$47.7 million assessment difference in francophone community centres irks Saint John leaders

Suspicion in Saint John that Service New Brunswick undervalues properties in the city and causes the municipality to be shortchanged on tax revenue has civic leaders asking for more information about the assessment of the local francophone community centre.

Centre scolaire-communautaire Samuel-de-Champlain on Saint John's north side is the heart of the city's francophone community.The 35-year old building is 58 per cent the size of Fredericton's Centre communautaire Sainte-Anne, but the $47.7 million difference in how Service New Brunswick values the two for taxes has Saint John municipal leaders wanting more information on the assessments.

"That stopped me dead in my tracks," said Coun. Donna Reardon about differences in the valuation of the two institutions.

"I don't get it."

Saint John Mayor Don Darling said it would have to be explained to him how an institutionin Fredericton less than double the size of a similar one in Saint John could be valued for taxes as being worth triple.

"Shock is what I would say,"Darling said in an interview last week.

"I don't think you can hear numbers like that and not have a whole series of followup questions.We need to understand.There needs to be a clear explanation of how these numbers are arrived at."

Samuel-de-Champlain opened in Saint John in 1985, seven years after Sainte-Anne.The two each sit on slightly more than 10 hectares of land in their respective communities and offer education in French to students from kindergarten to Grade 12.

Lastyear, 727 students were enrolled at the school in Saint John and 1,200 in Fredericton.

Both centres have been renovated and expanded over the years.

In addition to schools, both have daycares, live performance theatres, libraries, community banquet facilities and medical and dental office spaces.

But while Samuel-de-Champlain is assessed for taxes by Service New Brunswick to be worth$22.8 million (including its non-taxable library), Sainte-Anneis valued at $70.5 million, more than three times as much.

The difference was made worse this year when Service New Brunswick boosted Sainte-Anne's assessed value by $1.7 million, nearly 50 times the $35,000 increase the agency assigned to Samuel-de-Champlain.

The province is paying $1.4 million in property tax on the two centresthis year, $1 million of that to Fredericton and $400,000 to Saint John because of the uneven valuations.

"It's incredibly significant," Darling said about the lower tax revenue Samuel-de-Champlain generates for Saint John from itscheaper assessment.

"If you're following our budget deliberations, we're talking about do we open up a sports field or not. Can we afford to open up an aquatic centre or not. Do we mow the grass or not.Every $50,000 every $100,000 that's a lot of programming, that's a lot of community support. So it matters."

Althoughsome of the $47.7 million difference in the assessments between the two centres is related to the fact Sainte-Anne is larger, about $18 million of the gap is caused by Service New Brunswick's judgment that Sainte-Anne, per square foot, is a significantly more valuable building and property

Spread over its entire 296,775-square-foot floor space,Sainte-Anne's assessed value equates to $238 per square foot, well above the $132 per square foot Service New Brunswick applies to Samuel-de-Champlain.

Reardon has a difficult time accepting those numbers .

"That's a head banger for me," she said. "I don't understand that $100 differential a square foot.

"There's a cost to building per square foot. It won't make any difference whether you build it in Fredericton or Saint John or wherever."

In an email, Service New Brunswick said it uses a "cost approach" to evaluate each property that takes into account "a number of factors," including the quality and type of construction, the age and condition and design of the buildings, their location, the size of the land they occupy and any additional improvements.

"The assessment value of cole Sainte-Anne is higher than the assessment value per square foot of Samuel-de-Champlain because of a combination of the factors listed above," said the agency in its email.

"The use of the property would also weigh into the overall assessment. For example, if the Samuel-de-Champlain school is not being fully utilized, then we would allow for functional depreciation."

Saint John politicians have had an uneasy relationship with Service New Brunswick over the way it values property in the city since at least 2013, when theagency cut the assessed values of Saint John's two large pulp and paper mills by 40 per cent, citing poor economic conditions for the industry.

The decision cost the city $1.5 million per year in tax revenue.

In 2017, Service New Brunswick used the economic hardship argument again and lowered its valuation of the Canaport LNG property by $202 million on the eve of it becoming fully taxable by the city.That cost Saint John and saved Irving Oil Ltd. $5 million per year in property tax

Last year,city politicians questioned why Saint John's new courthouse was assessed to be worth $6 million less than Moncton's new courthouse.The complaint led to Service New Brunswick raising the Saint John building's assessment by $6 million this year but without acknowledging a mistake had been made.

Darling said that is all part of the reason he's interested to know more about the valuation of Centre scolaire-Samuel-de-Champlain.The city's experience has taught it not to automatically trust the numbers are reasonable.

"If we don't have confidence today, how can we get ourselves to a place where we have we have more confidence in the taxation system and assessments?" said Darling

"It matters. Having fairness in the tax system and having people have confidence in the tax system."