Williams Lake voted to reduce the tax rate for the city, as they adopted their 2025-2029 financial plan at the regular council meeting on March 4.
The budget includes a 3.2 per cent reduction in the city's tax rate. Council said it chose to reduce the city's tax rate in order to help offset an average increase in property assessments which will see most taxpayers still have an increase on their annual bill for 2025.
"I felt honoured," said Mayor Surinderpal Rathor, of being able to comment on a social media post, as he celebrated the city's tax rate reduction. While the city will reduce the rate on the municipal portion of property owners' tax bills, portions collected for the Caribo Regional District and Province of British Columbia will not be effected by the tax rate reduction.
Rathor noted the city cannot control property assessments.
"We are doing the best that we can," he said, later noting down the road the city will need to address deferred projects.
The city is deferring millions in capital projects for the time being, as council was preparing for the worst in light of tariff threats and the potential closure of Atlantic Power's Williams Lake biomass plant.
On Friday, the city learned Atlantic Power had reached a deal with BC Hydro, and so the city's largest single taxpayer will remain in operation until 2029.
Coun. Scott Nelson, who pushed hard for the city to defer projects in order to enable a tax rate reduction, also celebrated the city's financial plan.
"This budget is a budget for the times right now," said Nelson, acknowledging it is a tight budget.
Coun. Joan Flaspohler said she doesn't support the additional deferrals to make the tax rate cut, because it means deferring $5.9 million in water projects until 2030, but thanked staff for their work in putting the plan together.
"I think there's a point where we need to start putting that stuff in the budget," she said, expressing her concerns these projects, like drilling another city well to provide redundancy for the city's water supply, will only get more expensive.
Coun. Angie Delainey also noted her reluctance to defer projects and asked about being able to pay back the reserves the city was drawing from in order to pass this budget, but said she would stick by her support for the current plan.
"We do have some risks in this deferral," she said, noting she wants to see council spend more time on the budget over the course of the year in order to plan for the future, and asking staff how the city can ensure they replenish their reserves.
Gary Muraca, chief administrative officer for the city, told council if a water main goes down, they city will not have time to borrow to address the issue, so they have to ensure there are adequate reserves. According to reports from the city's chief financial officer, Muraca said within three years the city will be depleting water reserve funds to the point it is "concerning."
Coun. Jazmyn Lyons also voiced her discomfort with deferring critical projects.
"We all know how expensive anything under the ground is, especially if it goes wrong before we plan to tackle it," she said, noting she would cross "everything she could cross" nothing goes wrong in the next few years.
Council had voted to push a number of items out of the capital plan until 2030 in order to avoid having to adopt a bylaw enabling the city to borrow if necessary to make them happen.
The city council had been back and forth and invested significant time as they worked with staff to determine what to cut from the current budget and what to defer until after 2029.
The city adopted the financial plan prior to the announcement Atlantic Power will remain in operations.
The financial plan could still be impacted by other costs such as price increases due to tariffs and a push by Nelson to stop all purchases, in progress or not, from the United States, no matter the cost.
Nelson, Rathor, Delainey, and Coun. Sheila Boehm voted in favour of the plan and tax rate cut. Flaspohler, Lyons and Coun. Michael Moses voted against the plan.
