Churchill Road ratepayer opposes waterworks district’s ‘weird logic’

A North Salt Spring Waterworks District property owner is at the forefront of a rising tide of frustrated ratepayers who say the utility’s parcel tax is unfair and too high.

Donna Dobson decided to speak up when she noticed the parcel tax portion of her annual water bill increased 91 per cent between 2006 and 2012.

“If I was investing my money, I’d like that kind of return,” she said.

Dobson said her fixed pension makes it difficult for her to keep up with what feels like never-ending annual parcel tax increases. She realizes residents must pay for the service, but wants to know why there have been so many consecutive increases.

“We don’t really know what it’s all about, so why should we support it?” Dobson said.

Since she received her bill on Jan. 1, the Churchill Road resident has written to the district, consulted with neighbours and made plans to outline her grievances at the NSSWD’s next trustees meeting on Feb. 22.

To make matters worse, Dobson said, the district’s policy of basing its parcel tax rate on property size puts single individuals like herself at a disadvantage.

“By some weird logic we are billed according to the land size,” Dobson wrote in a Jan. 14 letter addressed to the NSWD. “I have over two acres but only a third is in use. If we had to be taxed it might have made more sense to base it on the number of people living on the property. Why should I be penalized by the size of my lot, when I live alone and consume very little water?”

The NSSWD collects roughly 60 per cent of its annual revenue through ratepayers’ parcel tax, according to general manager Trevor Hutton.

In 2006, Hutton said, board members voted to increase the amount of funds it put towards a capital reserve fund for future improvements and upgrades. Creation of the capital reserve fund is intended to handle unanticipated cost overruns or emergency works.

“Most people are well aware of what’s happening in some other water districts. A lot of that is because of no reserve fund,” he said.

Commissioners are trying to “catch up” on their capital reserve funding as the district tries to keep pace with rising maintenance and operating costs.

“Although we put our rates up, the cost of doing business keeps going up,” Hutton said.

He added that billing people according to the size of their property is approved by the province’s Ministry of Finance and is a commonly accepted practice across B.C.

Hutton said increased water conservation and the installation of more water-efficient fixtures in ratepayers’ homes and businesses have resulted in lower consumption revenue during the past five years, a trend that has put additional upward pressure on parcel tax levels.

The parcel tax is not based on the number of people who live on the site because of the difficulty inherent in the collection of such relatively unstable data, he said.

“We have to collect the money. The bottom line is that we are trying to do it the fairest way possible,” Hutton said. “Different districts do it in different ways, but the one we’re using is fairly general.”

Annual NSSWD parcel tax rates are based on four property size categories: up to one acre, one to five acres, five to 10 acres and more than 10 acres. According to the NSSWD website, parcel tax rates for varying land categories are $284, $304, $327 and $348, respectively. The 2012 rate for Dobson’s two-acre property is $334.