Regina city council started deliberations surrounding the city’s budget for 2024 on Dec. 13, 2023. Discussions included deliberations on the city’s debt limit and the 2024 mill rate increase of 2.2 per cent for all programs and services.
“I think that the deficit coming out of COVID from (Regina Exhibition Association Ltd.) factors into that and then some of those final adjustments on the capital projects,” Regina Mayor Sandra Masters said. “I think what we’re looking at, we saw the police budget come down from 1.98 to 1.6.”
The police budget was the first in the city budget deliberations on Wednesday morning. In terms of the general operating and capital budget, Masters says there will be some signals from council that they will be looking at capital projects that have been adjusted for inflation, looking for updates on projects where money has been previously committed and looking for some changes in terms of accountability and transparency on where the city is spending large amounts of money.
“Right now, we don’t get reports back on where we’ve invested several million dollars. And I think from a utility perspective, we know that we got two per cent in there for the lead pipe replacement program, but there’s also a two per cent increase,” Masters said. “They’ve had surpluses the last number of years. So, I think that you’ll see some of my counsellors probably signal about it. This might be the year where we pull back a little bit on that.”
Council discussed the Regina Police Service (RPS) 2024 operating and capital budget, which includes estimated gross operating expenditures and a request to approve the 2024 capital budget of $3,381,800 with capital funding to be determined by Regina city council and an additional $128,000 funded by SGI, according to the city agenda.
Masters said council will have a number of questions after delegations of REAL present their budgetary increase. This will come on the second day of city council deliberations.
In an email statement, the city confirmed that the REAL board of directors has appointed Niki Anderson as board chair and Jennifer Johnson as vice-chair.
Global News will provide further information as it becomes available.
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