The 2021 budget for Saskatoon has been passed by city council, with a few changes to what was originally expected.
Most notably property taxes will be going up less than the planned 3.87%.
During budget deliberation Councillor Troy Davies motioned for a 1% decrease to the mill rate. in the end, they settled on a 2.83% property tax increase, an impact of $2.56 million for the 2021 budget. Davies says he’s in the same mindset that he was back in March, saying when council assembled they made decisions for the right reasons because they are worried about their residents. He added if there isn’t any financial help from the province or federally he is aware there could be deficit for next year’s budget, but he is also completely confident in the current administration and council to fill some gaps and help alleviate any deficit.
Councillor Bev Dubois says the city’s reserves are currently healthy, and are like a rainy day fund or savings account for things that come up that you are not planning on. She says if a pandemic doesn’t fall in that category, she doesn’t know what does.
Council passed the motion 8-3 before finalizing the final budget. Councillors Hillary Gough, Mairin Loewen, and Sarina Gersher were opposed. Loewen says while she shares the desire to provide some relief around tax increases, what was proposed exceeds her appetite for risk. She says the impact of the decision could potentially reduce council’s ability to deliver on important capital projects.
The decrease in the mill rate will see savings of around $20 per household in 2021.
The Saskatoon Police Service get a little less than they were hoping for.
The department was hoping for an increase of $498,300, to hire five new special constables but Councillor Hillary Gough motioned for that to be dropped by $199,300. She suggested the pressures for 2021 are not fully equivalent for the request that was made by police and she would like to make sure they are. Gough adds if pressure continue in future years, that they have full plans in front of them to make decisions based off of that.
The motion just barely passed with a vote of 6-5, Councillors Donauer, Block, Loewen, Dubois and Mayor Clark all opposed. Even with the slight decrease in funding the operating budget for the Saskatoon Police will be just over $104 million.
The Saskatoon Library will see a budget increase of $1.27 million to nearly $28.5 million in the 2021 budget. A little under half of the increase will go to reserves for the new library.
Other adjustments made to the budget Thursday night include $100,000 being allocated for the Innovative Housing Program reserves and council also cutting travel and car allowance expenses for councillors and Mayor Clark. This is expected to bring in savings of $71,000.
