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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The city of Yellowknife receives a $144,000 payment in lieu of property taxes for Ndilo each year from the federal government - but it's anybody's guess if that number is either a fair or accurate representation.

"Rather than get property taxes from each individual resident of Ndilo, the federal government gives us a payment in lieu of the city's taxes," said Carl Bird, director of corporate services.

"We do the assessment and we advise (the federal government) what we're charging them and our assessment is based on the same mill rates that we apply to the rest of the city," he added.

However, the assessment itself is dated - neither Bird nor John Carter, Yellowknives Dene CEO, know exactly how old it is - and likely incomplete, agreed both Bird and Carter.

"It's probably 10, 15, 20 years out of date and there certainly have been more residences built in Ndilo in the last five years," said Carter, who believes there are about 90 residences in Ndilo.

"We have had difficulty getting in there and doing current assessments. There's been a lot of new improvements there that I don't think we've addressed in our current assessment," added Bird.

That's why Carter recently secured a promise of funding from Indian and Northern Affairs to complete a new land survey.

Carter was not sure when the survey will happen, but he hopes it will be "as soon as possible."

Either way, he will definitely share the results with the city.

"We certainly would be providing information to the city and they have the technical staff to analyze the information to see whether or not they're being dealt with fairly," he said.

And while he suspected the survey may show the payment should be higher, neither he nor Bird would hazard a guess on how much the increase would be.

In the case of a new survey, the city will adjust its assessment and continue to use the same rates it uses for the rest of the city.

"We should get a higher amount," said Bird. "Now what's that going to be and how much that's going to be, we have no way of knowing."

"At the end of the day the survey will attribute how many homes and how many people actually live in Ndilo. It may come out that (the federal government) has been underpaying the city," said Carter.

According to Carter, Ndilo makes up about 1.2 per cent of the Yellowknife's population. Outside of the community the city has 3,978 single-family dwelling lots it collects taxes from, said Bird. The average tax collected from each of those lots in 2008 was $2,467.05. In total, the city collected about $19.8 million in property taxes this year.

The money the city receives on behalf of Ndilo is used for the same purposes as all other residential taxes collected in Yellowknife.

The federal government payment "forms part of our general revenues and then we provide municipal services to Ndilo, the same way we provide municipal services to the rest of the city of Yellowknife," said Bird.

"We do road clearing as part of our municipal services , but just like we would in any other neighbourhood. We provide garbage pick-up on a contractual basis, just like we do any other neighbourhood," he added.

"We do all those municipal services, but we just do it as part of our overall responsibility to provide municipal services to anybody who lives within the city boundaries."

The payment does not go towards paving Ndilo's roads.

"We don't own those roads," said Bird. "In the rest of the city we own the roads and we own the sidewalks, so it's our responsibility to maintain those."

Carter, who has been trying to secure funding for road-paving for months, is hoping the new survey will allow the Yellowknives to determine whether to pass ownership of the roads over to the city, or to lease them.

"The last time the roads were paved was the Queen's visit in 1967," said Carter. "For 30 years they've ignored us, and for 30 years it's been an accepted fact in the city that part of the city has unpaved roads," he said.

"I find that a little disturbing."