22.33 a month.”
Also this week, Olds council gave first reading to the 2025 Tax Rate Bylaw. It includes a 5 per cent increase in municipal revenue to maintain core services, plus the Town is mandated by the province to implement a 12.2 per cent jump in the Provincial Education Property Tax and a 5 per cent rise in the Seniors Housing requisition. Linderman explains more about the reasons behind the increases. She says “so the province does their assessment, it’s two years behind what our assessment is and so there is always that little bit of catch up but they also did increase their rates. Olds has grown in assessment value substantially in the last couple of years so that has caught up to us and then, like I said, the increase in rates has resulted in the increase in our requisition.”
She notes that the Tax Rate Bylaw will be brought back to council for second and potentially third and final reading on April 28th.
