Another discussion to address Saskatoon’s $52.4 million funding shortfall next year began at City Hall Thursday morning, but the city just spun its tires after everything was said and done.
The city’s chief financial officer Clae Hack said on June 7 that Saskatoon is facing a $52.4-million funding shortage next year, followed by a $23.2-million gap in 2025.
He said that would equate to an 18.56 per cent property tax increase in 2024, and a 6.95 per cent property tax increase the following year.
City of Saskatoon administration faced a flood of questions on June 14 from city councillors trying to get a grasp on the budget.
Thursday’s meeting came with several options to hack and slash spending.
An information report outlined an estimate of the amount of reductions that would be required in each business line to achieve a 4.0 per cent, 6.0 per cent or 9.0 per cent property tax increase for 2024 and 2025:
- A 4 per cent increase would require a $41,109,125 reduction in 2024 and a $11,480,481 reduction in 2025
- A 6 per cent increase would require a $35,460,325 reduction in 2024 and a $5,296,519 reduction in 2025
- A 9 per cent increase would require a $26,987,125 reduction in 2024 and a number wasn’t given for 2025 due to the property tax being under 9 per cent at 7.56 per cent.
Hack said Thursday there were 11 areas in the city’s budget that account for 53.1 per cent of the funding gap in 2024.
These areas include SL&P ROI inflationary reduction, the roadway preservation program, the Saskatoon fire apparatus, civic building comprehensive maintenance, fuel estimates, a future fire station phase-in, a transit service future service phase-in, an east leisure centre phase-in, the snow and ice emergency response phase-in, transit bus growth and negative contingency phase-out.
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Administration offered three options to lessen the impact of these areas on the city.
The first option would involve deferring step-growth items and pushing back the phase-in items to future years when the city can re-evaluate the inflationary environment.
The second option would be similar to the first but with more aggressive deferrals. It’s noted in the report that this option would create more pressure in future years if inflationary pressures continue.
The third option would see a combination of options, essentially allowing the city to set its own reduction on each item.
“Option 2 is being recommended because the Administration does not see another readily available path to get the potential 2024 property tax impact under 10% without implementing this option,” read the report.
Councillors had several questions trying to decipher how the meeting would proceed, and what options they had, with Ward 9 Coun. Bev Dubois noting that if councillors were confused, Saskatoon residents would be too.
Several long discussions were had about how to proceed with budget deliberations as many councillors had different ideas on how to go forward.
Options were given to address the funding gap within the community support business line, which includes services like animal control, cemeteries, community development and community investments and supports.
Six options were laid out for the governance and priorities committee:
- reductions to community grants and investments
- increase to pet licensing rates and fees
- increase cemetery rates and fees
- decrease the transfer to the new cemetery development fund reserve
- reduce maintenance service levels at the cemetery
- reduce perpetual care fund transfer to eliminate mill rate support
Administration recommended a further 10 per cent increase in all pet licenses and a further 3.0 per cent increase to cemetery rates and fees.
Administration offered an option within the Saskatoon fire business line to defer new property-tax-funded positions. Recommendations were made to defer the fire service asset management position, as well as the communications consultant.
A look at the arts, culture and events venues business line offered an option to reduce the phase-in of the CBCM contribution for Remai Modern by $41,000 in 2024 with a reassessment in future budgets.
Administration also offered options within the taxation and general revenues business line, with recommendations to:
- phase-out the $100,000 interest stabilization reserve transfer reduction over two years
- an increase of $5 for the manual tax certificate/tax search fees and a $10 increase for the online tax certificate/tax search fees
- a 0.25 per cent increase in the city’s current and arrears monthly property tax penalty rates
- an increase to parking ticket penalty amounts of $50 to $70 for late pay penalties and $30 to $40 for the reduced penalty rate for parking offences related to parking in a pay parking area where purchased time has expired
Because of the differences in opinion on how to approach the budget deliberations, the original plan got derailed by a motion to defer the options for a plan where administration digs deeper into the budget and comes back with something closer to a preliminary budget.
Coun. Darren Hill said he had heard from residents that they wanted administration to look at cuts within operations.
“The administration is best equipped to make those recommendations, us 11 certainly are not,” Hill said.
Coun. Sarina Gersher said they lost the opportunity to have a meaningful step forward in chipping away at the shortfall.
“I’m incredibly frustrated, and I imagine many of my residents and neighbours will be frustrated,” Gersher said.
The deferral got voted down, so the city will be discussing these same topics in the July meeting.
Follow-up meetings are going to be held July 25 and Aug. 15.
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