NANAIMO CITY COUNCILOR WEARS MANY HATS

 CITY TAXES +6.8% RDN TAXES + 7% NRHD + 28%

CITY COUNCILORS VOTE ON ALL THESE INCREASES

Why your property tax bill can jump more than “City Council’s %”

When the media says “City Council cut the tax increase to 6.8%,” that headline only covers one slice of your tax notice. Your actual bill is the stacked total of multiple taxing authorities collected on the same notice: City of Nanaimo + RDN (and RDN services like sewer) + Nanaimo Regional Hospital District (NRHD) + Provincial School Tax, etc. Each body can raise its own requisition, so the combined impact can exceed inflation even if each group points to “their” number as reasonable.

The “dodge ball” problem: same people, different hats

Many City councillors also sit as Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN) directors and as Nanaimo Regional Hospital District (NRHD) directors. That means the same elected officials can vote for higher regional and hospital requisitions in different meetings, while the public hears only “City Council’s tax rate.” It’s not illegal — it’s how the governance structure is set up — but it makes accountability harder for taxpayers to track.

The “weighted vote” people forget about

On many of the big financial votes at the RDN (financial plan, major contracts, borrowing, property decisions), voting is often weighted by population — not one-director/one-vote. Under the province’s voting-strength schedule (effective Nov. 1, 2022), the City of Nanaimo’s 8 directors have 40 of the RDN’s 73 total weighted votes (about 55%). In plain terms: when the vote is weighted, Nanaimo’s directors can often carry a decision or block it if they vote as a bloc. But on unweighted votes (one director, one vote), Nanaimo has 8 of 19 and cannot veto alone.

Bottom line

If you want to know who actually approved the full tax hit, you have to follow all the hats: City Council for City taxes, RDN Board for regional services, and NRHD Board for the “Hospital” line. The only honest “tax increase” is the all-in change across the entire notice — not just the City headline.

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