'A sobering read': Saskatoon council preparing for belt-tightening budget

With reserves drained and no indication if revenues will ever return to pre-pandemic levels, Saskatoon city councillors are preparing for a tough budget planning process.

To date, the city tried to account for budget shortfalls without impacting service levels, but city manager Jeff Jorgensen told council's finance committee on Wednesday that may not be possible in 2023.

“We’re going through a very comprehensive approach right now … for how we can actually achieve the available budget in 2023 while minimizing impact to service levels,” he said.

Jorgensen said 2023 will be a “very difficult year to hit those targets.”

Mayor Charlie Clark asked city administrators to set up budget briefings well in advance of the upcoming formal budget process in November.

“To not wait until the last three days of budget to wait until we’re as informed as possible,” he said.

“That’s hard to do during a two day or three day budget process, and it’s always demoralizing at the very end to feel, ‘how do you pull this apart?’”

Clark said it was going to be a “challenging year.”

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The province promised more funding on Wednesday, with an announcement of a $36 million increase to the municipal revenue sharing program at the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities meeting, but Ward 5 Coun. Randy Donauer says it won’t go far because of provincial clawbacks.

In some municipalities, up to 40 to 50 per cent of the municipal revenue sharing money is going back to the province in construction PST payments, Donauer said.

Municipalities were exempt from paying PST on construction labour until 2017.