Saskatoon mayor says city won’t see double-digit tax increase

Saskatoon’s Mayor Charlie Clark told CTV News he was confident council can prevent a double-digit tax increase for the next budget.

The city is facing a $52.4 million funding gap in 2024 and a projected $23.2 million revenue gap in 2025. If the revenue gap isn’t confronted, the city would be faced with an 18.56 per cent property tax increase for 2024 and 6.95 per cent the following year.

“We're not bringing in an 18 per cent or 12 per cent property tax increase,” Clark told CTV Saskatoon’s Morning Live.

“We're gonna be making sure that we can bring in something manageable and figure out the way to do that.”

Clark said the city’s credit rating pointed to its strong financial position.

“We recently were given our triple-A credit rating once again by Standard and Poor's and in January of this year when we receive that what they said is that the City of Saskatoon's strong and prudent financial management is a key credit strength,” he said.

Clark pointed out that the challenges the city faced were due to inflation rather than projects like the new library or arena.

“It wouldn't help our current budget situation to stop proceeding with the planning for that at this point.”

He also said they were going to try and continue to provide vital services such as transit and snow removal.

“We're trying to make sure we can keep providing those services and do it in a strong financial way.”