2023-2027 Financial Plan

Council Priorities

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The City’s budget and service delivery for 2023 are guided by council priorities along with community feedback received throughout the year and through the annual budget survey and other public consultation.

Overall, the budget reflects the City’s ongoing focus on getting the basics right – planning and providing core municipal services (such as roads, utilities and other infrastructure, safety and recreation) that matter to residents and businesses.

Other Factors:

• Impact of inflation
• Labour contracts including:
  • Federally-negotiated RCMP wage increase
  • Rising costs from other third-party services providers (including library, water and sewer disposal)

The City’s annual budget pays for a wide variety of important City services (see the Where Do My Taxes and Levies Go tab below.)

Additionally, the 2023 budget continues the City’s focus on getting the basics right while supporting community safety, City infrastructure and current and future needs. This includes:

• Enhancing safety including two new RCMP officers, two new firefighters and continuing enhancements to City cybersecurity,
• Supporting new housing with resources to manage increased volumes of development applications and speeding up approvals, including electronic plan submissions,
• Additional support to managing important capital and transportation projects, including completion of the Master Transportation Plan,
• Increasing customer service to meet higher levels of demand at the Port Coquitlam Community Centre,
• Preparing for climate change, including flood-protection infrastructure, adoption of a new Climate Action Plan, and increasing the tree canopy, and
• Continuing to set aside funds to replace aging infrastructure

The annual budget also funds a variety of capital improvements.

Reducing the Tax Burden:

To offset rising costs and inflation, the City looked for responsible ways to fund new staff and work without taxpayer impact, and carefully reviewed all revenue streams, including fees, charges and grants.

In total, $954,370 in service enhancements were proposed for 2023, with almost all costs associated with new resources funded with minimal taxpayer impact. As a result, the taxation impact from the proposed service enhancements is 0.09%.

Funding sources included:

• Development fees
• Internal savings
• Capital sources
• Use of reserves

Increased revenue from new development and higher investment returns also help reduce the burden on taxpayers.

Broken down, the City’s proposed 3.38 per cent increase for 2023 taxes and utilities for average homes assessed at $967,000 includes:

• A property tax increase of 3.73 per cent ($76.14) consisting of 2.28 per cent for City services, one per cent for long-term infrastructure replacement, and 0.45 per cent increases to RCMP contracted policing costs,
• A solid waste levy increase of 3.69 per cent ($8.81) for single-family homes receiving City waste collection; and
• Utility levy increases of 2.81 per cent ($13.61) for water services and 1.97 per cent ($6.95) for sewer services, included in the utility bills mailed to homes last week.

A 3.73 per cent increase for business taxes and utilities is also proposed, consistent with residential.

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Pay Monthly

Sign up for the City’s Prepayment Plan to pay next year’s tax and utility bills in easy monthly installments. 

In terms of impact on taxpayers, the property assessments that arrived from the British Columbia Assessment Authority in January will play a key role in the final tax bill.

A property’s assessed value determines its share of taxes. The assessments provided by BC Assessment each January indicate how much Port Coquitlam property assessments increased or decreased from the prior year.

Properties whose value has increased or decreased more than other typical properties of the same type will experience a tax rate that differs from the average.

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Port Coquitlam has an established track record of lower-than-average property taxes and utilities when compared to other municipalities in Metro Vancouver, and continues that trend in 2023 with one of the lowest proposed tax increases in the region.

In 2022, Port Coquitlam had the second-lowest municipal tax and utility rates across the region.

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This is how your annual City property taxes and levies are applied to a wide variety of important services and programs.

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