Portage la Prairie Mayor Irvine Ferris is concerned about how changes to the provincial education tax credit will impact 480 home owners in the city, living in their own homes, assessed at between $60,000 and $100,000. He says that represents 9% of tax accounts in the city.

As of January 1st, the province will no longer allow the full credit of $700.00 toward education taxes, if the actual tax amount's less than that. In the past, the difference could be applied to municipal taxes. Ferris outlines what the change means.

"24 customers will be paying double on their 2018 tax bill," he says, "62 customers will be paying 50% more, and the balance of almost 400 customers will be paying anywhere between 1% and 49% more. One of the major concerns is, if the assumption's made that the home owners of the lowest assessed properties have the least ability to pay, then we are increasing taxes on our most vulnerable citizens."

Ferris says there was a lot of concern at last week's AMM convention.

"There was an emergency resolution brought forward," he says, "We had very little notice on this -- we found out about this in August, actually. This is going to have an impact on a lot of communities in Manitoba. So the resolution was that AMM meet with the province, and lobby to have this changed. Certainly for people on a fixed income, this is really difficult when your bill doubles."

Ferris stresses the city's taking steps to help.

"This is going to be highlighted when people get their tax bills," he says, "And also looking at how it's possible to contact these people ahead of time. We're willing to meet with these people and give them the detailed information regarding their properties. But to get this changed, they really need to contact our MLA (Ian Wishart), and this change was brought about by the province."