CITY BUDGET DELIBERATIONS
Debate that many had thought settled eats up hours of budget deliberations
Organics collection divides council
Saskatoon’s first two-year budget talks closely resembled last year’s talks due to the continued debate on a city-wide organics program.
A proposed organic waste collection program for single-family homes that was first approved last year continued to divide city council.
Coun. Bev Dubois failed in her attempt to push the debut of the organics service farther down the road, with lower property tax increases to reduce the annual hit on taxpayers.
The debate lasted more than two hours on the second day of budget talks, even though council had made what seemed like a final decision on the program in March.
“We want (taxpayers) to pay and pay and pay,” Dubois said. “But citizens can only pay so much.”
She succeeded in convincing council to hike the cost for the city’s current subscription organic green cart program to $65 a year from $55.
The administration had recommended an increase to $60.
But other changes to waste collection proved to be divisive once again.
Several councillors complained about reopening a debate that many thought had been settled with a 7-4 vote in March that established the timing and tax increases for the organics program.
The March vote approved property tax increases of one per cent for four years and the debut of organics in 2023. Dubois sought to lower the property tax hikes to 0.6 per cent, which would have bumped the program start to 2026.
Coun. Ann Iwanchuk proposed even lower increases of 0.5 per cent with the program debut pushed to 2027.
The proposals by both Dubois and Iwanchuk were defeated 6-4 with Dubois, Iwanchuk, Coun. Troy Davies and Coun. Randy Donauer voting in favour of both changes.
“I really think we need to move forward as planned,” Coun. Mairin Loewen said.
Coun. Sarina Gersher said she found repeating the debate “incredibly frustrating” and decried the “wasted time” city staff would have spent had the decision been overturned.
Loewen said she was “actually horrified” to think about the time spent by city staff to deal with council’s shifts on changes to waste collection.
A year ago, council approved user fees for garbage collection to pay for the organics program, but then reversed that decision a few weeks later when Coun. Darren Hill changed his vote.
Hill was absent on Tuesday, but tried to participate by phone. Mayor Charlie Clark refused to allow him to vote since he connected midway through the debate.
Hill challenged Clark’s decision, but council defeated the challenge. Gersher also challenged Clark’s ruling to allow votes on the organics program, since council had already made a decision on the program and how to pay for it.
Clark said his decision on allowing the organics votes was made due to a “grey zone.” Gersher’s challenge was also defeated.
As council began the second day of the first two-year budget deliberations, the property tax increases stood at 3.19 per cent for 2020 and 3.41 per cent in 2021.
The property tax increase dropped to 3.15 per cent after council’s decision to increase the cost of the current green cart program by $10. The program currently accommodates about 10,000 subscribers.
In addition to setting the budget for two years instead of one, city hall built this budget throughout the year in response to priorities expressed by residents and council.
As a result, through two days of budget talks, there seemed to be less focus on the property tax increases, which remained mostly untouched.
On Monday, council spent hours on a proposal for a new downtown library before opting to reduce the borrowing request by the library from $87.5 million to $67.5 million.
Library leadership expressed enthusiasm for the support for the project, but it remained unclear how that would affect the plan for 149,000-square-foot replacement for the France Morrison Central Library.