City of Saskatoon budget deliberations underway, police and fire budgets approved

Saskatoon city councillors are busy staring at reams of financial documents as they decide where the city's money should be spent in 2022 and 2023.

Council began three days of budget deliberations Monday to decide which civic departments should get funding increases and whether money can be cut.

Last week, the city's finance department released a preliminary budget, recommending that property taxes increase by 3.51 per cent in 2022 and 3.14 per cent in 2023.

The proposed 2022 increase would mean a homeowner with a house worth $344,000 would pay an extra $67.29 next year, or an extra $5.61 per month.

Likewise, the 2023 increase would mean the same homeowner would pay an extra $62.33 per year, or another $5.19 per month.

In total, the tax increase is expected to bring in an additional $9.3 million in 2022 and $8.8 million in 2023.

The city anticipates COVID-19-related expenses will cost the city $13.85 million next year and $10.02 million in 2023. 

That number includes $5.49 million in lost revenue to Saskatoon Transit next year, along with $948,300 less collected in parking revenue. The city expects to pay for those costs through the Canada Infrastructure Program reallocation pool.

The proposed overall budgets for Saskatoon are $1.22 billion in 2022 and $1.26 billion in 2023, the city's chief financial officer Clae Hack said on Monday. The budgets are made up of four main components — land development, utilities, operating, and capital budgets.

When asked by councillor Mairin Loewen about how conservative the proposed budget was, Hack said Monday that $5 million to $7 million worth of risk are built into the document.

"This budget makes some assumptions to when return to normal will be," he said.

"If our assumptions are significantly different than what we are actually experiencing a year from today, we will bring forward that information and options and different strategies."

The preliminary budget said the most money would go toward the Saskatoon Police Service, with $119 million, followed by $90 million for transportation and $55 million for the fire department.

City staff wages currently make up 59 per cent of the proposed budget. The city said it's tied into a number of collective bargaining agreements with its unions, and that it's required to meet those obligations.

Large spending items include $107 million for utility infrastructure maintenance, $52 million for land development and $32 million for roadway preservation next year.

So far all recommended budgets for departments have been approved

On Monday night, city council approved the Saskatoon Police Service 2022-2023 Business Plan and Budget unanimously.

The police's approval request for 2022 listed $119,710,700 in expenditures and $11,491,600 in revenue.

According to the proposed budget, the Saskatoon Police Service will also be the city's costliest department in 2023, with operating expenditures at approximately $124.6 million in 2023.

With the city's population growing more resources are needed, said Saskatoon Board of Police commissioner Jo Custead during her presentation.

The force recommends hiring eight new patrol officers for 2022 and four in 2023, according to Custead.

The Saskatoon Public Library also made their budget pitch on Monday night, and the city approved the library's operating budget for 2022. 

In the budget, Remai Modern, SaskTel Centre and TCU Place are combined under Arts, Culture and Events Venues.

On Monday, none of the city councillors opposed the recommended operating budget for 2022 and 2023 for the three facilities. Together, the total expenditures for 2022 are calculated at $9,250,000 and $9,571,400 in 2023.

Like police, the Saskatoon Fire Department (SFD) also mentioned increasing pressure on its staff related to workload and city growth.

A chart comparing the fire department's performance from 2018 until 2020 shows a decline in year-over-year progress in achieving the targeted fire response time.

"Over five years, SFD has seen over a 40 per cent increase in call volume," said fire chief Morgan Hackl on Tuesday.

This year, the fire department's dispatch centre has dealt with around 94,000 calls for service, said Hackl.

One of the key unfunded projects in the fire department's budget is next-generation 911 (NG911), said Hackl. The fire department's 10-year-old dispatch system needs updates to become NG911 compliant.

The new technology would improve caller location and allow people to send texts, images and videos to dispatchers, according to the city's fire chief.

Fire stations 1 on Idylwyld Drive and 2 on Diefenbaker Drive face a particular amount of pressure, according to Hackl. Together both stations deal with more than 50 per cent of the fire department's call volume.

Part of the budget for 2022 is money to hire firefighters mid-year of 2022 to relieve the current overtime pressures, according to the budget.

"When we train, we have to take people off shift," said Hackl.

"With that, overtime is created. So since 2018, our overtime has more than doubled."

Hiring new staff and eventually commissioning a new fire station around 2025/26 is supposed to help fire fighters deal with the increase of workload, according to the fire chief.

"We realized that if we started to hire the staff for a new fire station now and phased in over five years, we could address a number of things," he said.

"We could help address training concerns in terms of taking people off shift."

City councillors unanimously approved the recommended operating budget for the Saskatoon Fire Department, which includes a total of $55,795,700 in expenditures for 2022 and $1,269,900 for 2023.

On Tuesday afternoon, city council also approved the operating budgets for utilities, including Saskatoon Light & Power. Councillors Darren Hill and Bev Dubois were the only ones opposing the recommended utilities budget. 

Early results of electric bus assessment revealed

Another big topic on Tuesday's agenda was the operating budget for transportation, which includes several services such as Access Transit, parking, road maintenance, snow and ice management, street cleaning and sweeping, and transit operations.

The main transportation expenditures in 2022 will fall under transit operations, road maintenance, and snow and ice management, totalling around 73 per cent for both 2022 and 2023, said Terry Schmidt, the city's general manager of transportation and construction. 

Administration also revealed some preliminary results of a one-year electric bus pilot project in Saskatoon that started in 2020.

The city was testing the vehicle until September 2021 and has since returned it to the supplier, according to Schmidt.

Preliminary results indicate that the bus worked well, even in cold weather, Schmidt said. 

"Initial feedback has been very positive on the bus," he said.

"One of the advantages over the diesel was there's some emission control components on the diesel buses that, when it gets very cold, do tend to cause operational issues."

Purchasing a diesel bus costs around $660,000, said Schmidt, compared to the initial costs of around $1.2 million for an electric battery bus. However, an electric bus would likely be more cost efficient than a diesel over an 18-year life cycle, according to the general manager of transportation and construction. 

"We know that's where industry is going, to the electric battery buses," said Schmidt.

"The decision is when do we make that move and how aggressively do we go."

Administration plans to bring back a complete report on the pilot project in late 2022, said Schmidt. 

City council passed the transportation operating budgets with a 9-1 vote, with only Coun. Darren Hill against. The budget includes $152,930,600 in expenditures for 2022 and $156,226,000 for 2023.

Diverting waste from landfills still needs improvement, says administration

All councillors except for Hill also approved the operating budgets for environmental health, a total of $26,945,000 in expenditures for 2022 and $24,892,800 for 2023.

Environmental health covers several environmental services including waste reduction and sustainability.

The environmental health presentation to city council showed that improvements are needed to reach the set targets of diverting waste from landfill and reducing Saskatoon's greenhouse gas emissions.

The city's goal is to divert 70 per cent of its waste from landfills by 2023, according to the Saskatoon's preliminary corporate business plan and operating and capital budgets. In 2020, though, only 26 per cent of waste were redirected.

City council had begun budget deliberations on Monday at 1:00 p.m. CST.

During the first two hours, different groups and people outside of city council had the chance to speak and bring forward requests.

Among them were speakers of the Bus Riders of Saskatoon, who made a case for purchasing more electric buses, and the Saskatoon SPCA, which asked the city for monthly emergency funding of $50,000 until a new funding agreement is in place.

"Our financial forecasting indicates that without intervention, our reserves will only sustain operation for another year," wrote the SPCA in a letter to the city.