Lower tax rates:
WQSB taxation office flooded with demands
The phones at the Western Québec School Board (WQSB) offices are ringing, emails arriving, and counter visits up since it was revealed that the WQSB’s taxation rate is lower than that of the French school boards across West Quebec.
“Since the tax bills went out, we probably had 10,000 communications, and I’m not exaggerating,” said James Shea, Chairman of the WQSB. “To date, we’ve had 4,600 transfers into the English school board from French boards, as compared to 61 transfers from the English to the French boards. There was a significant number of transfers after the tax bills went out in June.”
Previously the WQSB received between 500 and 1,000 requests to switch, annually. The spike this year has been “overwhelming in terms of staff intensity,” noted Mr Shea.
The WQSB dedicates four clerks and one technician to the taxation office. The cost for the ground crew is about $225,000, plus there’s a cost to maintain the database and issue tax bills. The board is under a hiring freeze and has not hired extra staff, which is why a backlog has grown.
The reason taxpayers are switching is because the WQSB taxation rate for the 2016-2017 school year is lower than French boards. For example, the current WQSB rate is 0.17978 per $100 of evaluation, versus 0.30786 per $100 evaluation for the Commission scolaire des Draveurs (CSD) in Cantley, Denholm, Val des Monts and the Gatineau sector.
Most inquiries at the WQSB about switching are coming from property owners in the CSD’s territory. A resident can pay school taxes to the school board of their choice if none of their children attend a school under the jurisdiction of a French board or an English school board.
“On our territory, the tax rate range of French school boards is between $0.24 and $0.34,” noted Shea. “In 2014-2015, ours was $0.245; in 2015-2016, it was $0.225, and this school year, it’s $0.179. Our rate is decreasing because the amount we invoice is in the range of $17.5 million, an amount set by the provincial government, but we now have more taxpayers.”
Quebec City determines the amount a board must raise with taxes. The board identifies its evaluation base to determine a tax rate to collect money it needs to balance its budget; legally, all boards must present a balanced budget. With so many taxpayers switching, this means the WQSB will receive more tax dollars, but it does not necessary translate to a greater cash flow. The amount to educate a child is fixed across the province, but the WQSB taxation rate will continue to decrease while the tax rate of boards losing taxpayers will increase up to a maximum of $0.35.
“We will sit down with the other boards in our territory to discuss this situation, but we won’t be in a position to support projects that will see our tax rate increase. This is an issue created by the provincial norms of Quebec and I believe the resolution should come from a provincial perspective,” noted Mr Shea. “I certainly hope we will be able to maintain our equitable mill rate across our territory. It works very well for us because the mill rate in Val-d’Or and the mill rate in Gatineau are the same.”
The vast WQSB territory stretches from Abitibi-Temiscamingue to the Laurentides and covers 10 French boards and 155 municipalities.
