Town of Falher – Budget 2025

Overview

Council’s approach to the 2025 Operating Budget as it relates to taxation was to maintain service levels and minimize the impact of increases on families. That being said, our municipal assessment did lower again this year, meaning that to maintain the same operating budget, a tax increase was necessary (for a breakdown on the relationship between assessment, budget, and tax rates, please see below). After careful consideration, Council did also increase the minimum tax in the Town of Falher from $600 to $650. Being that this minimum tax has not been revised in several years, Council felt that it was appropriate to revise this amount in order to maintain a manageable tax rate increase. Additionally, Council was acutely aware that the Province’s decision to increase Education Property Tax rates would inaccurately be reflected as an increase in the Municipal rate (encouraged reading about this increase below.)

Overall, the Municipal Operating budget has maintained stable with similar expenses and revenues as the previous year, with the tax increase simply reflective of the lower assessment.

Below you will find some general information about municipal taxation, followed by additional details from the Town of Falher’s 2025 Operating and Capital Budgets.

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General Taxation Information – 2025 Tax Notices

Tax payments are due June 30. Please ensure your payments are postmarked or processed by our financial institution before the payment deadline. If you want to apply for the Property Tax Monthly Payment Plan, please contact our office for more information.

Property taxes collected from residential and non-residential properties are one of the various revenue sources available to the Town of Falher to pay for municipal services.

The Town of Falher distributes property tax notices in late May every year and asks property owners to pay their taxes in full by the due date of June 30 to avoid late-payment penalties.

Your Tax Notice

As a property owner, you receive a property tax notice every May. It indicates your share of municipal and education property taxes and the due date for payment.

Your Notice Explained

The Town believes it is important for you, as a property owner, to fully understand the information shown on your tax notice.

Education Property Tax

Provincial education property taxes are set by the Government of Alberta and account for approximately 15% of the total property tax amount. The Town of Falher collects the education tax amount on behalf of the provincial government.

Your property’s assessed value is used to calculate your share of Falher’s education property tax requisition. This part of your property tax is collected by the Town and sent to the Government of Alberta. The Town of Falher has no direct control over this amount and must collect it on behalf of the Government of Alberta.

Who Pays

All property owners in the Town of Falher, residential and non-residential, are required to pay education property taxes including those without children in school and senior citizens.

Use of Education Tax

The Government of Alberta states that education property taxes support public and separate school students in kindergarten to grade 12. Education property taxes are pooled and then distributed to all Alberta school boards on an equal per-student basis. The majority of these funds are for instruction, including teacher salaries, textbooks, and other classroom resources. For more information, please visit: Education Property Tax – Government of Alberta

Heart River Housing

A portion of your municipal tax bill is a regional requisition. In Falher, this is Heart River Housing. This regional requisition is determined by an independent board of individuals who may or may not be municipal elected officials from several communities. This part of your property tax is collected by the Town and sent to Heart River Housing. While the Town of Falher has 1 elected individual on the board, The Town of Falher has no direct control over this amount and must collect it on behalf of Heart River Housing.

Heart River Foundation was established in 1960 for the operation of seniors’ lodges in our region. In 1995, Heart River Housing was established as a Management Body under the Alberta housing Act. Heart River Housing represents 11 municipalities in the area: Big Lakes County, Donnelly, Falher, Faust, Fox Creek, Girouxville, High Prairie, M.D. of Greenview #16, Northern Sunrise County and Valleyview. They provide housing supports to more than 1,000 individuals in over 650 housing units.

Municipal Taxes

Municipal property taxes are set by the Town of Falher and help pay for a variety of services the Town provides. These services include:

  • emergency services
  • road maintenance and snow clearing,
  • recreation such as parks, arena, curling rink, and swimming pool
  • neighbourhood infrastructure.

To learn how your portion of the municipal property taxes is calculated, refer to Municipal Taxes.

Municipal property taxes are set by Council. The calculation of each property owner’s share of municipal property taxes is based on 2 factors:

 

  1. The Town of Falher Budget
    (the amount the Town requires to continue offering municipal programs and services).
  2. The total assessed value of all properties in our Town.

 

The costs of services are distributed among all properties, in the following manner:

budget ÷ total assessed value of all properties
= municipal tax rate

Then, to determine the exact amount each property owner is required to pay, the Town applies this tax rate to the value of your property in the following manner:

your property assessed value x municipal tax rate
= your municipal property taxes

Overall, changes in property values do not affect the amount the Town requires to continue providing municipal programs and services. If your property’s assessed value changes more or less than the average change in Falher, your tax increase will be more or less than the average tax increase.

Relationship between property assessment value and property taxes

Often the terms “assessment” and “taxation” are considered to be interchangeable.

However, assessment and taxation are very different. Although one impacts the other, each is a distinct and independent process.

 

“Assessment” is the process of estimating a dollar value on a property for taxation purposes. This value is used to calculate the amount of taxes that will be charged to the owner of the property.

“Taxation” is the process of applying a tax rate to a property’s assessed value to determine the taxes payable by the owner of that property.

 

The Municipal Government Act gives direction to Alberta municipalities in the areas of governance and administration, planning and development, and assessment and taxation.

 

Greater Detail on Assessment

Who prepares assessments in Alberta?

Assessments for all types of property are prepared by professional, certified assessors. Assessors receive training in a variety of areas including property valuation techniques, legislation, and quality assurance.

An assessor is hired by a municipality in one of two ways—as an employee of the municipality, or as a contractor. Contracting often occurs in smaller municipalities where the duties associated with calculating assessments are not a full- time activity. (The Town of Falher contracts this service from Compass Assessment Consultants Inc.) Regardless of the assessor’s employment situation, all assessors, whether they are contractors or municipal employees, must follow the same procedures and legislation. The majority of assessments prepared by the municipal assessor.

Assessment notices

Assessment notices are created from the information on the assessment roll. The assessment notice is the document municipalities send to property owners to tell them about the assessment of their property. An assessment notice or an amended assessment notice must show the following:

  1. a) the same information that is required to be shown on the assessment roll;
  2. b) the notice of assessment date;
  3. c) a statement that the assessed person may file a complaint not later than the complaint deadline; and
  4. d) information regarding filing a complaint in accordance with the regulations.

Each year, municipalities and the provincial assessor will be required to set a “notice of assessment date” between January 1 and July 1 and mail the assessment notices seven days prior to the “notice of assessment date.” Every municipality is required to send an assessment notice to every assessed person listed on the assessment roll. Each municipality must publish a notification to announce that the assessment notices have been mailed to property owners within the municipality.  The Town of Falher’s looks like this and was posted on May 21st , 2025.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes an error is found on an assessment notice. The assessed person can contact the assessor to have this information corrected. Corrections can only be made to current-year assessment notices. This means that an assessor cannot change an error, omission, or wrong description on an assessment notice from a previous year.

Each property listed on the assessment roll in a municipality receives an assessment notice, even if it is exempt from property tax. One of the important features of Alberta’s assessment system is that assessed persons have the ability to complain about their assessment or tax status. If an assessed party believes that his or her property should receive an exemption from assessment, property taxation, or both, then the property’s exemption status can be challenged via an assessment complaint. (appeal)

 

How to file a complaint

Complaints must be filed in the form prescribed in the regulations on or before the deadline shown on the assessment notice.

The complaint must:

  • indicate what information shown on an assessment notice or tax notice is incorrect;
  • explain in what respect that information is incorrect;
  • indicate what the correct information is; and
  • identify the requested assessed value, if the complaint relates to an assessment.

If an assessment notice and tax notice are combined, the deadline for filing a complaint is on the tax notice. Municipalities must give the assessed person 60 days from the notice of assessment date to file a complaint.

Once the complaint has been filed, the assessment review board clerk will receive, review, and categorize the complaint. All parties will be notified of the date of the hearing, the timelines by which disclosure of evidence is required to be provided to the other parties and to the board, and the rules for disclosure of evidence. At the hearing, the complainant presents his or her case to the board. The respondent (usually the local assessor) presents information on behalf of the municipality. The assessment review board has 30 days after the hearing within which to render its decision. All decisions of an assessment review board must be in writing.

Impact of assessment complaint decisions

It is important to note that any decision an assessment review board makes is for the current year’s assessment only. This means that the decision does not apply to previous assessments, nor will it be applicable to the next year’s property assessment. For example, if the assessed value of a property is decreased as a result of a board’s decision, it will not result in adjustments to previous years’ assessments, nor will it necessarily have any bearing on assessments that are prepared in the future.

Information above is based on the Guide to Property Assessment and Taxation in Alberta and other information originally published by the City of Edmonton 1 2

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Town of Falher – Budget 2025 – Overview Details

Provincial ‘Flow Through’

New Police Funding Model

The Police Funding Regulation came into force on April 1, 2020 and changed how police services in the province were funded. Previously, under the Police Act, the Alberta government was (financially) responsible for providing police services to those municipalities with populations of 5,000 or less (through the RCMP), as well as to all municipal districts and counties, at no direct cost to them. The police funding model (PFM) takes the total cost of frontline officers and redistributes a portion of those costs to municipalities who receive the services of the Provincial Police Service (RCMP). The new PFM requires those communities that have not previously paid for frontline policing to begin contributing a portion of the costs. This change in funding came with promises of increased hiring and services to all detachments.

In the initial 5 years of PFM, the Town of Falher’s contributions rose significantly with no additional members at the local RCMP detachment. Beyond the initial 5-year term, the Alberta Government also did not adequately or transparently provide continuing costs for municipalities to budget appropriately.

Town of Falher Council feels that these cost increases, without a corresponding increase in service, are unsustainable for small communities and Council continues to advocate for lower costs while maintaining a healthy relationship with the RCMP, in opposition of an Alberta Provincial Police Service. While the Town of Falher continues to advocate for reasonable costs and further transparency in the services provided, this funding model remains in place.

 

2025 Town of Falher – Police Funding Model Invoice: $47,713

2026 Town of Falher – Police Funding Model Estimate: $ 66,321 (Estimated, announced 39% increase; TBC in Prov. Budget 2026)

This amount is included in the 2025 Town of Falher Operating Budget and represents an increased cost in your property taxes with no increase in services directly provided by the Town of Falher. While it is collected by the Town of Falher, it is paid directly to the Provincial Government as a flow through. The Town of Falher has no direct control over this amount and must collect it on behalf of the Government of Alberta.

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 Understanding Education Taxes

In Alberta, part of the property taxes collected by municipalities is actually a provincial requisition for funding that goes toward funding the kindergarten to Grade 12 (K-12) education system. This education tax is one of two primary funding sources for schools, with the other being general provincial revenues. Together, these two funding streams help ensure consistent and reliable support for education across the province.

Each year, the provincial government determines how much each municipality must contribute to education, based on local property assessment values. Municipalities are responsible for collecting this portion of property tax from residents and passing along the funds to the Province.

The Province has increased education property tax rates in Budget 2025, following a freeze in the previous budget year.  Municipalities across Alberta are facing higher education property tax requisitions in 2025 compared to 2024, with the percentage of increase varying considerably depending on the type and location of the municipality and the category of property.

As a result, the total provincial education property tax that the Town of Falher pays has risen approximately 9%.

Click here for the Property Tax Comparison Report

Click here for Education Property Tax Fact Sheet


This portion listed on your Notice of Assessment and Taxation is collected by the Town of Falher, it is paid directly to the Provincial Government as a flow through. The Town of Falher has no direct control over this amount and must collect it on behalf of the Government of Alberta.

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Operation Updates

22nd Street West Dust Control

Over the past 2 summers, the Town of Falher attempted to utilize a new method for dust control along some roads. While this method was reasonably effective in some locations, it was found to be not suitable for 2nd Street West (more commonly referred to as Cemetery Road).

As such, with Budget 2025, the Town of Falher is returning to its previous methods of dust control, with an oil-based application along cemetery road. Consistently warm weather is required for the application of this substance. Travellers can expect the work to be conducted in the first half of June. (subject to change based on other circumstances).

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Big Red Slide – FAQ/Update

What’s going on with the Big Red Slide?

In the Spring of 2023, it was reported to our Office that there was significant damage to the ‘Big Red Slide’ in the Honey Capital Park. The slide tube had cracked, and had eventually split, resulting in a complete separation. The damage was noticed and reported to the Town of Falher in the Spring of 2023, having seemingly happened over that winter. Throughout 2023 our team identified the issues and began the planning process to address the matter.

With the work required to repair the tube, it was also apparent that the black and white panels on each floor of the tower also required attention. Direct exposure to sunlight has been causing large temperature changes in the puckboard material, creating significant expansion and contraction. This movement had enough force to cause considerable tension on the mounting hardware, and in some cases was sheering the bolts.

Ok so there’s problems. What now?

In 2023, our team ordered a new piece of slide tube. This had to be custom manufactured and delivered to Falher from Ontario. This arrived in the 2023-2024 Winter season.

In 2023, our team also identified that the puckboard panels could be replaced with a material that would expand/contract less with the temperature changes. Steel was purchased, cut and painted to prepare for the change and repairs.

In 2024, as we began preparations for the repairs, updates were delivered to Council and in June Council directed administration to receive guidance from an engineer to ensure that our plan of action. Not only for obvious reasons of safety, but also to ensure that our plan would ensure efficient use of resources to avoid a similar situation in the future.

Immediately after this Council direction, our team began consultation with a recommended structural engineer. However, this relationship quickly deteriorated as the engineer stopped returning phone calls and emails. Our team then pivoted, and went to another engineer and has been working with him on the necessary details for our slide repairs.

Plans for 2025

Our engineer has been in consistent contact with our team and conducted a site visit over the winter. At this time, there are no issues with the plan discussed, however we are waiting for the final official documents before finalizing all plans.

The guidance provided to date, however, will allow for work to begin on the town panels prior to installation of the new slide tube, and adjustment of the height of the leg that holds it. Thus, limiting the shifting pressure from frost heaves over the winter.

All items considered; the plan is to have all repairs completed in 2025. As we have seen in the past, plans may change due to outside circumstances, however we are committed to doing what we can to have this completed this year in order to have this amazing community feature available to all.

This project is being funded solely by the Town of Falher through taxation, reserves, and basic operational grants provided annually to the Town by the Province.

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Splash Park Rubber Pad

Our splash park pad has seen significant deterioration from chlorine and UV rays since its opening and now requires increased effort to be restored to a proper condition. Through the fall and spring budgeting process, Council considered options such as continued and increased patching, replacement, or removing the rubber pad in order to transition to a concrete pad. Patching would only delay the issue, and a concrete pad brings significant risks for slip & fall injuries. Beyond the community impact of increased injuries, it is possible that these injuries would increase the rates of contamination of the water (blood), which would in turn utilize more of our operational resources (and take our limited staff away from other projects; or increase staffing for an increased operating cost).

As such, Council’s decision was to replace the rubber pad, possibly with a different colour to reduce the impact of UV rays. With the new pad, our team will also coat the rubber pad with increased frequency in an attempt to slow the deterioration moving forward.

This project is being funded solely by the Town of Falher through taxation, reserves, and basic operational grants provided annually to the Town by the Province.

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Capital Projects

Equipment Purchases

Winter

As many have noted, this past winter brought with it two significant weather events (around January 10 and February 22) which created an unusual combination of sustained rain, melting, and freeze/thaw cycles. These rare but increasingly frequent extreme weather events (likely linked to broader climate patterns) cause an increase in large ice layers, building up, over multiple days and bonding to the road surfaces.

In addition to issues of salt supply with our sand provider, and equipment performance, our team identified to Council that a change is needed to address these issues moving forward. Recognizing that these adverse weather events may become more common, Town Council has approved the purchase of a GRYB Ice Breaker attachment in the 2025 Capital Budget. This investment will significantly enhance our capacity to respond more effectively to future ice buildup on paved surfaces, including alleys, roadways, and critical drainage areas. Not only for storm water management, but also for increased traffic safety.

Summer

In continuing with equipment refreshment rotations, the Town of Falher has also purchased a new JOHN DEERE 1570 Terrain Cut Commercial Front Mower with a 72” Commercial Rear Discharge Deck.

Small projects

For minor projects, the Town of Falher will be replacing a section of Storm Sewer line North of 4 Ave SW in addition to the lowering and general repairs for catch basins. One located on 1st Ave SW and another on 1st Street SW. Funds have also been allocated for some minor sewer line repairs for previously identified issues.

Large Projects

  • 3rd Ave SW Reconstruction & Resurfacing
    • ; 1st Street SW to 2nd Street SW – Full roadway resurfacing, with base repairs as required. Full curb and gutter replacement. Sidewalk ad-hoc repairs as required.
  • 1st Avenue SE-Road Reconstruction & Resurfacing
    • Main Street to 1st Street SE Full roadway resurfacing, with base repairs as required. Full curb and gutter replacement. Sidewalk ad-hoc repairs as required.
  • 4th Ave SE Roadway Extension*
    • Extension of the current roadway with full base construction and reconstruction and engineering of storm water management surrounding the roadway.

 

Capital projects are funded through Provincial Capital Funding (MSI & LGFF) and through Town of Falher Capital reserves that are managed and funded through taxation and other revenues (growth on investments). 

*The 4th Ave SE Roadway Extension Project is in partnership with Heart River Housing. Heart River Housing is providing a majority contribution for the project as it services the new units attached to the Villa.