Taxes
Each year, Council approves the municipal budget to determine how much revenue is required to support and provide services. From this amount, grants and other sources of revenue other than property tax are subtracted. The difference determines the amount of revenue the municipality must collect from property tax each year.
The Town currently applies a uniform mill rate and base tax to all properties. The base tax ensures there is an equal tax distribution among all properties for shared services like road maintenance, policing, etc. The mill rate is applied to the taxable assessed value of each property. For more information read our Assessment and Taxation.
Unlike other municipalities that may have paved roads or other services, Grand Coulee has no commercial property tax revenue and no development opportunities to help fund those improvements.
While our annual financial statements show a healthy surplus it is important to understand that this does not equal cash in bank. A municipality’s surplus includes the value of all tangible capital assets (infrastructure, buildings, equipment, etc.).
Each year, Council works hard to operate close to a break even budget and has policies in place to ensure we only plan for a 1% surplus to help fund reserves for future capital investments. All of these decisions are made with property taxes in mind. Council is proud to have lowered our mill rate from 5.65 to 3.0 since 2016.