What makes up a municipality

Property Taxes Your municipal government collects property taxes from each property owner. Tenants pay a portion of their landlord's property taxes through their rent.

The taxes are calculated by multiplying the assessed value of a property by a tax rate. There are two parts to the tax rate:.

A municipality can set different tax rates for different classes of property, and the main classes include residential, multi-residential, commercial and industrial. Learn more about property tax in Ontario and how it helps fund public education and your municipality.

Municipal Act The Municipal Act is a consolidated statute governing the extent of powers and duties, internal organization and structure of municipalities in Ontario. A full text of the Act may be found on the Government of Ontario's e-Laws web site. See link to the Act under Resources.

Municipal Council Municipalities are governed by municipal councils. The job of municipal councils is to make decisions about municipal financing and services. In Ontario, the head of a local lower or single tier municipal council is either called the mayor or the reeve. The members of council may be called councillors or aldermen. Please note the guide is not available at this time.

How are Municipal Councillors Elected? The way councillors are elected differs from municipality to municipality. Municipal councillors may be elected at large or by ward. In a municipality where the councillors are elected at large, all councillors represent the entire municipality.

In an election, the voters choose among all candidates who are running in the election. If municipal council has 8 councillor positions, for example, the 8 candidates with the highest number of votes win the election and become the new councillors.

Other municipalities are divided into wards. Depending on the municipality, each ward may have one, two or more representatives on council. Most municipalities are incorporated by the B.

Each letters patent contains the name of the municipality, describes or represents its boundary and establishes its classification. Early municipalities were incorporated by the Colonial or Provincial Legislature under legislative acts, although the power to create new municipalities in response to local interest was granted to the Provincial Cabinet in The City of Vancouver is an enduring example of a municipality created and operating under a distinct piece of legislation Vancouver Charter.

In more recent years in response to unique circumstances, on rare occasions a municipality has also been created by special legislation, such as the City of Powell River and the Resort Municipality of Whistler. Learn more about:. Municipal councils are democratically elected to make decisions on behalf of the community, and are accountable for those decisions to their electorate. Councils are composed of a mayor and councillors, and vary in size from five to eleven members depending on population of the municipality.

Mayors and councillors serve a four-year term. Municipal councils typically have full discretion to set policies, adopt bylaws and establish direction for their communities in accordance with legislation and other legal rules.

Sometimes the discretion of a council may be constrained by the need for input or approval from the electors or the Inspector of Municipalities before, for example, a bylaw is adopted. Municipalities are also subject to the jurisdiction of bodies such as Ombudsperson, the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the courts. Due to these responsibilities, council has a close working relationship with the municipal administration which provides professional advice to council and implements its direction.

Key municipal administration members are the chief administrative officer and the required municipal statutory officers corporate officer and financial officer. Municipalities, along with non-municipal areas known as electoral areas and Treaty First Nations if any , form regional districts. Municipal councils appoint one or more members of their elected councils to sit as municipal representatives on their respective regional board.

The requirement to sit and represent on a regional board, in addition to municipal duties, is a unique aspect of the local government system in B. Although sometimes challenging in practice, this reflects the key role of municipal councils in considering the most cost-effective way to provide services directly or through the regional district for the benefit of residents.

This mixing is also attributed to local responses to socioeconomic, demographic, and political changes. The most common mixing occurs across the two most prevalent forms, mayor-council and the council-manager.

In instances when changes are made to form and structure, the more common reasons for making such a change include increasing or decreasing the number of council members, modifying the method of electing the mayor, and changing the authority of the mayor. Listed below is the form of government for a selected list of large cities in the United States. Note the geographic variation as well as the variation even within an individual state.

Barnes, William R. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Module State and Local Government. Search for:. County and City Government Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Identify the differences between county and municipal governments in terms of their responsibilities and funding sources Describe the two primary types of municipal government and the three basic types of county government.

Practice Questions What are the primary responsibilities of municipal governments? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having so many levels of subnational governments in the United States? In which level of substate government would you be most likely to get involved? Is it preferable for representatives in the state legislature to behave as trustees or as delegates?

Do term limits seem to have more advantages or disadvantages? Defend your answer. Show Selected Answer 1. Show References Council of State Governments. Show Glossary commission system an elected commission that serves as the governing body within a given county council-administrator system an elected council that appoints an administrator to oversee the operation of the county government council-elected executive system a county government in which voters elect both the members of the council and the executive council-manager system a structure of government in which elected members of the city council appoint a city manager to carry out administrative functions mayor-council system a structure of government in which both city council members and the mayor are elected by voters.

Brian Lavin. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing.