The Christian Mennonite Conference (CMC) Bishop says as a church body they have to submit to the governing body.

Dave Reimer is referring to the fire protection levy passed by the Rural Municipality of Hanover which will see churches and schools, previously exempt, now paying a fee for fire protection services. Reimer adds they would prefer not to spend additional money but understand the important of having fire protection services.

Chief Administrative Officer Luc Lahaie says, like any other building, churches and schools may require fire protection and so, they too, should be paying towards the service.

"In the past churches and schools and other exempt properties were not charged, they don't pay any property taxes, therefore they would not have paid towards this levy," notes Lahaie. "So we decided to prepare an RM of Hanover special services for fire protection, so it covers all properties, including the exempt properties. When you do one of these special levys you don't have to charge the same rate to the at large mill rate, so the increase in levy is only going towards the schools and churches."

Lahaie says the fire protection levy will be calculated on 65% of the building's assessed value and those funds will be placed into the fire protection reserve. According to the RM of Hanover a 1.07 mill rate increase will be recommended for the 2016 fire special service levy. CMC Church in New Bothwell, for example, is assessed at $2,096,700 and would be charged a $1,472 levy.

Lahaie adds he is estimating an additional $30,000 extra per year from the new fire protection levy which will be placed into the fire protection reserve. He says the reserve is being used for such purchases as new fire equipment. He adds, last year, council asked administration to start crunching numbers to see if it would be a feasible option to build a fourth fire hall in the municipality in the next two to three years.

"Hanover has been looking at this for over ten years and the more the assessment increases in these two communities (Mitchell and Blumenort), it's causing us to look further into ti because we're paying a lot of money to the City of Steinbach and we thought, maybe, there could be some savings if we created an additional fire hall for the municipality."