Saskatoon city council makes 1st cuts to proposed budget, potential property tax increase now sits at 6.7%
CBC
Saskatoon city council shaved $1.68 million on its second day of budget deliberations, reducing the current potential 2024 property tax increase to 6.65 per cent.
Councillors began their second day of deliberations looking at a projected $21.1-million deficit, which would lead to a 7.22 per cent property tax increase.
On Tuesday, council unanimously passed a $7.9-million police budget increase and narrowly passed the library budget.
Wednesday's proceedings featured a narrow vote in favour of shaving a portion of the city's capital reserve contribution, the first cut into the projected deficit.
Ward 5 Coun. Donauer introduced a motion to reduce the contributions to the city's reserves by three per cent in 2024, with the exception of the Fire and Roadway Preservation fund.
That motion would reduce the deficit by about $1.3 million.
Ward 4 Coun. Troy Davies said he would have proposed a larger number. Other council members said they preferred to go line by line through the budget to chisel away at the deficit rather than a large sweep.
"I don't like this any more than any more than anybody else does, but at some point we have to make some progress," Donauer said.
The motion narrowly passed, 6-5.
Just prior to Donauer's proposal, councillors had a contentious debate about shifting more of the property tax onto business owners than in previous years.
Ward 7 Coun. Mairin Loewen proposed changing the resident-to-commercial tax ratio from 1.59 to 1.75. That would mean businesses would pay more tax and homeowners would pay less.
If passed, the motion would have knocked down the current proposed residential property tax hike to 4.64 per cent and raised the business property tax to 10.88 per cent.
Some councillors argued making the motion without allowing Saskatoon people to voice their opinion on it was unfair. Ward 1 Coun. Darren Hill called it "reckless."
Loewen said she was offended that fellow councillors were "casting aspersions" on the intent of the motion.
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