Squamish-Lillooet Regional District adopts five-year financial plan

Pemberton, BC – The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) Board of Directors adopted the 2025-2029 Financial Plan during the March 26, 2025 regular Board meeting.

Through the Local Government Act and the Community Charter, local governments are required to adopt a five-year financial plan bylaw by the end of March each year. The planning period covered must be for a minimum of five years. The financial plan is often referred to as the budget, which includes estimated expenditures to provide for the Board’s priorities, polices and services. Sufficient funds need to be raised to ensure individual service operating budgets remain balanced.

This approval sets the taxation for the 2025 Budget, which includes 89 services provided by the SLRD and a total tax requisition of $15,591,642, divided between four electoral areas and four member municipalities, based on services that specific areas receive. The cost to a typical household depends on the area your property is located and the local services that are provided.

“Fiscal responsibility is a priority for the SLRD Board and our staff,” said Jen Ford, SLRD Board Chair. “This budget enables the SLRD to continue to provide essential services for its communities, enhancing the quality of life for residents.”

The SLRD’s draft 2025-2029 financial plan was considered and adopted at the SLRD’s March 26, 2025 Board meeting, following months of preparation and review, and the plan available for public input in March. The financial plan development begins in August each year and continues through to November, with internal discussions among SLRD management and external discussions with service operators, forecasting for each cost centre, and estimating surplus or deficiencies carrying forward.

Budget presentations began in January with the first presentations to the Electoral Area Directors (EAD) Committee, the Pemberton Valley Utilities and Services (PVUS) Committee and the SLRD Board. Second and third presentations took place in February and March. The public input period, with the public invited to review and provide input on the draft five-year plan, was in March. There was no public input received. For the 2025-2029 financial plan process, all information was shared on Get Involved SLRD, the SLRD’s online engagement platform, with notices and reminders shared on social media, and newspaper advertisements in Whistler, Squamish and Lillooet acknowledging the public input period.

Regional District budgeting is unlike municipal government budgeting, with several notable differences:

• Every service provided by the regional district requires its own budget, using dedicated cost centres which identify the full cost of the service to the Regional District, including staff time, overhead and all applicable expenses.
• Each service has its own tax rate and service area, so the taxes paid are dependent on where you live in the regional district and which services are applicable to your area. Only property owners within a cost centre/ service area pay for that service (for example, wastewater service in Britannia Beach is only paid for by those people in the service area).
• Funds cannot be transferred between services of differing areas.
• Regional District assessment property class multipliers are set by the Province of British Columbia.
• The Regional District is not a taxing authority and therefore, does not collect taxes itself. The Province of BC (Surveyor of Taxes) collects taxation funds on behalf of the Regional District.
  The tax impact on the average home in each specific area varies and is heavily dependent on the unique mix of services provided to each area. The year over year change is determined by using the specified tax rate per service and multiplying by the assessed value provided by BC Assessment.

The SLRD oversees different services across the region. Depending on where residents live in the SLRD, they may receive services such as:

• Fire protection
• Water
• Sewer treatment
• Curbside collection
• Parks
• Transit
• Recreation
• Search and Rescue
• Library
• 911

Property tax notices are issued by the Surveyor of Taxes in May of each year.
 

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About the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District
Located in southwestern BC, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) is a local government federation consisting of four member municipalities (the District of Lillooet, the District of Squamish, the Village of Pemberton and the Resort Municipality of Whistler) and four unincorporated, rural electoral areas (A, B, C, and D). Headquartered in Pemberton, which is the approximate geographic centre of the region, the SLRD delivers a wide range of local, regional and sub-regional services to approximately 50,496 residents (2021 Census as certified by the Minister of Municipal Affairs).

The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District is found within the traditional territories of several First Nations, including the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), St'át'imc and Líl̓wat. Small parts of the SLRD also overlap with the traditional territories of the Stó:lō, Tsleil-Waututh, Nlaka'pamux, Tsilhqot'in, and Secwepemc Nations. While the SLRD does not provide direct services to the residents of the First Nations communities located within the region, the organization is committed to enhancing relations with the Indigenous communities and First Nations within whose territories the SLRD operates.