The indicative municipal property tax rates for 2022 and 2023 will be recommended by city administration to city council next week.

Chief Financial Officer of Saskatoon, Kerry Tarasoff, says this means administration will ask Monday’s meeting of the Governance and Priorities Committee for the starting point in preparing the multi-year budget.  He says the indicative rate is an estimate of what administration requires to deliver the same services at the same service levels as in the previous year’s budget. Technically, Tarasoff explains, this rate includes the inflationary and growth impacts to delivering current services.

Tarasoff explains council has already given administration two projects to include in the budgets.  Funding for the Bus Rapid Transit and the City Wide Organics program

Tarasoff says with those project the recommended indicative rate increase is 5.96% in 2022 and 5.42% in 2023.  However, these indicative rates do not include the expected short-term impacts from COVID-19.

The City estimates the fiscal impact from the COVID-19 pandemic to be $16.8 million in 2022 and $10 million in 2023.  Tarasoff says the City will require spending restrictions and a fiscal transfer from either the federal or provincial government to address this.  Due to the effects of the pandemic, administration is proposing annual average operating expenditure increases of three percent, the lowest in several years.

A preliminary and rough estimate from administration suggests an increase of $10.10 per month in 2022 and $9.68 per month in 2023 for the average homeowner.  City Council will finalize its decisions at the 2022-2023 budget deliberations set for November.