Moose Jaw budget passes with 2.96 per cent mill rate increase

“The term that I would use is a responsible increase.”

Those were the words of Coun. Kim Robinson as Moose Jaw city council passed its 2021 budget on Monday night with a 2.96 per cent tax increase.

The mill rate increase will equate to $873,000 in additional revenue for the city.

The budget breaks down to about 1.1 per cent increase for the Moose Jaw Police Service, one per cent for the Parks and Recreation Department, and 0.86 per cent for the remainder of the city’s service.

This comes on the heels of city council reworking its budget mid-way through 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to bring it to a zero per cent increase.

While he said it isn’t a perfect budget, Coun. Doug Blanc said another year of a zero per cent increase was not realistic.

“To always give citizens zero per cent tax increase year after year after year after year, I think you’re doing a disservice to the citizens,” he said.

“You look at the city’s history. Fifteen years ago, they had tax increases of zero for six or seven years running and at some point, all of a sudden ‘Oh, now you have got to have a tax increase of eight or nine per cent.”

Coun. Heather Eby used her experience to say this was her 10th budget as a city councillor and not once have they had the “perfect budget.” Breaking it down, she said she would have approved 1.1 per cent for policing, one per cent for parks and 0.86 per cent for all the other services is still under inflation.

Coun. Dawn Luhning openly admitted during budget deliberations that she was going to have short purse strings as there are still a lot of unknowns about the pandemic.

She felt the increase could still have been lowered, but felt it wasn’t horrible.

Council also passed two per cent utility rate increases for both the waterworks utility and the sanitary sewer utility effective Feb. 1.

The infrastructure levy will be set to $65 per taxable property for 2021 with those funds dedicated to the cast iron watermain replacement program.

-Shawn Slaght, Discover Moose Jaw