Tempers flare at RM of McKillop meeting after property taxes double

Therese Durston says she started crying yesterday morning when she opened this year's tax notice for the Rural Municipality of McKillop.

The notice said she owes $7,182.16, up from last year's fee of $3,759.97. For comparison, the tax bill for the average home worth $335,100 in Regina in 2017 was $3,100.

The RM of McKillop is about 70 kilometres northwest of Regina.

"Six-hundred dollars a month is what I have to pay for property taxes," Durston fumed. "I have no water. I have to haul my water in. I have to haul my sewer out. I have to drive my garbage to a bin." 

She was one of dozens of angry ratepayers who showed up at the RM of McKillop office yesterday demanding answers after they learned this week their taxes are soaring. In some cases, the increases are greater than 100 per cent.  

There were so many people the building couldn't hold them all, so the meeting spilled out onto the sidewalk outside as angry cottagers hurled questions and accusations at Reeve Howard Arndt for more than an hour. 

At a community meeting back in February, Arndt assured residents the finances were in good shape and no significant tax increase would be necessary. 

But he says three weeks ago he got a nasty surprise that the RM was facing a large deficit. The 2017 budget required $1.9 million in revenue while the 2018 budget required $3.3 million. 

Arndt says the problem is the RM administrator wasn't keeping council updated.

"We weren't being told that there was a financial problem that we could have adjusted for so we didn't get into as bad of a situation that we are in," he said. 

And so as of yesterday, Arndt said, council has ended its relationship with the administrator. 

CBC attempted to contact the administrator but was unsuccessful.

'Find out where it's all gone'

One man in the crowd shouted "Find out where it's all gone!" and he demanded a forensic audit. That demand was echoed by many others. 

Arndt wouldn't commit to a forensic audit but he said clearly some sort of review needs to be done so that council can regain the trust of ratepayers. He said he has no reason to believe money has been misappropriated and he's confident that hasn't happened. 

"We still have to go and figure out what is the most appropriate system or audit to be able to come up to satisfy what we hope to be the majority of the people because there are a group of people we will never satisfy," he said. 

RM resident Kim Roberts says council needs to shoulder the blame here and not put it on their administrator. 

"Who does she answer to? The council. So who's at fault?" said Roberts who added that council is "not paying attention to what she's doing and they don't know what they're doing."