Mayor Continues To Push For Financial Savings At City Hall

2014: Pensions... New Deal Eliminated Deficit

• Before the City began negotiations on a new pension deal, the 2012 funding status of the General Pension Plan showed an approximate $68 million deficiency or deficit. With much hard work and everyone all working together at the same table, the City and unions reached a new deal to eliminate this deficit.

2016/2017:  New SPS Headquarters Certified LEED®  – And Leading Us To Savings!

• The energy-efficient design build of our new Police Headquarters earned a Silver LEED® Certification, leading to $650,000 in operating cost savings in 2016 by reducing power and heating needs. (So far, there’s an estimated savings of $250,000 for 2017.)
• Based on a building of similar size, the SPS Headquarter also has 53% better energy performance, contributing to an overall reduction in GHG emissions, and water saving fixtures that make for 35% more efficiency, saving 5 million litres of water per year.

2014: Road Resurfacing Program – Better Roads, Better Savings…

• Roadways has seen a general reduction in roadway preservation costs (resurfacing and micro-surfacing) of approximately 24% since the inception of the Building Better Roads program in 2014.
• From this we’ve seen a reduction in rates across the board for programs, including our major resurfacing and micro-surfacing programs.
• As an example in 2016, in our resurfacing program, we have seen savings of approximately $2.3 million and the micro-surfacing program has seen a savings of approximately $585,000 because of the reduction in unit rates since 2014.
• There are many factors that attribute to the reduction in costs such as size and selection of projects, increased contractor competition, material costs, and effective and improved internal project management, coordination, and communication practices.

2009-2016: Positive Benefits Through Healthy and Safe Workplace…Leading Us to Savings

• A proactive approach to health and safety has contributed to overall decreases in corporate lost-time injury frequency, duration of injury and cost of occupational injuries and illnesses since 2009. 
•  In addition to the positive benefits for staff of a healthy and safe workplace, the improved health and safety performance has resulted in over $4.5 million total being returned to the City in 2015 and 2016 as part of the WCB Excess Surplus Program for Employers with good, recent safety records. 
• The City’s lost-time injury frequency has decreased from 6.67% in 2009 to 2.43% in 2016.  Over that same time period, days lost due to occupational injury or illness (duration of injury/illness) were reduced from approximately 7,400 to just over 3,000 in 2015. 
• The reductions in lost-time injury frequency and duration of injury/illness resulted in a reduction of Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) costs from $1.2 million in 2009 to $664,760 in 2016 resulting in a significant reduction in premiums paid to WCB as well as a discount of 3-10% on the WCB base premium rate during the same time period.

2012: Finding Efficiencies in our Garbage Collection Routes…

• In 2012 in Saskatoon, each garbage collection operator served 4,250 households a week, compared to the industry average of 3,250 households.
• The efficiency in garbage collection over the industry average allows the City to have five fewer operators and five fewer trucks than the industry average.
• Each additional truck and driver is estimated to cost $178,000 meaning the efficiency in garbage collection is saving the City $890,000 per year.

(2017 numbers for reference:  Each additional truck and driver is estimated to cost $200,000 meaning the efficiency in garbage collection is saving the City $1,000,000 per year)

2014: Landfill Gas Collection & Power Generation System…Many Benefits 

The City of Saskatoon began its Landfill Gas Collection & Power Generation System operation in 2014. The key benefits provided to the City include:

• Creating approximately $1.3 million in annual revenue for the City from the sale of power generated by the project to SaskPower.
• Reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by over 50,000 tonnes per year - equivalent to removing over 10,000 vehicles from our roads each year.
• Producing enough energy to power 1,200 homes each year.
• Improving the air quality and reducing odours at the Landfill.

2013: Purchase of the Former Post Office Building Led To Savings In Our Leasing Costs!

• To address the City’s short and long-term office accommodation needs, City Council approved the purchase of the $13.4 million former Post Office building on 4th Avenue North across from City Hall as well as two vacant lots on 5th Avenue North for parking.
• Staff currently located in leased offices around the city moved to the new property, resulting in a savings for leasing costs of approximately $500,000.

2014: Saskatoon Fire Department – Identified Savings and a Number of Improvements for Citizen Safety

• In September 2014, the Saskatoon Fire Department identified opportunities for improvement in operational, training, and administrative efficiencies.
• Over 20 recommendations were identified for a potential savings of $16 million*.
• One of the biggest savings identified through the process was the use of computer modeling technology developed by the City’s GIS department that used real emergency response data to determine the best possible location for current and future stations, leading to improvements in citizen safety and capital savings.
• The groups looked at the locations of stations to best meet the demands of future growth and determined that moving Fire Station No. 3 would improve response times to the South East part of the city as well as deliver savings of $6 million in capital spending by eliminating the need for another station, saving an additional $3 million annually in operating costs.

*Original 2014 estimate

2014: Trenchless Tech… Savings, Minimal Excavation & Less Disruption for Residents

• The City rehabilitated approximately 5.6 kilometers of water mains and 8 kilometers of storm and sanitary sewer mains using “trenchless methods” resulting in a total cost $8.75 million* and an estimated $4.0 million in total savings.
• Crews were able to line existing pipes with an inner “cured-in-place pipe” (CIPP) or “liner” with only minimal excavation and disruption to residents.
• This method extends the service life of a main and, compared to traditional open trench methods, has shown an average of 33% savings for water mains and an 88% savings for sanitary and storm mains.
• This allows the City to do more preservation work for the same amount of money.
• In this case, the City was able to line an estimated 1.9km of additional water main and 7.0km of additional sanitary and storm sewer.
• CIPP for water mains can only be used in specific situations and sometimes open trench methods are still used when required.

*Original 2014 estimate $10.6 million

2015: New Processes Lead to Improved Winter Driving Conditions…

• The City initiated two pilot programs in 2015 to improve winter driving conditions on high-traffic roads – one being the new de-icing product, Caliber M1000.
• The new product was tested in colder temperatures to soften and break the ice bond on priorities streets when salt was no longer effective.
• The other program introduced chemical de-icer to sand before being spread on the road. Roadway conditions were significantly improved where these processes were applied. 
• The new de-icing product improved the effectiveness of salt at colder temperatures, reducing the amount of sand applied to roads and resulted in an overall reduced cost of $250,000 in de-icing material compared to the previous winter.