Saskatoon business leader says city should not compare its spending to other municipalities

As city councillors ready for marathon budget discussions, a business leader says it's time for to stop looking to other cities to judge Saskatoon's spending.

As city councillors ready for marathon budget discussions, a business leader says it's time for to stop looking to other cities to judge Saskatoon's spending.

In June, Chief Financial Officer Clae Hack made a surprising announcement months before deliberations were set to begin where he revealed a $52.4 million funding gap in 2024, and a $23.2 million revenue gap in 2025, largely attributed to inflationary pressures. If left unmitigated, residents could have been looking at a property tax hike of 13 per cent.

"Clearly, this is not the reality anybody wants to be facing," Hack said at the time.

This prompted the city to hold a series of "special" budget meetings from June to September to look at the finances and recover as much of the shortfall as possible.

"This is brutal. This is absolutely not the time that we want to be having to contemplate these kind of cost pressures and inflationary pressures," Mayor Charlie Clark said at a June meeting.

By the end of the special budget meetings, councillors removed $21.9 million of the shortfall in 2024 and $18.8 million for 2025 -- resulting in property tax increases of 7.22 per cent and 5.58 per cent, respectively, as a starting point for Tuesday.

Most of the spending, around $22 million, was delayed for future years. Other savings were found by budgeting less for inflation and in some cases, adding more costs for residents by taking steps like expanding paid-parking boundaries and hiking parking rates.