TNRD Budget
Yes. Regional Districts operate under similar legislation as municipalities, but there are differences that add complexity to regional district budgets and financial matters.
A property owner in a municipality pays taxes, which are pooled and used by the municipality to pay for the services within its boundaries. Generally speaking, every property owner within municipal boundaries contributes to all municipal programs and infrastructure via these taxes regardless of where they’re offered or whether they make use of them.
Regional Districts finance services differently, with each service being required under legislation to be budgeted for and financed individually, based on its unique service area. Regional District taxpayers pay for their respective services, which may differ depending on where in the Regional District you live. Some services take in the entire TNRD (such as the public library service), while others may take in only one or more member municipalities or electoral areas (such as most solid waste services or building inspection services), or may consist of a much smaller defined area (as is commonly the case with our water or sewer services, or transit services).
No. For all Regional Districts in BC, including the TNRD, each service requires its own individual budget. Money cannot be shifted from one service to another. Further, any surplus in a budget must be spent the following year.
Services for your property will vary depending on which Electoral Area or Member Municipality you reside in. Services levels will also vary depending on whether on local services are provided to your property, such as water, sewer, fire protection or others.
Find more information about services in your area by visiting: tnrd.ca/taxation. Alternately, you can find a general overview of services by community by visiting: tnrd.ca/communities.
Property Taxes
Rural property taxes are due prior to July 2 each year.
Properties only pay taxes for each of the services that they receive. As a result, the level of taxation for TNRD services varies between properties within Electoral Areas, and for properties in Member Municipalities compared to those in Electoral Areas. Generally speaking, the TNRD provides a greater number of services in Electoral Areas compared to Member Municipalities.
Property taxation is one of the main revenue sources to pay for TNRD operating costs. Operating costs are also funded through sources such as savings, government grants, and/ or user fees (for utility services). Unlike other levels of government, local governments cannot use debt financing to fund operating costs.
Capital costs are mainly funded through federal and provincial grants, with property taxation funding a much smaller portion. Savings and/ or debt financing can also pay for capital costs.
BC Assessment provides assessed values of properties each year, and these assessed values are used to help calculate the tax rate per $1,000 for each property.
Regardless of whether assessment values increase or decrease in any year, assessed values do not impact how much taxation that local governments collect each year. Changes to assessed values may change how much of the overall tax requisition that a property owner must pay, but do not change the size of the total tax requisition. (Example: If your property’s assessed value goes up by 20%, but the average assessed value across the entire regional district goes up by 12%, then you will pay a higher proportion of the overall tax requisition).
In summary, assessed values, which are set by BC Assessment, are a significant factor to determine how much taxation each property will pay, but assessed values do no impact how much tax the TNRD collects in any given year.
For more information, including a short video to answer frequently asked questions, visit the BC Assessment website.
Yes. BC Assessment send out notices of assessed values in early January of each year. To appeal your assessment, follow the directions on your notice, or visit BC Assessment’s Appeals webpage.
Unlike municipalities, regional districts do not have direct taxing authority. Instead, they rely on BC’s Surveyor of Taxes to collect their taxes from property owners in the electoral areas and from member municipalities. Regional districts inform the Surveyor of Taxes and member municipalities of the amount of taxes required to meet the annual budget, which is approved by the regional board each year at the end of March. The tax money is then collected by the Surveyor of Taxes and the member municipalities and is forwarded to the regional district.
Rural taxes may be paid to the Surveyor of Taxes in the envelope provided with your Tax Notice or you can go to any government agent (Service BC) and pay your taxes directly.
All home owner grants must be applied for through the Province of BC.
To apply for the home owner grant and to learn more, click here.
Property tax notices are issued by the Ministry of Finance – Surveyor of Taxes.
For questions about your property tax notice, please contact the Surveyor of Taxes:
Toll Free: 1-888-355-2700
Fax: 250-387-2210
Office: 250-387-0555
Email: ruraltax@gov.bc.ca
No. Only a portion of your property taxes goes towards TNRD services, and property owners only pay for services where they are part of a service area.
The province collect property taxes for a number of provincial services, such as schools and policing. Often, services have unique boundaries that determine who will be taxed to pay them, including Regional Hospital Districts or Improvement Districts.
Utilities
The TNRD currently bills and collects for 11 water systems that it owns and operates: Black Pines, Blue River, Del Oro, Evergreen, Loon Lake, Maple Mission, Pritchard, Spences Bridge, Vavenby and Walhachin Water Systems, as well as two sewer systems that it owns and operates: Paul Lake and Pritchard.
Bills are sent out at the end of each quarter in January, April, July, and October.
Bills can be paid online, by mail or in-person at the TNRD Civic Building.
If you have any questions concerning your bill, or would like to advise us of a change in address etc., please contact the TNRD at:
300-465 Victoria Street
Kamloops, BC V2C 2A9
Phone (250) 377-8673 or 1-877-377-8673
Fax (250) 372-5048
Email ar@tnrd.ca
For information on how to pay your bill, please visit: tnrd.ca/utility-billing-payments.
Previously, when water systems were based on fixed rate billing and customers paid their bill before each quarter, a 10% discount for early payment was applicable for customers paying for water before they used it. With metered rates now in place for TNRD Community Water Systems, to ensure fair billing and accountability for users, customers are now billed after each quarter for water that they consumed. As a result, the 10% discount option no longer applies.
A late payment penalty of 10% on the outstanding balance will be applied to accounts that are not paid by the due date stipulated on the invoice (minimum 30 days). This late payment penalty will come into effect in the 2025 first quarter billing period, and be invoiced to customers in spring 2025.
The Utilities Department sets rates through bylaws, and they are based upon the operational costs of the utility. Apart from the Paul Lake Sewer System where there is only an annual parcel tax and no user fees, all direct operational costs of each TNRD utility system is paid from user rates. This information can be accessed in the Utility Services section of this website.
Water and sewer rates were increased by the TNRD Board in March 2024, and rate increases came into effect on April 1, 2024.
No. It is the policy of the Regional District that the utility bill will be sent to the registered owner of the property.
In accordance with Bylaw 2757, as of Fall 2022, quarterly billing for TNRD utility customers is required to go to the landowner of the property. This means that tenants will no longer receive these bills in their mail.
If you have questions or require more information, please contact the TNRD at 250-377-8673.
Where outstanding amounts on the Utility Account are in arrears as of December 31 each year, the full amount owing will be transferred to property taxes.
Since the Regional District cannot issue the Property Tax notices, we also cannot collect payments for utility bills once they have been transferred. For payment information, please go to the Ministry of Provincial Revenue-Taxation Branch website.
To stop water or sewer charges, you must contact our Utilities Department at 250-377-8673 for permission and instructions.
In all utility systems, the base rate will be applied year-round, regardless of whether the utility connection is turned on or off.
Water service can now be turned on or off for free once per year for customers, instead of requiring a $50 fee each time. This change is to encourage seasonal residents to turn off water in winter for vacant property, as required by bylaw, and follows changes to base rate billing.
Owners may disconnect from the Utility System; once disconnected, rates will no longer apply and quarterly invoices will cease to be sent out until such time that an Owner chooses to reconnect. The service fee for connection and disconnection from the Utility System is $300 plus costs incurred.
It is a good idea to contact our office to notify us of the possession date of the new owner to ensure the account information is changed over correctly. You do not need to pay a portion of the bill for the billing period that you occupy the dwelling, as your lawyer or notary as part of the conveyance will cover this on your statement of adjustment.
The TNRD does not read meters (if installed) when property changes hands. The law firm or notary for conveying the sale must contact the Regional District’s Finance department for an estimate amount owing and make an adjustment accordingly. Note that the charges remain with the property when it is transferred and the new owner becomes responsible for these payments. The Regional District cannot make adjustments between owners if the actual amount of the final bill is different from the estimate.
It is the responsibility of the lawyer or notary handling the transfer of ownership to ensure that a search is done through the Regional District to determine if there are any outstanding utility charges on a property and include those charges on the statement of adjustments. This is required to be sure that there are no outstanding debts or encumbrances attached to the property upon transfer of ownership.
The items that appear on your property tax notice regarding TNRD water and/or sewer services are for capital costs and indirect operational costs not covered by the utility bills alone. The water/sewer utility charges that appear on your utility bill are for direct operating costs only and do not cover the capital costs for water/sewer trunk lines or system expansions/upgrades. They also do not cover indirect administration and staffing costs charged to the utility, which are recovered through annual parcel taxes.
The capital costs of the TNRD water/sewer systems have generally been financed by a combination of government grants and debt proceeds, financed over a twenty-year repayment term. The repayment costs for the debt are charged to the properties within the service area that will benefit from the installation of these capital works, whether or not they choose to be connected to the services, unless the property owners have commuted their share of the debt. In addition, TNRD Utility Services support the ongoing maintenance and routine repair of the systems through parcel taxes charged annually to all parcels within the service area through the property tax collection system. These have generally been set at $180 per parcel but may be more, depending on the specific water or sewer utility.
When local services are established and are to be funded through property taxation, the boundaries of the service area are determined by the availability of the service to a property. For example, if a fire protection service is created and your property is within an area where a timely response to an emergency is likely, you are required to support that service. Likewise, if you have the ability to hook into a water or sewer service in your area, you are required to contribute towards the capital costs of the infrastructure, whether you choose to connect to the service or not.
Contractors
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District’s terms are net 30 days from the date the invoice is received in finance. Once invoice is received it is sent out to the Department Manager for review and approval. If the invoice is missing information required for processing, the Department Manager will contact the vendor for completion. Please note that this can delay processing time on payment.
To ensure your invoice is received and the appropriate processing time is met, please email the invoice to ap@tnrd.ca (preferably as a PDF document).
The Regional District follows operational policies for the procurement of goods and services, described in Appendix “B” to Bylaw 2664 Delegation of Authority. Under those policies, purchases of goods and services with a value exceeding $75,000 net of taxes are acquired by way of public tender process (or $200,000 or greater for construction services). Where this is the case, the TNRD will advertise the opportunity in appropriate newspapers and other mediums to solicit the best response.
Goods and services with a value ranging from $25,000 to $75,000 net of taxes ($200,000 for construction) are acquired by administration after a process involving the invitation of three (3) bids based on known ability and experience. Below this range of values, goods are acquired by administration on a best possible value basis using best practices for procurement. If you are interested in being included in an invitation to bid or as a supplier otherwise, contact the Director of Finance at 250-377-8673 or finance@tnrd.ca.
Still need an answer to your question? Contact:
TNRD Finance Department
250-377-8673
finance@tnrd.ca
TNRD Utility Services
250-377-6284
utilityservices@tnrd.ca