Council to ponder PILT report findings from CFO Bomben at tonight's City Council Session

A topic that made for much discussion last August will make its return to the Council Chamber this evening.

That as Chief Financial Officer Corrine Bobmen delivers her report on the status of Property values for properties associated to the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program, or PILT which mostly is focused on Prince Rupert Port Authority land.

The report was requested by former Councillor Blair Mirau last August, that after he and former Mayor Lee Brain explored a range of themes related to the Port, PILT and the City of Prince Rupert.

The report had originally been requested for the September 20, 2022 council session. 

Both Councillor Mirau and Mayor Brain ended their time in elected office with the election of the new Council on October 15th.

In her findings to be delivered tonight, Ms. Bomben outlines some background to the issue as well as the data compiled from 2019-2021.

The City sent a request for PILT to the Prince Rupert Port Authority (PRPA) based on the values provided by BC assessment and the PRPA made the payments which are characterized as interim PILT payments while the PRPA contracts with a private appraiser to give them a value of their lands with which the port makes a final determination of values. 

Once that final determination is made, the City has 90 days to appeal to a panel charged with providing advice pertaining to the resolution of federal property value disputes called the dispute advisory panel (DAP).

Towards that Dispute Advisory Panel, the CFO's report notes that the City of Prince Rupert has applied to the Panel to challenge the final values for the years 2018-2021, however she also notes of some of the potential risk that choosing that challenge may bring.

Dependent on the outcome of the DAP proceedings any advice provided to the PRPA could impact the PILT already received for those years. 

If any amount is found to be owing to the PRPA on the basis of land values, those amounts would negatively impact future budgets of the City through further reduction in PILT.

The report also includes documentation towards Port Compensation payments to Executive and Non Executive staff at the Prince Rupert Port Authority.

Ms. Bomben's review can be examined below:

The full report including the Port compensation tables, which is part of the Council Agenda for tonight, can be reviewed from the Agenda package.

More items of note from the first council session for 2023 can be reviewed from our Council Preview feature page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.