Councillor Blair Mirau raised the item at Monday's council session, asking for some background on the topic from the City's Financial Officer Corrine Bomben and noting that he believes that the arrangement may be causing some pressures on the City's revenue challenges and cost pressures.
Mr. Mirau, noting that he had previous to his time on Council not been aware of the arrangement, suggested that it is a topic that warrants further investigation and discussion by Council.
Ms. Bomben provided a thumbnail sketch for council on the nature of the Ridley Island Tax Sharing Agreement, observing how the current arrangement calls for the City to provide 17 per cent of the taxes collected by the City from Ridley Island sources would be directed to Port Edward.
Noting for Council, that in the last year that percentage resulted in the City of Prince Rupert providing 700,000 dollars to the District of Port Edward.
From that information, Councillor Mirau noted that he believes that it's a tangible amount of money that has a significant impact on the City of Prince Rupert and provides for an important topic for discussion during the Budget process and something that warrants further consideration.
Ms. Bomben advised Council that she would provided with a more expansive overview in time for the Monday, March 7th council session and the information could be available as part of the larger public consultation session planned for the Lester Centre on March 14th.
You can review the discussion which came as part of the Budget Presentation from the City's Finance Department from Monday's Council session available from the Council Video archive, the full Budget presentation starts at the 37 minute mark, while the portion related to the Ridley Island Tax Sharing Agreement can be found at the 54 minute point.
For more items related to Budget preparation for 2016 see our Budget archive page here.
Further background on discussions from City Council can be found from our Council Archive page here.
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