After a record four days Saskatoon city council delivered a six per cent property tax increase with an election looming in less than a year.
As Saskatoon city budget talks wrapped last week, CTV journalist Laura Woodward noted on X (formerly Twitter) that council was divided on whether it was divided.
Woodward fittingly summarized a sometimes surreal budget process that lasted a record four days, but still somehow delivered a six per cent property tax increase for next year — the highest in a decade and second highest this century.
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Veteran Coun. Randy Donauer had observed during the four-day, 27-hour exercise in endurance that council was “divided” between those trying to cut spending, like himself, and those who were unwilling.
Others rejected the claim of division, despite the 6-5 votes that punctuated the process.
Regardless of whether they were divided, dropping a six per cent tax hike on inflation-battered residents seems oblivious to the challenges people are facing. A 5.64 per cent increase will follow in 2025.
Water rates are also rising by 4.6 per cent next year and 5.4 per cent in 2025. And, starting next year, the city will move to a utility model for waste collection at an annual charge for mostly single-family homes of $119, although households can pay less if they opt for smaller trash bins.
Since waste was previously paid for through property taxes, that makes this year’s hike even less palatable. And the council that approved it faces the voters in less than 12 months.
When council approved a 7.43 per cent increase for 2014, the next election was still three years away. That unanimously approved budget marked the introduction of a road repair levy. A year later, three councillors, including Donauer, voted against a smaller increase of 5.34 per cent with an election only two years away.
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Back then, council rejected the proposed police spending and sent it back for revision with fewer new officers. Last week, council unanimously approved the police budget with 14 new full-time employees next year and another 10 in 2025.
Four councillors voted against the next two-year budget, including Donauer, Troy Davies, Bev Dubois and Darren Hill. The budget had been reduced from mammoth inflation-fuelled increases of 18.6 per cent and seven per cent that were revealed this summer.
Yet, unfathomably, on the fourth and final day last week, council opted to add spending to push the tax hike back above six. Calgary (7.8 per cent) and Edmonton (6.6) have approved higher increases for next year, but Regina will debate a 2.2 per cent hike this month.
Meanwhile, Saskatoon’s budget will serve as an anvil all incumbents must carry on the campaign trail next year.
Davies summed up his budget experience by saying he voted in favour of 92 motions to reduce spending over the four-day ordeal, but only 29 were approved.
Yet voters next year might only remember the number six — as in the six per cent hike or the six votes that defeated most of the proposed spending reductions.
Unlike pre-election budgets at the federal and provincial levels, which are filled with spending and goodies, their municipal counterparts are defined by fiscal restraint.
Most of the lowest property tax increases in Saskatoon this century came in election years, including 1.57 per cent in 2000. Despite that puny increase, Henry Dayday was ousted as mayor after four terms.
Current incumbents must try to defend a tax hike that’s two per cent higher than the previous election-year high this century of four per cent in 2012.
That handicap seems likely to inspire the crowd that wants to see a new direction on council.
Judging by this budget process, you would only need one new face to alter the outcome of these votes.
But history offers little optimism for defeating an incumbent. In the last four elections, only three council incumbents were defeated, including former mayor Don Atchison in 2016. In 2009, all 11 incumbents were re-elected; 10 out of 10 incumbents won in 2020.
Mayor Charlie Clark defended this “toughest budget” in his closing remarks Friday, noting his was often the tie-breaking vote.
He refused to tell reporters whether this was his last budget as mayor, adding that he expected the question.
But he may be one incumbent who will not need to defend the budget during the next election.
Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
ptank@postmedia.com
twitter.com/thinktankSK
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