Smaller property tax increases could be in store for Saskatoon residents

Residents will be dealing with a smaller property tax increase after city councillors waded through and endorsed a number of options to Saskatoon's city administration on Monday.

In June, the City of Saskatoon announced it will be moving to a multi-year budget cycle, with property tax increases pegged at 3.94 per cent in 2020 and another 4.17 per cent in 2021.

Councillors asked city administration to report back with several options to reduce the property tax increase and on Monday, councillors endorsed six of nine options aimed at shaving even more off of what the public will pay next year.

Some of the options councillors chose to endorse included deferring top-ups of cash to cover inflation in four civic reserves, pushing back the funding phase-in for Recovery Park to 2023 and phasing in The Remai Modern Art Gallery of Saskatchewan's contributions to the Civic Buildings Comprehensive Maintenance Reserve over a longer time period.

As a result, property tax increases dropped to 3.23 per cent in 2020 and 3.45 per cent in 2021.

Mayor Charlie Clark said the last thing council wants to do is burden residents with higher property taxes.

"We know and we hear from residents that everybody's challenged these days with rising costs and not necessarily rising incomes or wages," said Clark following Monday's meeting.

Clark said this includes senior citizens and anyone else living on a fixed income alongside those making minimum wage and trying to get by in a rising cost environment.

"We don't want to be loading up people with additional costs through their property taxes," he said. 

City administration will now work on constructing a budget to present to council later this year which reflects the options endorsed by council. 

However, Clark said there is still a number of conversations to be had around the budget, noting the coming months is a good time for residents to make their voices heard in regards to what they'd like to see in the budget. 

"It's not always the most dynamic and interesting process, but it's the process that does reveal, in the clearest way, what is involved in running the city," he said. 

Some of the options councillors vetoed at Monday's meeting included reducing the inflation and growth increase to the building better roads program and the possibility of charging events for civic services that were previously subsidized.

Kerry Tarasoff, Saskatoon's Chief Financial Officer, explained while the endorsements are in place, the budget is still far from finalized. 

"It's just some ideas as to what to incorporate into the preliminary budget to get the number down," he said. 

Tarasoff said moves like choosing not to top up civic reserves or allowing the Remai more before it starts contributing to the Civic Buildings Comprehensive Maintenance Reserve present "very little risk" to the city.

"Delaying them a little bit won't have a significant risk," he said. "The Remai, being a new facility, won't have a lot of maintenance or repairs required in the first number of years, so it makes sense that we can phase that in over a longer period of time."

Tarasoff said the debate around the options at Monday's meeting is healthy and is reflective of the community.

"When they make some of these decisions, they have to make those decisions based on what they hear from the constituents," he said.

Administration will continue working on refining the budget right up until budget deliberations at the end of November.