The Cowichan Valley Regional District wants to hear from the public on how they would like to be engaged in its budget process for 2025.
In the interest of ensuring property owners are aware and engaged in the budget process this year, the CVRD has launched a short survey to gather feedback from the public.
This includes preferred options for receiving and providing information to the CVRD, public desire to participate in the budget process, as well as general comments related to the CVRD budget process.
RELATED STORY: CVRD EXPECTED TO LOWER TAX INCREASE AFTER TAX REVOLT AT BUDGET MEETING
This input will help shape the 2025 CVRD budget process that begins in autumn 2024, and ensure CVRD staff are properly planning and designing engagement opportunities that reflect the needs and desires of Cowichan-area residents.
The initiative to have more involvement from the public in the budget process for 2025 comes after the CVRD was contemplating a tax increase of 19.33 in 2024, but the board decided to reduce the amount earmarked for parks acquisition after approximately 200 people held a tax protest at a meeting last February and brought the tax increase down to 16.35 per cent.
Many of the protesters complained that they were unaware of plans for such a big hike in their property taxes until just days before the CVRD was set to adopt the tax increase.
RELATED STORY: TAX INCREASE IN CVRD NOW AT 16.35% FOR 2024
Like many other regional districts in British Columbia, the CVRD has an extensive and complex budgeting process, delivering more than 180 distinct services across the region at a household, community and regional level.
As each residential property receives different services from the CVRD depending on the Electoral Area or municipality its residents live in, as well as the individual neighbourhood, budgetary decisions and resulting taxation impacts affect each property differently.
The amount of taxes paid by each property owner is also largely influenced by the assessed value of their property, as generated by BC Assessment on behalf of the provincial government
To complete the survey, go to www.planyourcowichan.ca/cvrd-budget-2025.
