The final Saskatoon City budget deliberations begin Tuesday and are scheduled through Thursday. With all of those hours of discussions ahead, The Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce has introduced a game called Saskatoon Budget Bingo.

There are sayings or words on each of the squares and the goal is when you hear one, get out your bingo dabber and cross it off.

Chief Financial Officer, Clae Hack, says since September when the last budget meeting was held, the Saskatoon Police Service budget was approved by the Board of Police Commissioners. It hasn’t yet been approved by Council. So, instead of a tax increase of 7.14 per cent, it’s now at 7.22 per cent for next year, and instead of a 5.7 per cent increase in 2025, it’s at 5.58 per cent at this point, but Hack emphasizes that this is only if no changes are made.

Hack has said previously supporting core service delivery and maintaining infrastructure are funding priorities. This includes the largest ever investment in the City’s Roadway Maintenance and Rehabilitation Programs at $72 million in 2024 and $78 million in 2025.

The preliminary budget also includes two new firehalls for the City’s new neighbourhoods and increased funding for the Fire Department, parks, street lighting, sidewalks, Transit and street sweeping. The design of Fire Stations 10 and 11, if approved, would happen next year and construction would be in 2025.

Other priorities in the budget are opening the City’s Material Recovery Centre with the goal of 70 per cent waste diversion and investing in the Snow and Ice Management Program to repay the 2022 Emergency Snow Response and then rebuilding the funding to respond to future large-scale snowfalls.