Saskatoon City Council has selected a handful of measures presented by city administration to help lower proposed property tax hikes in 2020 and 2021.
One of those measures is deferring contributions to four reserve funds. Deferring the Civic Major Repair Replacement Reserve for the Albert Community Centre was also an option, although Councillor Cynthia Block put forward a motion to have it removed from the reserve options.
Some of the other five measures include using money from a provincial recycling program and using $10 million dollars of the $13.9 million one time federal gas tax towards the organics program that will roll out in 2023.
With the newly endorsed measures, tax hikes are expected to be reduced to 3.23 per cent in 2020 and 3.54 per cent in 2021.
That’s down from the original 3.94 per cent for 2020 and 4.17 per cent in 2021. Council will make their final decisions in November during budget deliberations.

City Council has given their approval to relocate Fire Hall No. 5 on Central Avenue in Sutherland to the northeast corner of Preston Avenue and 108th Street on University of Saskatchewan land.
The next step in the process is to receive approval from the Ministry of Advanced Education. The U of S and the Fire Department have already reached an agreement.
Once the new location is approved from the Ministry of Advanced Education, construction will begin on the 0.8 acre lot in the spring.