Chalk it up to a misunderstanding.

That was Mayor Al Bridal's message to council members at Monday's meeting of Swift Current city council.

Some, including Councillor John Wall and Bridal himself, have been fielding calls from frustrated residents asking about a rise in their property taxes in an election year when they were told there would not be one.

Technically, there wasn't.

"We are revenue-neutral in the fact that we aren't going to collect any more taxes this year than last year. But taxes are going to shift from business to business and house to house."

The reason for that is largely out of the city's hands. An assessment year means that everyone's property; commercial or residential, gets revaluated. So while the percentage of property tax remains the same, some people will just end up paying more, while other people will end up paying less. It not new, but it just happens to be falling on a year where one of the key election promises was "no tax increase".

"We have not increased taxes. If we would have put a five percent tax increase, I told a man in my office last week, I said your taxes wouldn't have gone up $1,000 dollars, they would have gone up $2,000 dollars. A thousand for the assessment and then another thousand dollars for the five percent tax increase. And we didn't do that."

Adding to the complication is the fact that for the first time in a number of years, the education tax has also climbed 8.25 percent, which according to Bridal will amount to roughly 6 to 8 hundred thousand dollars more, which is all money that is collected by the city and then passed through to the school board.

Bridal admits that the city might have been able to do a better job of explaining the nuance, and the process to appeal their assessment, but stresses that the process has been the same for decades. And while he agrees that the system as it stands is confusing and frustrating, he says too many people don't appeal the assessment until they have a tax bill in their hand, at which point it's far too late to do anything.

"What I think is wrong with the system is that the assessment and the taxes somehow should be a way that you would know what they are at the same time."

In the meantime, he stresses that people need to appeal when their assessment comes in, not when their taxes have already been billed.