Regina 2025 Budget: Residential property owners face $17 monthly rise

Regina’s City Administration said the 2025 budget is focused on growth and maintaining high service levels.

City staff unveiled the proposed budget on Tuesday.

“We’re focused on maintaining our service levels in a growing city. Our priorities are your priorities,” said New Chief Financial Officer Daren Anderson.

Regina City Council is set to consider the proposed 2025 budget on the week of March 17.

The draft budget was first released in February, revealing an 8.5 per cent mill rate increase — the city’s largest in at least 10 years.

Daren said the four key pillars of the civic operations portion of the mill rate increase were centred around roadways, utilities, police and fire.

“We continue to focus on providing the services, services residents use every day and investments to infrastructure that make our city great.”

Anderson said the reason for the city’s civic operations mill rate increase of 1.9 per cent is related to new infrastructure.

“We have some dated underground infrastructure that we’re making sure remains viable for the long term. As well, we’re investing in the new water treatment facility itself, so some of those costs are starting to come through as well, but that’s the crux of the increase in the utility rate,” said Daren.

“My promise to the mayor and council was that as administration, we would work as hard as we could to get the mill rate — our part of it — which is the 1.9 per cent as low as we could, not lowering service level,” said City Manager Niki Anderson.

Niki said if the operating budget is cut, residents can expect service cuts.

The 8.5 per cent mill rate increase is the equivalent of $204 more a year or $17 a month for residential property owners.

With a 5.82 per cent utility rate increase($116/year) the total could be as high as $320/year.

Numerous councillors have stated their constituents wouldn’t be able to shoulder the burden and asked the administration to come up with ways to reduce the mill rate increase.

Niki said she was proud of the administration’s efforts to its part of the mill rate low.

“I think I recognize that it is a higher mill rate than residents have seen historically, but I think it’s realistic,” she said of the budget overall.

Figures from the Feb. 5, 2025 executive committee agenda. (City of Regina)

The two biggest items making up the 8.5 per cent increase are requests from the Regina Police Service and Regina Exhibition Association Limited (REAL).

Regina police are seeking an additional roughly $6.98 million (2.25 per cent of the mill rate increase) and REAL has requested an extra $6.85 million (2,21 per cent increase).

An additional 1.83 per cent or roughly $5.67 million would go toward civic operations — including things like roads, transit, parks and recreation, fire services, garbage and recycling.

The budget listed “key investments” such as the transit fleet replacement ($23.78 million), water infrastructure renewal ($16.12 million) and the 11th Avenue Revitalization ($21.1 million).

Niki Anderson said the administration expects the city to continue to grow.

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During last week’s executive committee meeting, council referred REAL’s budget request to March 17, but not before asking its representatives to think of ways to lower its budget ask.

City Manager Niki Anderson wrote the city has been playing “catch-up” for many years — saying mill rate increases have been kept below what’s needed to meet Regina’s growing demands.

“To continue providing essential services and supporting a high quality of life for our residents, this budget reflects administration’s dedication to delivering the services and infrastructure residents value while ensuring we remain an affordable and attractive place for all,” Niki wrote.

City administration has also previously said that many of the city’s projects have been hit with “remarkably high” inflation.

Five days have been scheduled for deliberations, though talks could wrap up before then.

The Council pre-approved some budget items in December to get started on procurement and proposals, such as money for RPS’s fleet as well as for technological services, furniture and equipment.

Although the City of Regina adopted a two-year budget process in 2023, it was decided that the 2025 budget would be relegated to just one year to give the mostly new council time for orientation.

The report said that previous budgets did not adequately reflect the costs for services.

A graph showing the 5-year increase in municipal costs and the mill rate. (City of Regina)