Moose Jaw city council presented with 2022 proposed budget

City administration presented its 2022 proposed budget to city council on Wednesday night.

The budget includes a 3.25 per cent tax increase for operation expenses, which will have an effect of $48.36 per year or $4.03 per month on the average single-family property owner.

The average homeowner will pay $1,597.93 annually in land taxes or $133.16 per month with the proposed budget.

The city is looking at $52.9 million in gross revenue in 2022, a 0.85 increase from 2021.

“In a normal year, we would expect revenues to increase probably about three per cent, so you can see the challenge that we’ve been faced with this budget, very minimal revenue growth,” explained director of financial services Brian Acker.

Municipal taxation makes up 56 per cent of the general operating budget revenues at about $29.8 million.

City administration is asking city council to continue with its tax-sharing approach for 2022 to tighten the gap between residential and commercial properties. The gap has decreased from commercial paying 2.25 times more than residential in 2017 to 1.88 in 2021.

Licensing permits are up by about $315,000 due to increases in building permit revenue.

Fines and penalties revenue is up by $434,000 due to increased revenue from automated speed enforcement.

Parks and Recreation revenues are up by 4.64 per cent as city administration is projecting it to return to 2019 levels.

Meanwhile, federal grants and subsidies are expected to take a $2.2-million dip as the one-time federal restart funding was used in 2021.

Expenditures were presented as a “status quo” budget at $53.9 million. It is an increase of 2.78 per cent, but it includes increases for negotiated collective agreements, inflation, natural gas costs and electrical costs.

“Any changes to the budget we are asking for council approval before they become set in the budget, and that’s been our practice for the last number of years,” said Acker.

Funding for Mosaic Place and the Moose Jaw Police Service was budgeted at 2021 levels.

The police service is asking for a 1.61 per cent increase; that would equate to $24 per year for the average landowner or $2 per month.

Both police and Mosaic Place requests will be considered during the budget process.

Transit and para-transit both have a proposed subsidy of $1.4 million or 70 per cent of overall costs. In comparison, the subsidy in 2019 was $1.2 million or 65 per cent of costs.

For capital funding, $14.4 million of funds is available in 2022 for major construction, renovation and rehabilitation projects. Over the next five years, funding is expected to be $59.76 million.

Expenditures are expected to be about $14 million for a $400,000 surplus and are expected to be $72 million over five years.

The five-year equipment reserve requires $17.4 million, with $2.6 million coming in 2022. The majority of the requests come from public works, transit and parks and recreation.

Waterworks is proposing a three per cent increase and a three per cent increase for the sanitary sewer service. That’s equal to $3.76 per month or $45.12 per year for the average utility user.

An increasing infrastructure levy is also being proposed from $65 to $100. The levy equals an increase of $35 per year for the average landowner or $2.92 per month. The infrastructure levy will go towards the cast iron replacement program.

“As council will recall, the initial funding for the cast iron project was municipal taxation, local improvement levy of $1.6 million, a contribution from the utility so revenues from the utility and utility savings,” Acker explained.

“Unfortunately, as things changed with that project, that local improvement levy was not possible. That was something that the citizens said no to, but unfortunately, that didn’t make the need for $1.6 million in funding go away.”

The proposed budget has been tabled as city council works through budget deliberations.