Cities of Regina and Saskatoon coping with high gas prices

The City of Regina says it’s continuing to watch its budget as gas prices soar to record highs.

Curtis Smith, the city’s manager of budget and long-term financial planning, says the price of gas is much higher than anticipated and that has him watching the city’s budget closely.

A litre of unleaded gas was selling for $2.07 in Regina on Tuesday, an all-time high.

“The increased fuel cost is having an impact on the city,” Smith said. “We’re estimating a $4(-million) to $5-million increase in expenditures if prices remain the same as they are to date.”

According to the City of Saskatoon, it was already well over the amount it budgeted for fuel even before prices increased in the past few days.

“Over the first four months of 2022, the price of both diesel and gas has been above the budgeted amount with diesel averaging about 21 per cent higher than budget for the first four months and gas averaging about 14 per cent higher,” Kari Smith, the city’s director of finance, said in an email.

“However, the overall variance for fuel is dependent on the price and also on the actual consumption compared to budget. The administration will report to city council in late summer on the overall projected surplus or deficit for the city, which will include discussion on the impact of fuel prices and consumption.”

Curtis Smith said the City of Regina is not panicking despite the rise in gas prices.

“In terms of the financial side, we continue to monitor the prices, because it is difficult to determine if this is a permanent increase or just temporary,” he explained. “We’re keeping an eye on that to see if we need to take some future actions.”

Smith said some of those future actions could mean moving money from one department to another in order to make ends meet.

“If we believe that we can’t find that savings elsewhere, then we might look to things like discretionary expenditures. But we have to take a look at the whole picture,” he said. “If we have to take (those) actions, then we will do that.”

He added it wouldn’t be the first time the city has had its hand forced to move money around in its budget.

“You might remember COVID; that had a big impact on the city. We were projecting a potential deficit back in 2020,” Smith stated.

“The actions we took were eliminating discretionary expenditures (and) having hiring freezes for vacant positions, and by doing those actions, we were able to keep from having a deficit. Those are things we would do before we ever started taking any actions.”

According to Smith, it is still too early to tell if the city’s actions to deal with rising gas prices will impact residents’ wallets through property taxes.

— With files from 650 CKOM’s Sheena Roszell