Saskatoon chamber pitches 7 per cent spending cut to address city budget shortfall

The Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce is calling on the city to cut costs across all city departments by seven per cent.

"The best starting point for council to start making some tradeoffs would be a global cost reduction," chamber CEO Jason Aebig said.

"If we take the argument that inflation has really been driving most of what we're seeing here ... it makes sense that all aspects of the organization should share the burden."

Aebig said this tactic would give council and administration a "starting point" as budget deliberations carry on through the summer and fall to address the city's projected $75 million budget gap over the next two years.

Rather than have councillors go through the budget line by line to find savings — which is the current path, the chamber is offering an alternate path to cut the budget and put department heads in control of meeting a target.

"For anyone else, it's like trying to hit a bullseye from 30,000 feet," he said. "Managers are closest to the board. Set the target and then challenge their skills and creativity to get it done."

In a statement to CTV News, the city’s chief financial officer said they’ve been asked by city council to review the budget line by line with an eye to minimizing the potential property tax impact, while also balancing the service level expectations of residents.

“This targeted approach is aimed at focusing on key areas where the administration believes there is an opportunity to increase revenues or decrease expenditures that would impact the fewest residents or businesses as possible, as opposed to across the board expenditure and service level reductions,” said Clae Hack.

Aebig fears if the councillors stay on their current path, there won't be enough time to have proper discussions to get an upcoming property tax hike to a palatable number. The last special budget meeting ran roughly four hours long and resulted in almost no progress towards eliminating the shortfall as councillors instead debated procedure.

"There is a risk that the current process won't get us there," Aebig said.

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"There is a risk that when you go line by line, you think you're making cuts deep enough to get to the endpoint and you only realize at the end that you didn't cut deep enough all the way along. What we're trying to do is mitigate the risk of that."

Aebig says the seven per cent spending cut is significant because that's what gets the budget down to a tax increase typical of recent years, often around four per cent.

According to city’s budget figures, a four per cent property tax increase leaves a gap of $41 million. In order to close that gap, a 6.33 per cent reduction in expenditures equates to $41 million.

"We’re proposing seven per cent for good measure and because we know that all the budget figures are fluid at this stage," Aebig said.

Council's next special budget meeting is scheduled for July 25. Hack says city administration will present roughly a dozen reports outlining their findings so far.