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The City of Regina’s administration says property taxes may need to increase 15.6 percent to keep services at the current level.
Deputy city manager Daren Anderson said the number was a starting point for city council as budget deliberations begin on Dec. 15, with council voting on a final mill rate on Dec. 19.
“I want to clarify, this is not a proposed mill rate increase, nor is it a funding request,” Anderson said at a press conference on Nov. 20.
“The work of council during budget deliberations is to start from this number and decide which projects and services to fund, and to what extent.”
Acting city manager Jim Nicol said that the administration put up that number, as well as other measures, for council to consider different funding options.
“Those are put up there in direct response to, ‘What would it take?’ and council will now have to balance those other funding scenarios and decide where its interest is.”
He said that a status quo operating revenue of $636 million had been forecasted, with expenses of $687 million, leaving a funding gap around $51 million.
“Closing this gap with property tax revenue requires a mill rate increase of 15.69 percent.”
The city administration said this would amount to an increase of about $33 per month for a home assessed at $324,000.
For commercial property, the increase ranges between $327 per year to $11,460 per year.
The City is also looking at a utility rate increase of 7.82 percent, which would work out to about $14 a month per household.
Anderson said the city provides more than 60 different services.
“It’s hard to maintain what that impact is overall when you’re doing these small little slices, so it puts a lot of pressure on the finance team to make sure that we haven’t forgotten or overlooked any of these small little increases.”
Some of the options city council has to curb costs include closing Massey pool, which is one of five that the city operates, eliminate the outdoor rink program, reduce some transit services, close an existing fire station, or cut grants.
“Politically, no one wants to stand up and say, ‘We’re raising your taxes two- or three-fold,” Nicol said.
The city said the budget agenda took several months for the administration to put together, and said it is not bringing forward a proposed budget for 2026/27. It said it prepared a “detailed agenda packet” at the direction of council, which includes forecasts for several expenses, such as general operations, capital costs, utilities, and service partner requests.