Offloaded provincial responsibilities in budget ‘costing’ Saskatoon: Mayor

Saskatoon Mayor Cynthia Block joined the Evan Bray Show Thursday to discuss Saskatchewan’s new financial plan and there’s one core issue she said isn’t getting enough attention.

Block began by saying she’s thankful the municipal revenue sharing portion of the PST will continue.

“Our budgets get decided long before the spring budget comes out from the province, and so we’re grateful that we’ll be able to carry on with our plans with no other impact to property tax,” she said.

Read more:

• Saskatchewan’s budget targets affordability. Here’s what’s being offered
• Finance minister says Saskatchewan’s deficit budget focused on health, affordability
• Health spending focused on expanding nurse practitioner positions, funding to build facilities

The buying power of that money, according to Block, hasn’t kept up with inflation over the last ten years. In Saskatoon, she said that money goes about half as far as it used to. It’s part of a larger financial issue that municipalities face.

Block said the model for property tax is outdated and not financially sustainable. When municipalities were created, they didn’t have the same role as they do now.

“It was a horse and buggy days,” she said.

In contrast today, “municipalities across this country own and manage 60 per cent of the infrastructure with 8 per cent of the tax revenue,” Block said.

She called for a new fiscal framework that’s fair, saying right now, property tax is regressive.

With regards to the provincial budget, this issue of financial strain becomes exacerbated when the province offloads its responsibilities onto municipalities.

It’s something Block said the Government of Saskatchewan has been doing for “a very long time.”

“Things like homelessness and community safety are not necessarily only the orders of a municipality or a province. However, mental health and addiction are,” she said.

According to Block, 42 per cent of Saskatoon’s policing calls are about social behaviour. It’s left the city – perhaps unintentionally – “collecting additional work” and footing the bill, she said.

While Block acknowledged the province has added additional policing, “that doesn’t address the core issues of mental health and addiction.”

She said it was positive to see plenty of mention of mental health and addictions in the provincial budget, but there needs to be an overall strategy towards addressing that agenda.

Otherwise Saskatoon residents, “are facing the impact of higher and higher property tax,” in part because of offloaded responsibilities, Block said.

What ends up happening then is elected municipal officials don’t want to make the decision to raise property taxes by a large amount, pushing problems further down the road, according to Block.

While it won’t be quick, she said, “the whole system needs a reset.”