City passes budget, property tax increases of 3.7% in 2020 and 3.87% in 2021

Saskatoon City Council was able to keep tax increases low, but it’s still going to cost a bit more than originally thought for the average homeowner.

In 2020, property taxes will be going up 3.7 per cent, which translates to $5.82 more on the average monthly bill.

In 2021, a tax increase of 3.87 per cent will end up costing you $6.28 more per month.

Those figures reflect the average home value in the city of $371,000.

The numbers were approved by Saskatoon City Council in the final day of budget deliberations on Wednesday.

Mayor Charlie Clark said he’s proud with what city council achieved over the three days of deliberations, but changes did have to be made Wednesday.

“There’s been a number of adjustments that were made today, that were about what we hear from people. Most of it is about investing in infrastructure, sidewalks, parks and bridges.”

Bridge maintenance will run the city $770,000 over the next two years in operational spending, while the next two years of parks maintenance will be a total of $600,000 for tax payers.

Sidewalk maintenance was also budgeted to cost the city a combined total of $425,000 over 2020 and 2021.

“I’m pretty proud that we’ve been able to do those things while still (having) the lowest budget tax increase in ten years in the city,” Clark said.

Other large items that were included in the city operations budget included $250,000 in 2020 for the low emissions community plan funding, along with $175,000 for Rosewood’s transit expansion in 2020.

Additionally, $175,000 will be going to the Brighton transit expansion in 2021.

In October, the preliminary budget forecast increases of 3.23% in 2020 and 3.54% in 2021.

At the beginning of Wednesday’s deliberations, the proposed tax increases stood at 3.15% in 2020 and 3.41% in 2021.

Clark said even though those numbers were hiked, this still remains the lowest tax increase in the past decade in the city.

“We made a strategic decision to invest in core infrastructure,” he said. “Any tax increase has an impact on citizens. That’s why we’ve spent many months on this budgeting process, to really make sure that every investment we make, makes sense.”

This is the first time in the city’s history that a multi-year budget has passed.

Surplus for Capital Projects

After deliberating on tweaking the capital projects, Saskatoon City Council gave themselves wiggle room moving forward with a capital surplus of $242,000.

Among the capital projects that were voted through during Wednesday’s deliberations were $10 million for 2020 for the curbside organics program, and an adjusted $2 million in 2020 for the city Growth Plan Implementation.

$100,000 for a business case study for 2020 into the new arena and convention centre was also approved within the Capital Project asks.

An additional $13.1 million from the federal gas tax gave council room to operate when divvying up the capital project funds, which totaled $18.9 million.