Watch above: Saskatoon city councillors have started juggling the numbers in an attempt to reduce the proposed tax hike for 2015. Wendy Winiewski looks at projects that may be on the chopping block as a result.
SASKATOON – How much will Saskatoon property taxes go up next year? That’s the question city councillors tackled on the first day deliberating the 2015 Saskatoon budget.
Originally pegged at 7.32 per cent, city administration revised the proposed 2015 property tax increase to 5.49 per cent after public feedback and discussion among staff.
Read more: Budget adjustments could result in lower 2015 property tax increase
One item all councillors agreed on was to reject the police budget. Saskatoon Police Service was looking for a $4.5-million increase, which would have gone to hire 10 new staff.
“If you’re trying to save half-a-per cent, you’re going to shove it back to me again so I’m just trying to get some reality as to what city council wants from your police service,” said police Chief Clive Weighill.
Saskatoon police was looking to hire eight new constables next year to keep up with a growing population.
“We’re down to 184. If we get down to 167 my concern is we may hit a tipping point from where we were going down in crime and then we start to increase in crime,” said Weighill.
On average, Canadian cities have 200 constables for every 100,000 people. Saskatoon’s population was estimated at 254,000 in June 2014
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The board of police commissioners is now tasked with finding efficiencies.
However, councillors rejected a motion to reduce the number of new full-time staff at city hall. Coun. Randy Donauer wanted the number reduced to 61 from the proposed 71.
“We haven’t done anything except to tell the taxpayer we’re going to reduce their services,” said Donauer.
One service reduction is garbage collection. Councillors agreed to move to bi-weekly garbage collection for April and October, a savings of $110,000.
Deliberations resume Wednesday at 1 p.m. in city council chambers.
With files from David Giles
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