Saskatoon’s Chief Financial Officer says the funding gap for the 2024 and 25 budgets are a bit smaller than originally estimated. Previously Clae Hack had reported gaps of $52.4 million and $23.2 million, and now the starting point is $50.9 million for 2024 and $21.7 million for 2025. If there was no work to find savings, it would mean a 17.33 per cent tax increase next near and 6.25 per cent in 2025.

City Administration is updating Councillors at the next Special Budget Meeting on Tuesday. One of those updates is that the original estimate for Saskatoon’s portion of the Municipal Revenue Sharing pie will be larger than expected. The report says the provincial government’s significant surpluses on many of their revenues including the Provincial Sales Tax. The City’s original forecast was a $5.7 million increase in Municipal Revenue Sharing, but it’s now $7.8 million.

To have property tax at a 9 per cent increase, Administration estimates savings of almost $27 million will need to be found, as opposed to over $35 million for a 6 per cent increase and over $41 million for a 4 per cent increase.