Proposed adjustment to 2023 City of Saskatoon budget includes 4.38 per cent hike in property taxes

City administration in Saskatoon is proposing adjustments to the 2023 budget that would result in a 4.38 per cent increase in property taxes for homeowners, instead of the previously approved 3.53 per cent.

For a homeowner with an average assessed value of $344,000, the proposed 2023 tax rate would cost $7.28 per month more than 2022, the city said — up from $5.87 per month as had originally been approved.

The 2023 budget was preliminarily approved by city council in November of 2021, as part of the city's multi-year budget.

However, administration said Wednesday that the city's 2023 financial outlook has changed significantly since the revenues and expenditures were forecasted in 2021.

It said the city has continued to incur higher costs for fuel, natural gas, materials, supplies and labour.

Clae Hack, the city's chief financial officer, said this year has brought significant, unforeseen inflationary pressures for the city, and administration expects them to persist into 2023.

Hack said the city is still recovering from the pandemic.

"There's oftentimes levers to pull in the budget — and with COVID and inflationary impacts and the deficit that we're facing in 2023 — those levers are becoming fewer and farther between," he said. "We're trying to avoid a place where our resource allocations are getting misaligned from our service levels."

The proposed adjustments include a $10.04-million increase in costs, partially offset by a nearly $7.76-million increase in revenues.

However, because municipal councils, by law, aren't allowed to approve deficit budgets, Hack said the remaining $2.29 million would have to be filled by a property tax increase.

The largest increases in projected costs include fuel expenditures ($4.12 million), inflation ($2.4 million), natural gas expenditures ($1.52 million) and police expenditures ($1.38 million).

Hack said the proposed property tax increase for next year's budget is not impacted by the downtown arena project.

Multi-year budgeting process will continue

When asked if the multi-year budget process is doing what it was supposed to do, Hack told reporters it has created thousands of hours of efficiency internally.

"I couldn't think of a more difficult two years to budget than with a pandemic in place," he said.

He said council made the decision earlier this year to stick with the two-year cycle.

Council is scheduled to deliberate over the proposed budget adjustments over three days next week, starting on Monday.