Resolutions

Be It Resolved that the SUMA request the Government of Saskatchewan to make the necessary legislative and regulatory changes and to call upon the SAMA Board to institute such changes in the operation and mandate of SAMA that would improve the assessment and appeal process, in order to: a) ensure that the assessment appeal process is designed to be non-confrontational; b) ensure that the assessment appeal process would be less costly in terms of time and money for appellants, respondents and municipalities; c) place less burden on local Boards of Revision and the appellants who appear before them; d) make easily and readily accessible to appellants and Boards of Revision such data that facilitates the appellants in making their appeals and the Boards of Revision in hearing such appeals and responding to them; e) have SAMA rules and procedures emphasize the role of SAMA and SAMA representatives as public servants whose role is to assist municipalities and the individual appellants who make up the municipalities in determining a fair assessment; and f) guarantee that communities in close proximity of one another and of similar makeup (e.g., neighbouring small towns) would not be isolated from one another in determining such things as the Market Adjustment Factor, and that issues of social impact and justice would not be deemed irrelevant to the process.