Suzanne Oel – Division 4
Greetings! Sharing my News Update…
Property Taxes: Key factors about your bill this year include a market value increase, plus a hit from additional provin- cial education taxes. The municipal portion of the Foothills County 2026 budget went up 1.98% compared to the Alberta inflation rate of 2.1%. Economic pressures and world issues influenced supply chains, tariffs, and higher costs for fuel, insurance, equipment, contracted services and more, impacting operational and capital expenses.
Property Values: There is an increasing demand to live in Division 4 which is causing property values to soar. That’s great from an investment standpoint but not so much if your neighbour received a great sale price which causes your property assessment to be adjusted upwards for the paying of property taxes. This value is a multiplier when calculat- ing your bill. FYI, you can read the property assessment report shared in the Council Agenda on May 6, 2026: https://www.foothillscountyab.ca/
To inquire about your property assessment, call: 403.908.9608.
Provincial Increases: This year, the Province is collecting $4.5M more for education, plus RCMP, and other mandated requisitions through your property tax bill, which amounts to 42% of your bill. We’re paying to build more schools in the cities and provide more money for growth-driven issues. This provincially-mandated bill went up 15% this year and 20% in 2025. The County has no say in what we must collect for the Province.
Concerns Expressed: When the math was coming in for our County’s 2026 budget and then the up-adjustment with the provincial education price tag, the reality hit hard as to the required tax payments distributed over the County’s 16,747 tax rolls (14,038 assessed persons) and assessment types. I see this as a shock to the average tax-payer and see the results as hardship for residents. While the municipal portion of the property tax bill increased less than inflation and was carefully considered, I voted opposed because I support an over-all reduction in taxes. Next, I asked for a letter to be sent to the Province, endorsed by Council, to share our concerns about the escalating education requisition.
Tax Reduction: On the municipal side, we must seek efficiencies in all departments, analyze service levels and find op-portunities for reductions. On the provincial side, we are working on proposing alternative options for the collection of education taxes and investigating policing options. Preparations are well-underway to diversify our tax base by building out the Highway 2A Industrial Corridor in Foothills. With more services in place this summer, we look forward to attracting commercial + industrial tax assessment-types to offset our 75% residential assessment. Other tax-reduction ideas are welcome!
Internet Service in Division 4: After years of internet service challenges, industry, through grants and some business cases, is bringing the “last mile” level service to the varied landscape within our area. Mobile service is offered by Bell, Freedom, Rogers + Telus. Fixed Wireless is offered by Bell, Mage Networks (new!), Rigstar, Rogers, Telus + Xplore. Satel-lite service is offered by Starlink + Xplore. Fiber-to-Home is provided to a limited area by Telus. DSL is offered by Telus. View the ISPs (+ links) and projects map: https://ised-isde.canada.ca/app/scr/sittibc/web/bbmap#!/map
New Internet Option for Division 4: Mage Networks is expanding its High- Speed Rural Internet infrastructure into Foothills County, specifically the Priddis area and Highway 762 between Bragg Creek and Millarville. This local com-pany is currently in the infrastructure build phase, and expects service to be available to residents and businesses by Summer 2026. You may have seen them working in our area. Mage is deploying a combination of fiber and wireless multi-hop under its proprietary MagiNetTM platform. The network is designed to deliver 100 Mbps symmetrical speeds to every subscriber, unlimited data, and low congestion using Guaranteed Streaming Bandwidth(TM). In addition, Mage provides indoor and outdoor Wi- Fi design services, Public Static IP addresses, and high availability service to ru-ral operations including farms, ranches, hotels, campgrounds, clinics, and retail businesses. Their network can be cus-tomized based on specific terrain, coverage requirements, and hard to reach locations, ensuring a network tailored to unique needs: https://mage-networks.com/foothills/
For Other News & Updates:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/CouncillorSuzanneOel/
Email: Suzanne.Oel@FoothillsCountyAB.ca
Please visit High Country News online for my previous articles.
With Best Regards,
Suzanne
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