A potential 42 per cent property tax increase in a B.C. town may be the tipping point that pushes its residents to abandon the idea of self governance.

The Village of Sayward revealed its draft 2026 budget earlier this month, and staff said the hike — which works out to an average $725 yearly increase on the average single-family home — is necessary because of years of the village using its reserves to cover annual shortfalls.

“Obviously, I know that is going to be a difficult number for people to see. Going through your budget, there’s very limited options for other ways that we can find revenue or reduce expenditures,” said Jeannie Bradburne, the chartered accountant hired by the village to deliver the budget presentation to council.

“We’ve seen it coming for years, right? We see it for the last five years, where, OK, we’re going through all of our surplus, and now we’ve sort of run out of those options.”

A former logging centre of approximately 350 people in northern Vancouver Island, Sayward has less than $2 million remaining in financial assets, the lowest number of any municipality in the province.

Sayward has seen its commercial and industrial tax base leave in recent decades, and the village recently shut down its aging community centre, outside of one-off events, because of the prohibitive costs of keeping it running.

But it’s also faced a level of dysfunction far beyond the scope of most B.C. municipalities.

Years of dysfunction

Since 2020, Sayward has seen more mayors and city managers resign than any other community in the province, and several members of council are ensnared in various lawsuits and investigations against one another.

As a result, more than $300,000 is projected to have been spent on legal services for the 2025 budget — more than nearly 20 per cent of the village’s entire revenues, and more than it spent on roads, public works, parks and its recreation centre combined.

While the village has acknowledged the legal fees as one aspect of its financial woes, it has said much of the blame can be attributed to reduced government grants, aging infrastructure and a lack of support from the regional government.

“This is not entirely the doing of this council or the previous council. This is the doing of many successive councils that have brought us to this point today,” said chief administrative officer Andrew Young.

“You need to right the ship. You need to get the books in order.”

Regional district takeover?

But a growing number of residents seem to believe Sayward should be disincorporated as a municipality, with the Strathcona Regional District becoming responsible for getting the books in order.

“[The taxes] are killing us,” said Milena Gradisar, one of the organizers of a campaign to disincorporate the village. “A very large number of us are seniors. We are on limited income.”

While some small communities in British Columbia are like Sayward, with their own directly elected mayor and council and staff directly accountable to them, others are overseen by regional districts, represented on the board by one local area director that oversees a broader population.

Under provincial law, the province can consider dissolving a municipality if they receive a “request signed by a majority of the electors of the municipality,” and Gradisar says they’ve more than halfway to that goal.

Mayor Mark Baker said he didn’t believe disincorporation would save Sayward residents money in the long run, and argued that a unified council after this year’s elections could stop the dysfunction.

“I hope … we end up getting a full council that is like-minded and willing to work together for the betterment of the community,” he said.

Gradisar thinks Sayward has had enough chances for new politicians to stop the town’s decline.

“I don’t want a new council,” she said.

“I know our taxes are not going to go down, at least not much and not immediately, but it’s got to be a hell of a lot better than it is now.”