YORKTON - If you find property assessment and the related application of municipal property taxes confusing you are not alone.
That was the reason the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce and the City of Yorkton hosted a public town hall meeting Wednesday to discuss how property assessments and taxes are determined.
The event at the National Bank Convention Centre in the Gallagher Centre featured two speakers each looking at one aspect of the dual issue; Sheldon Stechyshyn, regional manager with the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency, (SAMA), and Ashley Stradeski, Yorkton's Director of Finance.
Stechyshyn explained SAMA manages the province’s property assessment system developed in consultation with municipalities, stakeholders and the provincial government.
Overall, SAMA is responsible for assessment governance of the $271 billion property assessment base, and a $2.33 billion property tax base. The Agency provides assessment valuation services to 762 urban, northern and rural municipalities. It is directly responsible for the assessed values of approximately 876,000 properties in the province.
Raising more questions than is typical in terms of assessment is the fact 2025 is a revaluation year.
SAMA conducts revaluations based on a four-year cycle. 2021 was the year of the last revaluation, and the 2025 Revaluation will see assessed values updated to reflect a new base date of January 1, 2023. The legislated base date means that 2025 values reflect a property's value as of January 1, 2023.
SAMA’s goal for the 2025 Revaluation is to provide fair and accurate updated property assessments for our clients and stakeholders to support their ability to provide important services to the public, explained Stechyshyn.
For the 2025 Revaluation, Saskatchewan continued to use the market valuation standard for valuing residential and non-regulated commercial property.
The market valuation standard for residential and non-regulated commercial property requires appraisers to consider, detailed an information sheet distributed at the meeting;
* Mass appraisal: the process of preparing assessments for a group of properties as of the valuation base date using standard appraisal methods, employing common data and allowing for statistical testing.
* All rights that accrue to the real property (estate in fee simple).
* Typical market conditions for similar property.
* Quality assurance standards set by SAMA.
Stechyshyn went through the often varied calculations, noting the numbers used come from the public through surveys, site visits, sale records and other ways, noting there “is a heavy reliance on statistics.”
Stechyshyn added the numbers are not created by the agency.
“SAMA doesn’t create the values. People create them,” he said.
Stradeski said the city uses assessment in determining what property taxes will be, adding those taxes account for a significant amount of the city’s annual revenue. He added by provincial legislation a municipality can’t run a deficit, so it must generate revenues to offset expenditures.
Property taxes “are the only taxation source that we have,” he said.
When it comes to tax dollars needed, Stradeski said the city determines the need and then looks to the total assessed property values to determine what the tax rate must be to generate the needed dollars.
Stradeski said he often suggests taxes are a pie, with a person’s taxes “your piece of the pie.”
So, if assessment goes up, and the dollars needed remained the same, taxes would likely go down, said Stradeski, but noted for example this year taxes are going up as determined by council, so the need is higher.
Complicating things somewhat tax wise is that “tax rates are set by class,” said Stradeski, so homes are taxed at different rates from business building or agricultural land.
Both Stechyshyn and Stradeski emphasized that people may appeal assessment (not property taxes) if they can show where the assessment process erred. At that point they have a set period; 60-days in a revaluation year (March 24 – May 23 in Yorkton this year), to file an appeal.
“If you don’t like the assessment numbers talk to us, or SAMA,” said Stradeski. “At the city we care assessment is as right as can be.”
