A local business owner is asking the city to do public consultation before renewing the contracts for the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA) and the Western Municipal Consulting (WMC) Board of Revision. 

Bernie Dombowsky, owner of Charlotte’s Catering, voiced his concerns during the city council meeting on Monday night. 

Dombowsky started with SAMA’s cap rate model. He said previously, the city had a standard rate of 6.61 per cent. The new models vary up to 300 per cent. 

He asked if anyone on city council knew who approved SAMA’s cap rate model. 

“Even former city manager Jim Puffalt did not know who. I asked Diane Thompson, SAMA’s developer of the new model, and Diane didn’t know either. But she said that someone in the administration must have approved it,” Dombowsky told city council. 

While SAMA did change its cap rate model for Moose Jaw due to complaints, Dombowsky said his complaint his concern about how his business was classified was never addressed. 

When it came to the appeals process, Dombowsky felt SAMA tilted the playing field so that they never lost an appeal. 

“It doesn’t matter how wrong they are and how right you are. They use their professional assessor's discretion to never lose. When they’ve stated something they can never lose,” he said. 

For the Board of Revision, he felt that city council was never presented with all of the options available, including returning to a local Board of Revision. 

He felt the local Board of Revision would work if they were paid as much as the city is spending on WMC. 

“No professional would sit for $20 per hour, they just need to be paid correctly. Other municipalities do it. There’s no reason why Moose Jaw can’t have a fair Board of Revision,” Dombowsky said. 

Dombowsky was also concerned that the local board was “fired” because they were not making decisions favourable to the city. 

Mayor Clive Tolley spoke to clarify a couple of points. First, he said that the city, by provincial legislation, must have a property assessor and Board of Revision in place. He said city council could only decide on the options that were laid in front of them. 

“We haven’t been at any time presented with a reasonable alternative that we could say, let’s do it differently. Currently, we have the situation we have,” Tolley said. 

He also noted that the local Board of Revision went beyond properly compensating its members. 

“The work was too great for the local Board of Revision. They had to ask for several extensions, which meant people weren’t getting decisions made in a timely fashion and in the time that was required,” Tolley explained. 

Coun. Kim Robinson disagreed and felt city council didn’t seek out all options and felt a local Board of Revision should have been considered at the rate the city is paying WMC. 

He also felt that city council just went with the easier path because his colleagues didn’t want to make a difficult decision. 

“I think the concern I’ve heard from citizens is that we enter into another two-year agreement with the Board of Revision or five-year agreement with SAMA when, truth be told, if these were private businesses and getting these many complaints and errors, they’d probably be out of business,” Robinson said. 

Coun. Jamey Logan clarified that the local Board of Revision wasn’t “fired” but their contract was not renewed. 

He also clarified that the city did not move away from the local Board of Revision because it wanted favourable outcomes. He said the board was making incorrect decisions that was costing the city money in legal fees. 

“I’ve seen it firsthand and some of the rulings, they were doing their best and trying really hard, but they were opinion-based and not based on fact and when we get to the provincial level, the provincial revision would end up overturning those cases is what was costing the city money. It was for that reason, and it wasn’t anything the local board was doing wrong or right, just that they were incorrect decisions, and they were overturned,” Logan said. 

City council voted to receive and file Dombowsky’s request. 

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