SHAPING SASKATOON’S FINANCIAL FUTURE

As Saskatoon’s population and economy continues to expand and change, the City wants citizens to share more input and have a better idea about how we could manage the financial demands a growing community places on taxpayers.

“Growth is a natural outcome from a city with a great quality of life,” City Manager Murray Totland says. “To make sure the community continues to prosper and offer that same life quality, we need solid information to help us understand what it costs to run and grow Saskatoon now and for many years to come.”

At its next meeting, the Executive Committee of City Council will receive a series of comprehensive reports that provide key information and strategies on a renewed business plan and budget process.

Totland adds several factors or inputs contribute to the budget of which include a growing population, inflation, capital investments, Council priorities, performance targets, and public input.

Additionally, a portion of the information for Executive Committee is a study by Hemson Consulting which looked at the financial impact of growth, the costs, and benefits of different types of development.

With this knowledge, the City has developed a framework to improve the budget process.

“What we’re proposing is a process for more balanced and accountable budget planning,” CFO Kerry Tarasoff says.  “We want to make strides toward measuring successes, let people have their say about spending priorities and how to make wise investments for our future.”

The planning will be divided into five phases from March until December and will include new elements such as performance measures and greater public engagement.

“Most important is our proposal to open the doors of City Hall and ask our citizens for opinions on City projects and spending plans,” Tarasoff says.  “Planning the budget is more than reconciling a balance sheet; it’s about the process, and although the City’s process has been evolving and improving in the last five years, we’ve found it could be better around transparency, engagement and the technology we use.”

The Hemson study also looked into the issue of rising property taxes and provides some insights into the complexities of the cost of growth and what drives property tax increases: 

• Inflation
• Increased demand for new & replacement infrastructure
• Increased services
• Revenue not keeping pace with growth
• People outpacing property
• Residential property forms a greater share of revenue

“We’ve discovered that growth partially pays for growth, and that we also need to look at ways of adopting less reliance on property taxes as a primary revenue source,” Totland says.  “Right now Development levies do a good job of paying for the development within neighbourhoods and Hemson’s work suggests that there might be an opportunity to consider other ways to fund growth for those larger city wide services without solely relying on the property tax.” 

Budget deliberations are set for November 30 and December 1, 2015.

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