SAMA Appointment

SUMA has invited me to sit on the Urban Advisory Committee of the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency (SAMA).

SAMA is an independent agency with responsibility to:

·         the Province of Saskatchewan;

·         local governments (municipalities); and

·         property owners.

Provincial legislation mandates SAMA to:

·         develop and maintain the province’s assessment policies, standards and procedures;

·         audit assessments, and review and confirm municipal assessment rolls; and

·         provide property valuation services to local governments (municipalities).

SAMA is partly funded:

·         by the provincial government for our core service of developing assessment policy, auditing municipal assessments and confirming assessment rolls; and

·         through "requisitions" that municipalities pay for SAMA field services.

SAMA’s task, in a nutshell:

·         SAMA provides reliable, up-to-date property assessment valuations – the pillar upon which governments set tax policy and property tax rates.

For this reason, SAMA focuses on providing objective, accurate, understandable information to all stakeholders.

SAMA strives for a quality assessment system that is:

·         accurate and up-to-date

·         based on professional standards

·         defensible

·         understandable

·         universal

·         cost-effective and easily administered

·         equitable, and

·         fair for all property owners.

It’s important to note what SAMA doesn’t do, because there is often confusion:

·         SAMA doesn’t make tax policy, and

·         doesn’t set mill rates.

The mandate of the Advisory Committee:

Provide advice to the Board, with respect to urban and northern municipalities with less than 30,000 population, on the following:

·         Assessment policies and practices, as they apply to urban municipalities with less than 30,000 population including manuals, reassessments, schedules, modeling, etc.

·         The legislative amendments required to implement a successful revaluation.

·         Appropriate communications strategies for implementing reassessments in urban municipalities with less than 30,000 population.

·         Any other matters referred to the Committee by the SAMA Board.

There is no cost to the Town for my participation as a member of the Advisory Committee.