Council approves new budget process and wastewater lift stations

Regina City Council approved measures designed to make budget talks more transparent and allow for more time to make decisions.

During Wednesday’s meeting, council unanimously approved a decision to adopt a four-step budget process for 2026-27.

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The first step would have city administration outline the operating and capital service budgets, and determine the cost to maintain current, council-approved service levels.

The second step focuses on developing and documenting new budget requests. The third step will be reviewing the previously outlined operating and capital service budgets, and the fourth would be approving them.

The first two steps would take place in June and July, the third would take place in September and the fourth would take place in December.

“I’m glad we’re reviewing this and doing things a little bit differently and continuing to improve,” said Ward 5 Coun. Sarah Turnbull.

Daren Anderson, Regina’s chief financial officer, said the city will have a service-level budget for items already approved by council, as well as a secondary list for items that were approved for consideration during budget talks.

“If something is put through in a bylaw to be considered at budget time, it’s essentially like tabling,” he said.

“Essentially, it’s saying let’s have the conversation on whether or not we want to include this in the budget at budget time… Both things will come to council, but the service level budget will be based on what council has already decided as a service level and approved.”

The changes would mean three to five extra meetings for council, in addition to the three days already scheduled in December.

Administration said all of the meetings would be public, barring any commercially sensitive material that would need to remain private.

Wastewater lift stations

Council also voted unanimously to approve the front-ending of creating two wastewater lift stations. That means the city would finance certain local costs that would normally be footed by developers.

The total costs for the Northwest Regional Wastewater Lift Station and the Westerra Wastewater Lift Station are sitting at $75.4 million.

The projects are meant to help foster growth on Regina’s west side.

The City of Regina will attempt to secure funding from the federal Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund to pay for the Northwest Regional Wastewater Lift Station.

If successful, the city will receive $48.9 million from the Government of Canada, leaving have to pay $11 million for its own contribution to the project. The money would come from the city’s general utility reserve.

Regina’s remaining debt would be $5.4 million in that scenario.

The city would have $8.6 million in debt for the Westerra Wastewater Lift Station, whether it did or didn’t receive the
federal money.

Ward 9 Coun. Jason Mancinelli said approving the two lift stations was very important for the northwest corner of Regina.

“It’s not often that I can say that this is also a solution for decades-old problems, (like) backing up sewers during rain events. I don’t think a person gets to correct something like that very often,” Mancinelli said.

City administration said financing for both projects will be moved through at the same time, and said it will provide an update after it has a better idea of whether or not the grant will be received.

Further considerations will be brought up prior to the city’s 2027 budget deliberations.