City budget should address policing, safety, says new mayor Charlie Clark
City of Saskatoon releases its preliminary budget
Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark says the new city council's first budget should address policing and safety, in addition to growth.
Earlier today, the city released what it calls a "back to basics" preliminary budget with a focus on road maintenance and snow removal.
Clark said the budget would also need to tackle crime.
"We have some, I think, both opportunities and challenges to start to reshape the city around the growth plan, but also address some of the issues around policing and safety that we've been talking about," said Clark.
"And we want to get as much as we can out of each one of these budgets to keep improving quality of life in Saskatoon."
If approved by city council, the proposed operating budget will total $481.4 million. That's an increase of $16.6 million, or 3.6 per cent, from 2016.
Property taxes will increase 3.97 per cent to generate an extra $8.1 million for the city's operating budget.
The breakdown
The tax increase would translate to $67.55 for a homeowner with a single family detached home worth $325,000.
The new property tax revenue will be distributed as follows:
- $1.1 million for snow and ice management.
- $3.9 million for road maintenance. Next year is the final one for the road levy, which has been running for four years. In 2017, it will pay for $61.8 million in road improvements.
- $3.1 million to cover expenditure increases in all other programs and services, including police.
The police service has yet to table its funding requests, which could include money for more police officers. The amount dedicated to overall services could change based on those requests, which council would need to approve.
'Back to basics'
The city's general manager of asset and financial management, Kerry Tarasoff, said the proposed budget was focused on improving basic services.
"There's only about one and a half per cent that's for the civic administration to run the city. The rest is all dedicated to the roads and the snow and ice program. That's really the difference," said Tarasoff.
He added that complaints and concerns from the public and city councillors prompted the focus on road maintenance over the past four years.
Transit plans
The administration's proposed budget for capital projects also increased by 14.3 per cent, or $32.7 million, to $261.4 million.
According to Tarasoff, this is due to federal funding allocations for water utilities and transit infrastructure, including new buses.
He said part of the $37.3 million from the federal Public Transit Infrastructure Fund would go towards planning for a new rapid transit system, which is part of the city's 30-year growth plan.
"It's mostly around planning and design and trying to get, you know, what does this thing really look like," said Tarasoff.
Councillors have until Nov. 30 to review the budget.
City council will then have the opportunity to propose changes and adjustments.
Newly-elected Clark said he was seeing the latest budget from a fresh perspective.
"Where are we wanting to go as a city?" he said.
With files from Devin Heroux