MONTEGO BAY, St James — St James has exceeded its target for property tax collection, raking in $1.318 billion instead of the $1.275 billion expected. But with only 44 per cent of property owners paying, mayor of Montego Bay Richard Vernon has his sights set on boosting compliance and pushing property tax revenue up to $1.6 billion in the next fiscal year.

Vernon pointed out that St James is now outperforming other local authorities.

“We did the best compared to the other corporations. Some had in the 90s as it relates to meeting their targets but we are the only one that reached our target and indeed surpassed it,” the mayor said with pride.

He was speaking with the Jamaica Observer after a press briefing, Monday, in which he highlighted achievements of the St James Municipal Corporation and unveiled plans for the next fiscal year.

“I want to thank the communities for supporting the property tax collection drive, and also the staff members that are out there ensuring that the money comes in. And I must commend the team that has stuck to the task once we implemented these initiatives to improve the property tax collection,” he said during the media briefing.

According to Vernon, initiatives included ramping up education campaigns and collection drives within several communities across the parish.

“They were there in Cornwall Courts, Ironshore, and those areas. They were in rural areas like Maroon Town and that is what assisted in this,” he said.

Vernon said there are plans to “reward the community with the highest level of compliance”.

“I will not give the community’s name now, because it takes a little bit of working out from the property tax unit to ensure that they find the most compliant community; not the one with the highest revenue, but the most compliant community,” said the mayor.

While pleased with the gains made, Vernon pointed out that there is still a lot of work to be done.

“The part that we want to improve is the proportion of possible collection across the parcels of land within the parish, because still we fall below the 50 per cent; we’re at 44 per cent,” he said.

“We believe we can do much more and moving into the new fiscal year, our strategy will be how we can ramp up that percentage from 44 to probably 50 and see how well we can shape the new forecast for the budget,” he declared.