Moose Jaw's tax arrears reached a high point in 2018.

There are a total of $934,059 in taxes in arrears on Moose Jaw properties for 2018, over three times as much as 2013. That year, only $278,614 worth of taxes were in arrears.

“What it really means is just a reflection of our ability to collect taxes and obviously for our taxpayers to pay them,” said Moose Jaw director of finance Brian Acker. “It’s something that’s being experienced across the province. A lot of times we see that when economic times tend to go down a little bit. Obviously it’s more difficult for our taxpayers to make payments and you will see an increase in arrears like we’re seeing.”

He said that the economy was much more buoyant in 2013 and there were jobs and people had the ability to pay taxes.

“I think what we’ve seen in the last couple of years has been a downturn, and that’s being reflected in people’s inability to pay taxes,” Acker said,

The city will try to work with property owners in order to get taxes paid, but in rare cases the city will take title to the land. The city would try to establish a payment plan with the taxpayer first, before going down the road to mediation with the provincial mediation board.

“We usually start off... we would sent probably 110-115 requests to the provincial mediation board in a year,” Acker said. “Out of that, there might be one or two that ultimately there wouldn’t be a payment plan established, and that one or two at some point, the city would take title.”