Regina budget sees tax increase lower than expected

REGINA –Regina city council unanimously passed the proposed 2015 budget Monday night, after more than five hours of discussion.

The changes will see residents coughing up more for water, sewer, and property taxes, though not as high as anticipated.

“I’m very pleased. We started with an excellent budget and now we have an ever better budget,” explained Mayor Michael Fougere.

The initial proposed changes saw a 4.3 per cent property tax hike, with one per cent being dedicated to residential road upgrades.

However, city council settled on an increase of 3.9 per cent, including the one per cent going towards city roads.

The hike is significantly lower than last year’s 5.9 per cent hike which was the largest in over a decade.

The mayor said this rate was possible thanks to a surplus of money originally planned to be used for the city to fund the proposed pension plan settlement.

“We had a new evaluation which is part of our plan to give to the superintendent that reduced the overall debt. The difference is about $350,000 from July to the end of the year next year, that savings is now being used to reduce the mill rate down by $350,000.”

Nearly half a per cent of the 3.9 per cent tax hike will also go towards continued work on the new stadium.

City council also unanimously voted in favour of an eight per cent water and sewer rate hike, on par with last year’s budget.

The increase will cost residence roughly $91.80 per year, or $7.65 monthly.

“Taxes are top of mind, we get that.  But we are obligated to provide services, obligated to fix infrastructure, to invest in the growth of our industry. These are all critical things, and we found that balance I believe,” added Fougere.

Early in the evening, council gave the nod of approval to the Regina Police Service’s proposed budget for next year, which will see an additional $1 million dollars in funding for things like, 12 civilian positions, staff training, and developing an off-site data centre.

Eight of those 12 positions will be moved to front line patrol, and by the end of next year there will be another two officers per shift.

Meantime, the remaining four positions will be specialized posts.

Regina Police Chief Troy Hagen said the last time there was a major resource increase to the service was back in 2008.

“I would suggests our ‘asks’ have been quite modest over the years,” he explained. “In order to serve our community and keep our community safe we need to be able to respond to a call when needed, priority calls, adequate response times, and we need to be visible in our community for a variety of reasons.”

A number of delegates gave their feedback and advice in the meeting, including Marilyn-Braun-Pollon with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

She said she’d like to see council sharpen their pencils a bit more with the 2015 budget.

“I think at the end of the day, what we want them to do is make sure their spending levels are sustainable and that they are limiting the year over year increased in spending to inflation and population growth,” she added.

Meantime, John Hopkins with the Regina Chamber of Commerce said he’s happy with a number of things in the budget.

“The good news is that Regina continues to do very, very well in terms of GDP growth and creating opportunities for people, and it really is a community that’s on the move.”