Saskatoon residents still don’t know how much more they will be paying in property taxes next year.
City council’s 2015 budget deliberations went unfinished Wednesday after the final day of scheduled talks.
A property tax hike — which the city proposed at over 7 per cent last week — was shaved down to 6.23 per cent by the end of Wednesday, but the number cannot be finalized until budget deliberations wrap up later this month.
The big drop in the proposed tax increase came after councillors overwhelmingly voted to spread a road tax over three years instead of two. The total amount of money invested in road work will not change, the city said.
Council also managed to slightly lower the mill rate on day one of talks by passing a motion to make trash collection bi-weekly, not weekly, during April and October. The savings, however, were nullified Wednesday after councillors refused to raise transit fares — a move that added another $300,000 to the mill rate.
The city cannot increase bus fares after a year that saw transit drivers locked out for a month, argued Ward 7 councillor Mairin Loewen.
“I can’t justify having a transit fare increase after the year that transit users have been through here,” she said.
Council is set to meet Dec. 9 to continue budget discussions while police Chief Clive Weighill is scheduled to retable the police service’s budget on Dec. 15 — the department’s initial budget was unanimously rejected Tuesday.
The fire department’s budget has yet to be discussed.
