As the Town’s 2022 Comparative Analysis shows, the investment community continues to regard Coaldale as an attractive municipality to grow a business in.
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In May, the Town of Coaldale officially released its 2022 Comparative Analysis, which compares Coaldale’s operational and financial performance to the operational and financial performances of eight other similarly sized and/or neighbouring municipalities: Blackfalds, Drumheller, Edson, Innisfail, Lethbridge, Lethbridge County, Ponoka, and Taber.
In keeping with the Town’s previous Analyses, the Town’s 2022 Analysis once again takes stock of each municipality’s non-residential assessment growth – a performance metric that can be used to gauge whether (and to what extent) a given municipality’s approach to taxation is working.
According to the Analysis, over the last 4 years non-residential mill rates in almost all of Coaldale’s peer and neighbouring municipalities increased - and in some cases by over 8% (Edson (8.6%), Drumheller (8.3%), and Blackfalds (8.1%)). But as the chart below shows, in Coaldale itself the non-residential mill rate decreased by 3.2%.
At the same time, the Analysis shows that over the past 5 years, Coaldale saw significantly more non-residential assessment growth per capita than any of its peer or neighbouring municipalities.
As the chart above illustrates, from 2017-2023 Coaldale saw $6,991 of non-residential assessment growth per capita. That amounts to 55% more non-residential assessment growth per capita than neighbouring Lethbridge ($4,511), 82% more than neighbouring Taber ($3,827), 196% more than neighbouring Lethbridge County ($2,365), and 338% more growth per capita than the group average ($1,597).
What these figures effectively mean is that Coaldale's competitive approach to taxation appears to be working. “We know that if a municipality's approach to taxation is working, there should be a correlation between how competitive its mill rates are and how much assessment growth it sees, especially when compared to its regional neighbours,” said Cameron Mills, Director of Growth & Investment for the Town of Coaldale. “As the data reveals, all of Coaldale’s neighbouring municipalities have seen – and are continuing to see – above average non-residential assessment growth. That speaks to the competitive position the region enjoys - not to mention all of the hard work that’s been done to attract investment and market the region as Canada’s Premier Food Corridor. Nevertheless, the fact that Coaldale has seen more non-residential assessment growth per capita than all of its peers and neighbours is evidence that our relatively low non-residential mill rates are having a positive impact on driving business to the community.”
To read the Town’s entire 2022 Comparative Analysis, please visit:
https://www.coaldale.ca/ComparativeAnalysis.