YORKTON - The current edition of Yorkton Council has set in motion a process which could see the city create a policy in terms of grants for not-for-profit organizations.
At the September 23, 2024 Committee of the Whole meeting, Council set direction to add looking into tax relief for not-for-profit companies as a priority, explained Ashley Stradeski, Director of Finance with the city at the regular meeting of Yorkton Council Monday.
Stradeski said in investigating what other communities of relative size to Yorkton do it was learned there are numerous different approaches that other municipalities have in place, many with a patchwork of solutions stemming from a lack of policy or direction in this regard, similar to us.
About half of the cities reached out to, do not have any process in place to grant tax relief to not for profits, falling into a similar position as ourselves so far, he added.
There were two cities that had a dedicated tax relief program that we were able to identify: Prince Albert and Swift Current.
These have an abatement program “by application” for not for profits, said Stradeski.
“While most cities provide no tax relief, some provide support in the form of grants to not for profits, charities and community organizations. This varies from a formal program, like North Battleford, which allocates a budget each year to grants and takes applications, with a committee of Council that meets to review applications and allocate funds. They typically would have more applicants than funding. The other extreme was Estevan, which would hear from groups and Council would agree to give a grant, with annual costs to this ballooning to well over $1 million in recent years,” detailed the report circulated to council.
The non-policy grant approach is similar to what we have in place, with no formal policy but some long standing legacy grants we give out. Examples include YBID, Tourism, and others which are created by bylaw or policy with regards to these organizations, noted Stradeski, adding the tax relief may be less desirable in our view, as only those groups that own buildings are able to benefit, where other worthy groups may not.
It was the recommendation of administration that Council continue to apply property taxes to all taxable properties, which was unanimously supported.
Councillor Quinn Haider then made a motion – again finding unanimous support – that administration prepare a grant policy detailing criteria, maximum amounts and other details on grants for not-for-profit groups to be presented to Council prior to 2025 tax notices.
