Mountain View County council has passed a motion calling for a delegation from Municipal Affairs to appear before a future council meeting to provide information on linear tax policies and plans going forward.
The move came during the recent regularly scheduled council meeting.
At the Feb. 27 council meeting, councillors received the linear 2019 tax year change report from the department and received it for information.
The report is provided annually by Alberta Municipal Affairs with the year-end linear assessments.
“This report shows the cumulative changes from the previous year and provides an estimated explanation for the changes that have occurred in the linear assessment categories,” administration said in a briefing note to council.
According to the report, there is an overall 3.15 per cent increase in the linear assessment for 2018.
“There are three factors that go into that increase: growth, inflation and changes in policy. Administration would like to focus on those factors as they apply to the property type wells.”
New wells drilled and wells closed reflect changes in growth.
“As MVC has approximately 35 new wells drilled in 2018 and only a few that have shut down, this assessment has increased. Even though the assessment year modifiers indicated positive inflation last year, MVC saw a decrease in well production, which has resulted in a negative assessment in this category.
“Change due to inflation is an especially important category as this total will give us an indication of the future assessment value of the pipeline category. If well production is down so will pipeline as there will be no product to get to markets, therefore pipeline usage will be down.”
Administration recommended that Municipal Affairs officials make a presentation at a future council meeting to update councillors on linear assessment.
“It is believed that 2019 will not see the same drilling activity as in 2018. As well, there are no major pipeline projects like the project that happened in the Sundre area this past year.
“This is coupled with investor sentiment in the Alberta oilpatch is low due to the lack of access to pipelines that fuel the Alberta oil discount. So, at this time, little growth in linear is expected in the next couple years.”
