Manitoba Assessment Services presented the 2018 Reassessment Report to RM of Portage la Prairie council yesterday. Reeve Kam Blight weighs in.

Reeve Kam Blight"We have to look at it as a positive," notes Blight. "The property values are increasing, so our municipality assessment's gone up 9% on average."

Farmland is up 16 percent, commercial is up 5.7 percent, and residential is up 5.4 percent. Blight says the RM will be able to make some changes or adjustments to the budget when the increase to assessments come into effect in 2018. If they don't change the mill rate, that means larger amounts of money is coming through taxes due to higher assessment values.

Blight adds they'll look at budget needs and have the power to lower the mill rate so taxes can be managed more easily by producers, residents or corporations.

"The largest shift was through agricultural and farmland. That's a trend we've noticed for the past six or seven years, which is concerning. We've seen a real shift in who's picking up the majority of taxes in the municipality and as far as the schools are concerned. That's something we're going to re-evaluate again and continue to lobby the province to take a look at."

All in all, Blight notes it's an increase throughout the municipality.

He says council questioned why improvements to railway were not considered, seeing as any improvements made to a home it's reflected in their assessment, and more taxes are necessary. Blight says he questioned why railway arms are not considered an improvement. He notes they always questioned the delivery method of the Real Property Tax Assessment Notice that will be coming out. It looks like it comes from the RM of Portage la Prairie, and appears to say questions should be directed to the RM when in reality the RM had nothing to do with the reassessment. Blight says they requested to have the reassessment notice indicate the previous assessment on it as well, so property owners can more easily see their property value changes.