Curious case of missing mobile home forcing City to cover outstanding taxes

The owner reportedly sold the home and it was moved out of Medicine Hat the following year, something the City wasn’t made aware of until 2018.

An assessor correction was made to remove 2018 taxes from the property, but a correction could not be made for the 2017 year.

Board chair and councillor Robert Dumanowski said despite numerous contact attempts, the mobile home owner has disappeared off the grid.

“There are many attempts in multiple ways to get that tax arrears,” said Dumanowski. “In the case of the one before us today, it’s a modular home that has been literally taken off the property and has left the community, or at least left our inventory.”

The new owner of the sold mobile home is also a mystery, as there is currently no central registry for the sale of manufactured homes.

Years later, the City is being forced to eat the missing tax arrears from the owner in question.

According to Dumanowski, the case of the missing mobile home has left the City scratching their heads for a number of months.

“It’s pretty hard to collect from somebody that no longer exists on the property,” he said. “It’s definitely unique from the standpoint of my experience around the table, but it’s here before us today. So we have, like every other year, the need to look at that and in this case we have to write it off.”

Luckily for the City, this has been the only case of needing to write off missing municipal taxes this year.

Dumanowski said these cases are extremely rare and are frustrating when they happen, but added just one municipal tax write off is good news.

“When you think about it in the context of a municipality of our size and our tax base, it’s really minuscule,” he said. “But, it is a necessity in a very transparent way to bring that forward.”

Cost Savings

Councillor Robert Dumanowski (Photo courtesy of Colton McKee)

The corporate services committee also got some welcome news on Tuesday regarding the City’s fleet vehicle units for the parks and recreation and municipal works departments.

A move to change the funding source for the vehicles was approved, which will see money come from the fleet reserve funding rather than debenture.

“We have savings that were realized from bids that were a lot less than we had anticipated and staff had planned for,” said Dumanowski. “Those savings now allow us to move to the next fleet year and instead of having to debenture or borrow that money with an interest cost, we’re able to use those savings that are now in reserve against that.”

By not having to pay interest on the money, the move is expected to save the City roughly $102,000 while keeping the same number of vehicles.

Ten units have been budgeted for the 2019-2022 period with a budget of $680,000 for both City departments.

There is a chance the money could be used to supplement the City’s general reserves, however Dumanowski said they’re also happy to roll over the savings to 2020 for the fleet services department.

“We’re able to now be very creative and validate the fleet services for the savings they realized and put that back into the next cycle,” said Dumanowski. “I mean that really is good news for us, but it’s more good news for the public taxpayer at large.”

Both the municipal tax write off and the vehicle fleet funding changes will still need to await council approval.

by Scott Roblin

Curious case of missing mobile home forcing City to cover outstanding taxes

Cost Savings

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