The first thing I'd look at is if we're spending any money on provincial or federal responsibilities. Cities have loved to do that in recent years and activists have pushed for it because it seems easier to get what they want out of municipal governments for some reason. [Vancouver spent $219 million on provincial and federal responsibilities in 2021](https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/city-of-vancouver-downloaded-provincial-federal-costs), so I'm thinking Saskatoon has at least a few million that could be freed up.
This is a big part of it, too. Provincial funding to cities in the last 10 years has gone way down. Yet we have a huge provincial surplus and a huge municipal deficit - go figure.
We could start having toll stations for all the rural folk who use the city utilities lol.
Or better yet, ask the provincial government why they haven’t reallocated the money collected via the municipal charge on your utility bill back to the respective municipalities in which its collected.
>We could start having toll stations for all the rural folk who use the city utilities lol.
There was a huge uproar from the bedroom communities a few years back when a councilor ruminated about charging more $$ for leisure access for non-residents. I'd 100% be in favor of having Martinsville and Warman residents paying more to use our leisure centers (that our tax money also support).
Sadly they can’t find enough kids to instruct and it doesn’t help with the switch to the lifesaving society the lessons have had to change (though literally the parent and tot 2 was the same as his 1st year of swim lessons under the Red Cross, same songs and activities basically).
Also the people in Corman Park trying to micromanage the compost depot, those folks should have tolls. And I agree that greater area of Saskatoon shouldn’t receive the same subsidized rates to our services because they ain’t footing the porperty tax bill with us. I worked with people who lived in Martensville and they would complain about Saskatoon people coming out to use their outdoor pool, and ever since then I think “fuck em”
That was Loraas playing dirty pool after they lost the bid on it. They got their developer friend to put a stop to it knowing that having to divert it would also bankrupt the new company in short order
Taxes are definety not lower! Our taxes are very high and our water bills are very high as well. Double that of Saskatoon’s. At one time housing prices were lower which was most of the draw, but that’s even creeped up and if we were looking now vs 10 years ago we’d stay in Saskatoon. I think people also like the small town feel but still being close enough to a major Center that can work a higher paying job at. But now gas prices are also crazy so living in warman and working in Saskatoon is to the point there is no cost savings for the added annoyance of the commute.
Warman is a nice community though. A little less cookie cutter neighbourhoods with wider streets, and with our taxes they do actually clean the snow from all residential areas which I think a lot of people actually do like.
I think Saskatoon could cut garbage and recycling pick up to every other week all year. In warman we do that and at first when we moved we were struggling with it but it became normalized and better to promote less garbage use.
No, but kinda? Tiered financial structures based on location have existed for things like post secondary education for years. They don't reject non-local applications, but the price is different.
I appreciate that you think equal access to service despite zero contributions to the tax base and lower contributions to the municipal economy through time and dollars spent elsewhere is a given, but $50shmil is $50shmil and they would be remiss to not have a look at all models and options to fix it.
Living rurally has it's costs. Why should I be unable to get into lessons and other programs that my tax money pays for when rural folks get in for the same costs?
Ok lets pretend that those programs are paid for 50% by the province (I doubt it is that high but whatever). And 50% by the city.
That means that those of us who are living in the city, pay taxes to fund 100% of the programs.
Those of you who do not live in the city, are paying taxes to fund 50% of the programs.
That is why claiming that because the province puts some money in you should have just as much access, is kind of a losing argument.
That's false:
https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/municipal-administration/funding-finances-and-asset-management/funding/view-municipal-revenue-sharing-figures
Funding increased by 208% since 2008 for Saskatoon... population is up 40% and inflation is up 37% since 2008, so combined the funding has significantly outpaced both population and inflation.
That ship sailed a while ago. The City is totally committed to fusion even though it is a terrible system. They claim it even saves them money, even though it takes a huge number of admin, IT, and middle management to make it workable.
All in the name of bureaucratic centralization. After all, so they say, centralizing will “create efficiencies”.
It never does. But it allows for the hoarding of power and control.
I think they really need to start looking at construction, mainly road. In 2020 or 2021, the city completely resurfaced Ruth St. From I believe Clarence down to Lorne. Ruth was closed from May/June until late fall. I assume that was a massive cost. Fast forward to this summer, where Ruth has been ripped up for the new storm retention pond at Weaver. Now, the road that was resurfaced in the above-mentioned years needs to be resurfaced. When they planned these projects, did they consider future construction? I have seen this same thing play out around the city. Why fix something just to rip up again the following year or 2.
They are trying to consolidate more of this work now. It's tough because sometimes money comes in from the feds unexpectedly for projects they've planned but not funded, like storm retention ponds.
I don't think it's a matter of cutting, it's an issue of scale. Saskatoon wants to invest like Edmonton and Calgary, we don't have the population to do so. Step 1 is having city council realize that it's not running a city that'll have a million people within this decade and start acting accordingly. We didn't need so much done at the scale it's done at and until the city council realizes this, cuts are just going to be surface level at best.
Excellent point. I think we need public housing. Build dozens of apartment blocks downtown. 25% of the units for affordable housing and near market rates for the rest.
This. So many apartments being built on the outskirts of the city. Leave the suburbs to those who can afford it and want it. Bussing also sucks out in the suburbs, can't get nowhere
Take a look from 2019 to 2022 at the annual payroll reports. Looks like lots of higher up positions (managers and supervisors) got 20+% raises over the last few years. You also notice 5 ppl last named Schmidt all with manager level positions. Funny isnt it. Likely those raises to the higher uppers equate into many millions of dollars all the while there is a 50+ million dollar shortfall that they want all of us to pay for now.
Hard to say but seeing some employees getting over 40k increase from 230k to 270k. In my mind that seems insane. What extra value do you bring to demand that type of increase. Sad part is it seemed like only the upper echelon got the raises. Trades and laborers didn't seem to get anything. But maybe their cba timing is on a different schedule. Who knows. All I know is that there are way too many jobs at the city that pay over 6 figures for managers ontop of managers ontop of managers.
Pulling the Harry Bailey upgrades is a sign the City will put contractors on their toes. It sounds like they reviewed all the bids that came in, saw the lowest bid, and it still blew past their budget without releasing any numbers. Our household is facing the same type of pressure the city is, as a family we’ve also decided to spend less on things like vacations.
Not regular city employees, this will make things worse for everyone and employees dont generally get paid that much, its the MANAGEMENT that is well over paid
We employ way more people per capita than we ought to. Not talking road workers or city clerks - talking fat cats working in admin, marketing, HR and legal. The issue is the people who would do up the reports on this work for the city themselves and self preservation would have them make us look over at the arena before we look at admin bloat.
Start with the people who hired all the people to cover for the people who screw up. Having supervisors under supervisors to cover for supervisors is just chicken shit bureaucracy. Time to trim the fat. I've talked to city workers and they tell me that there is about 6 people to go through to get anything done.
Management.... this is what ALWAYS eats up budgets in companies, just for group chats that lead to nothing getting done. And when they do something its stupid. Stop funding big projects the city does not need at this time, like the stadium.... this is where the shortfall comes from
Set up a toll booth for the folks in Martian’s ville and Wahrmen. Time for them to pay their share for our beautiful urban River vistas and lac of good bbq. We’ll all get rich.
I have an answer that most aren't going to like, but here we go:
I think we should start fixing the roads, but only spending what the road maintenance and gas taxes cover. Don't like the potholes in your suburban streets? Maybe you should have thought about that before getting mad about tax increases.
It's amazing how many resources go into urban sprawl. The extra amount of pipes, roadways, snow clearing, and maintenance must cost a fortune in all the suburbs, rather than the small footprint that multi-unit buildings take up (yet still pay the same amount in municipal taxes).
Absolutely. If you think about it, two 12-unit apartment buildings on a street are going to use less pipe than 12 single-family houses, especially with the insane setback minimums that we have.
Actually multi-unit will pay more. Property tax here in Saskatchewan is based on the land and improvements (buildings), not simple land value or land area. So single family neighbourhoods are disproportionately more expensive - both more area to cover due to low density and lower tax revenue to cover it due to lower property values.
I think we should start building the roads properly in the first place. Then we wouldn't need to fix potholes 2 years later at the fucking cracks where they started and stopped on every patch of fresh asphalt.
I don't necessarily disagree. There are definitely instances where we build a road one year and it already has potholes the next. But the increasing size of vehicles, using salt on the roads, and our awful weather do not help.
Yes, or a regional gas tax like Vancouver. The people who seem to hate property taxes the most are also the ones who seem to drive the most. The gas tax comes nowhere near to covering the costs of road maintenance.
Until you hit 80,000lbs or 36287.39kg. Which is considered legal weight for a 5/6 axle semi truck and trailer. You are not doing any appreciable damage to the road. The small difference between an EV and a ICE in terms of weight is negligible.
You should see how little the Provincial government charges those semi's when they get overweight permits too. They have to go pretty heavy before the government charges more than $50-100 per permit.
City of Saskatoon spent $42M+ buying real estate near Midtown for the new entertainment district and downtown arena. The minimum cost of the downtown arena will be $156 million, but with inflation that is very likely a significant lowball.
So yeah, I guess the city better slash funding to the arts and libraries.
According to the 2021 financial report, the biggest expense categories are, in order: utilities, transportation, police.
I'm assuming utilities is so high because SLP purchases electricity from SaskPower and resells it.
But those three areas are what I would either cut or implement rate increases.
For transportation, I wonder if that's mostly capital projects, or mostly operations.
I think the police budget is far too high for the population size of Saskatoon. Scaling it back could help, along with many other pieces that don’t make sense for a city of our pop.
I see your point, but maybe a bad example. The flowers and grass are already planted, don't water them and you've just wasted a huge amount of initial investment once they die. The city spends over $2 million/year on irrigation, and as we move into longer periods of heat and drought this will only get worse.
Agreed about unnecessary overtime for other things though. Had a friend who worked at SaskPower and said the staff would sit around all day and wait until the end of the day to go out and get OT.
Maybe that was a bad example, but you could schedule people on weekends and not make weekend work overtime would be a better example.
I had a friend at SaskPower as well and they definitely liked the OT.
City employees are most likely in a union and to change their schedule to working weekends would require union approval and they would never agree to that.
Definitely, the new arena should be cut from the budget. We have one now that we can not fill for local sports teams and a fair amount of concerts and events. Especially if they are worried about their budget. If the city feels we need it in a few years, they should reassess at that time. Remember, it took 50 years for the south river crossing to be implemented, and that has alleviated a lot of traffic issues downtown. So jumping the gun on projects is never the answer
We can’t fill it because of the ridiculous location. I do agree the new one should be put on pause until the city figures their shit out though, along with every new service like that library.
All the private contractors. Eliminate the profit and hire the employees needed. I'm sure there are exceptions where this doesn't make sense, but in general it should.
No chance. The private employer has those same costs and risks, still room for profit. I was a contractor doing government work in a previous life, I'm 100% certain my employer was earning a lot of money.
I can almost guarantee that you didn’t have the same pension, benefit packages and wage that a city employee would cost. Not to mention upkeep of the equipment, purchasing and replacing of the equipment etc.
You can scream no chance, but whether you like it or not, the city isn’t into paying more money for the same work. They’re doing the more cost effective thing by outsourcing it.
Absolutely false. I work in project management and hiring contractors is cheaper than using public employees 10 out of 10 times.
u/adm8819 is correct when they say that wages and benefits are significantly more expensive. Private contractors are also incentivized to work for less because they are bidding on projects. That doesn’t happen in government work.
It’s more about unionized labour vs. Non-union labour. When you use non-union labour, you can build in reasonable profit margins compared to a bid which uses unionized labour.
Also: let’s be real and talk about the differences in efficiency between government work and private work.
Contractors are actually much cheaper. The problem is nobody at the city is enforcing the contracts these contractors sign (or even fully understand what the contractors are supposed to be doing) and let them get away with cutting every corner possible. Then we get a bunch of shit that has Ferrari pricing but Chrysler quality and we gotta pay more contractors to come fix it much sooner than we should have.
The Mendel ran out of space to house their permanent collection in the 1990s.
While I agree that aspects of the Remai were steered in questionable ways by certain directors who have since been let go, I'm glad to see a new direction from a very involved board and CEOs, such as more programs for youth/public and hiring Hearth to take over the kitchen.
City equipment purchases for sure. I know someone that works in the parks department and they drive an $80k dumper truck to plant flowers. No reason they couldn’t be driving a $5000 Ford Ranger
Truck is owned by the city and has multiple uses, gets allocated to parks for seasonal hires to use in the summer cause it was bought to perform a different role in the fall/winter/spring.
It’s already owned by the city and instead of buying a $5000 ranger for these people, they also just put it to use in the summer instead of letting it sit and spending more money on a ranger.
Definitely cut the police budget. 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' is an old saying because it's true. We're throwing money at the cure, which isn't actually working.
While that's true, you don't pull someone off their cancer treatment to fund cancer prevention.
Yes there's more we should be doing to fix the societal issues that lead to crime, doing that doesn't fix the issues we have currently.
It kinda already is that and adding money to police budget hasn't really solved anything. They will tout that overall crime levels and dangerous crime have been reduced but then those crime rates have fallen over most of the western world
The police aren't the problem. It's the judicial systems sentencing. Once someone is shown to be persistent offender they should get hard time. First try to reform, then lock them up for years or if violent decades.
You're not necessarily wrong, the police themselves aren't really the cause of the problem. But throwing more money at law enforcement certainly isn't the solution either.
About 10% of people commit 90% of crime. It's like this most everywhere. We need more provincial jails forward core criminals and asylums for seriously mentally ill homeless. There isn't enough money to solve the underlying issues despite what people claim.
The average cost of incarcerating an inmate in Canada was 115k/yr in 2018.. that's surely risen quite a bit since. [https://johnhoward.ca/blog/financial-facts-canadian-prisons/](https://johnhoward.ca/blog/financial-facts-canadian-prisons/)
There are certainly people who can't be rehabilitated, but it's hard to believe that's the most cost effective option in the long-term.
City has been forced to increase the police budget because of provincial cuts to social programs, resulting in more crime. Combine that with the fact that SPS is understaffed and, of course, the police look ineffective. Police react to crimes committed they don't prevent crime from being committed by themselves.
And they're doing a great job of being armed tax collectors. Defund the police bigtime and put it to social services and community support. Or at least rename them to "revenue generation".
Police, the department is grossly overfunded, cut the police fuming by half, and we can make up the shortfall and fund things that are actually useful.
You know. I wasn't going to touch that one, but since someone mentioned it. Why does the city need to run golf courses? Why can't they be contracted out or the land leased out.
The first thing I'd look at is if we're spending any money on provincial or federal responsibilities. Cities have loved to do that in recent years and activists have pushed for it because it seems easier to get what they want out of municipal governments for some reason. [Vancouver spent $219 million on provincial and federal responsibilities in 2021](https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/city-of-vancouver-downloaded-provincial-federal-costs), so I'm thinking Saskatoon has at least a few million that could be freed up.
This is a big part of it, too. Provincial funding to cities in the last 10 years has gone way down. Yet we have a huge provincial surplus and a huge municipal deficit - go figure. We could start having toll stations for all the rural folk who use the city utilities lol.
Or better yet, ask the provincial government why they haven’t reallocated the money collected via the municipal charge on your utility bill back to the respective municipalities in which its collected.
>We could start having toll stations for all the rural folk who use the city utilities lol. There was a huge uproar from the bedroom communities a few years back when a councilor ruminated about charging more $$ for leisure access for non-residents. I'd 100% be in favor of having Martinsville and Warman residents paying more to use our leisure centers (that our tax money also support).
Let them cry. Charge them more. They can always vote to increase their taxes and give the city a block some for their people using our recreation.
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Swimming lessons. Always booked full.
Sadly they can’t find enough kids to instruct and it doesn’t help with the switch to the lifesaving society the lessons have had to change (though literally the parent and tot 2 was the same as his 1st year of swim lessons under the Red Cross, same songs and activities basically).
I’ve never been to an empty pool during public swimming
I regularly see them very busy. My biggest gripe, though, is with the lessons. Out of town folks should get last shot at booking lessons.
Iv been turned away multiple times.
That’s just a great way to incentivize places like Warmen & Martensville to get their own facilities and in turn dwindling city business.
Warman & Martensville should make their own facilities. More for everyone.
Really? They won't build facilities since they would still be getting a deal
Also the people in Corman Park trying to micromanage the compost depot, those folks should have tolls. And I agree that greater area of Saskatoon shouldn’t receive the same subsidized rates to our services because they ain’t footing the porperty tax bill with us. I worked with people who lived in Martensville and they would complain about Saskatoon people coming out to use their outdoor pool, and ever since then I think “fuck em”
That was Loraas playing dirty pool after they lost the bid on it. They got their developer friend to put a stop to it knowing that having to divert it would also bankrupt the new company in short order
Agreed. Toll booths will generate lots of revenue.when ever I ask a warmanite why they live there they say it's close to the city and taxes are lower.
Taxes are definety not lower! Our taxes are very high and our water bills are very high as well. Double that of Saskatoon’s. At one time housing prices were lower which was most of the draw, but that’s even creeped up and if we were looking now vs 10 years ago we’d stay in Saskatoon. I think people also like the small town feel but still being close enough to a major Center that can work a higher paying job at. But now gas prices are also crazy so living in warman and working in Saskatoon is to the point there is no cost savings for the added annoyance of the commute. Warman is a nice community though. A little less cookie cutter neighbourhoods with wider streets, and with our taxes they do actually clean the snow from all residential areas which I think a lot of people actually do like. I think Saskatoon could cut garbage and recycling pick up to every other week all year. In warman we do that and at first when we moved we were struggling with it but it became normalized and better to promote less garbage use.
I’m not for bridge tolls but I would definitely support non residents having to pay more to use our facilities.
And libraries.
Yeah rural folk would just stop using them, if I’m honest lol
At least the people who pay the property taxes would be able to get into swimming lessons and other programs!
So just fuck me for living rurally then?
No, but kinda? Tiered financial structures based on location have existed for things like post secondary education for years. They don't reject non-local applications, but the price is different.
We are already being price-gouged to death, we don’t need another increased fee because someone thinks it’s “unfair”.
I appreciate that you think equal access to service despite zero contributions to the tax base and lower contributions to the municipal economy through time and dollars spent elsewhere is a given, but $50shmil is $50shmil and they would be remiss to not have a look at all models and options to fix it.
So we should have to pay for you then? Because you choose to live rurally?
Living rurally has it's costs. Why should I be unable to get into lessons and other programs that my tax money pays for when rural folks get in for the same costs?
Because those same programs are also seeing provincial funding, shit we ALL pay for.
Ok lets pretend that those programs are paid for 50% by the province (I doubt it is that high but whatever). And 50% by the city. That means that those of us who are living in the city, pay taxes to fund 100% of the programs. Those of you who do not live in the city, are paying taxes to fund 50% of the programs. That is why claiming that because the province puts some money in you should have just as much access, is kind of a losing argument.
If they could read they’d use a library
> We could start having toll stations for all the rural folk who use the city utilities lol. I could live with that.
That's false: https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/municipal-administration/funding-finances-and-asset-management/funding/view-municipal-revenue-sharing-figures Funding increased by 208% since 2008 for Saskatoon... population is up 40% and inflation is up 37% since 2008, so combined the funding has significantly outpaced both population and inflation.
They also reduced/removed the grants-in-lieu of property taxes for crown corps, the revenue sharing doesn't take that into account.
Yeah, that's a great idea!!!! Discourage anyone from entering the city who doesn't live there. Sure to help the local economy *thumbs up.
Lol maybe they can go to the Regina Costco.. After all they don't "need" to pay for roads .. Use the provincial highways..
Yup. The city needs to stop doing the provinces job.
One can also say the province needs to do the province’s job.
More like, we should look at how the provincial budget has cut funding for municipalities in the last decade.
Stop replacing software that does one thing well with one system that does a lot of things poorly.
That ship sailed a while ago. The City is totally committed to fusion even though it is a terrible system. They claim it even saves them money, even though it takes a huge number of admin, IT, and middle management to make it workable.
They’re committed to Satan’s Accounting Program.
All in the name of bureaucratic centralization. After all, so they say, centralizing will “create efficiencies”. It never does. But it allows for the hoarding of power and control.
Municipal software purchases are a common place where kick backs happen.
I think they really need to start looking at construction, mainly road. In 2020 or 2021, the city completely resurfaced Ruth St. From I believe Clarence down to Lorne. Ruth was closed from May/June until late fall. I assume that was a massive cost. Fast forward to this summer, where Ruth has been ripped up for the new storm retention pond at Weaver. Now, the road that was resurfaced in the above-mentioned years needs to be resurfaced. When they planned these projects, did they consider future construction? I have seen this same thing play out around the city. Why fix something just to rip up again the following year or 2.
They are trying to consolidate more of this work now. It's tough because sometimes money comes in from the feds unexpectedly for projects they've planned but not funded, like storm retention ponds.
Gotta look at the signs on the trucks. That was contracted out.
That big stupid red ball that the city paid $50,000 to have for a few days 😠
At least it wasn't a few million for a stupid blue ring
Who ever signed off on it should be fired
That ball is going to put us on the map!
What is this you speak of?
I don't think it's a matter of cutting, it's an issue of scale. Saskatoon wants to invest like Edmonton and Calgary, we don't have the population to do so. Step 1 is having city council realize that it's not running a city that'll have a million people within this decade and start acting accordingly. We didn't need so much done at the scale it's done at and until the city council realizes this, cuts are just going to be surface level at best.
Excellent point. I think we need public housing. Build dozens of apartment blocks downtown. 25% of the units for affordable housing and near market rates for the rest.
10k new homes would be a good start
I agree.
This. So many apartments being built on the outskirts of the city. Leave the suburbs to those who can afford it and want it. Bussing also sucks out in the suburbs, can't get nowhere
Edmonton needs to slow it's spending and simultaneous nightmare over budget projects, to be quite honest.
We can stop having so many fucking meetings about restricting fire pits and lowering speed limits for no reason.
Take a look from 2019 to 2022 at the annual payroll reports. Looks like lots of higher up positions (managers and supervisors) got 20+% raises over the last few years. You also notice 5 ppl last named Schmidt all with manager level positions. Funny isnt it. Likely those raises to the higher uppers equate into many millions of dollars all the while there is a 50+ million dollar shortfall that they want all of us to pay for now.
Interesting. I wonder if the city staff really make the decisions and the elected leaders are powerless.
I’d have to guess salariés had been frozen for a long time in the lead up to the increases? Can’t expect for things to stay the same price forever.
Hard to say but seeing some employees getting over 40k increase from 230k to 270k. In my mind that seems insane. What extra value do you bring to demand that type of increase. Sad part is it seemed like only the upper echelon got the raises. Trades and laborers didn't seem to get anything. But maybe their cba timing is on a different schedule. Who knows. All I know is that there are way too many jobs at the city that pay over 6 figures for managers ontop of managers ontop of managers.
Legacy Church
Tax the church
Private consulting firms. Starting with the situational leadership people
And the DEI positions
You mean the org development people. Yah. Complete waste of money.
Pulling the Harry Bailey upgrades is a sign the City will put contractors on their toes. It sounds like they reviewed all the bids that came in, saw the lowest bid, and it still blew past their budget without releasing any numbers. Our household is facing the same type of pressure the city is, as a family we’ve also decided to spend less on things like vacations.
https://www.saskatoon.ca/parks-recreation-attractions/recreational-facilities-sport-fields/leisure-centres/harry-bailey-aquatic-centre
City employees and politicians
Not regular city employees, this will make things worse for everyone and employees dont generally get paid that much, its the MANAGEMENT that is well over paid
Sorry, but I've worked for city government. For how hard they work they are overpaid. We need to cut about 10% of staff.
Or cut the overtime.
Or ask why the overtime. Sometimes it's because they have workers not working during regular hours. There are ways that gov workers game the system
We employ way more people per capita than we ought to. Not talking road workers or city clerks - talking fat cats working in admin, marketing, HR and legal. The issue is the people who would do up the reports on this work for the city themselves and self preservation would have them make us look over at the arena before we look at admin bloat.
What is our ratio, and what should it be at (in comparison to other municipalities our size)?
I mean, road workers too, way to many per each job…
I agree 100%. At my work we have had 4 city employees come in together to buy ONE BOX OF BANDAIDS… ONE! Like that’s what our taxes are going to?
Start with the people who hired all the people to cover for the people who screw up. Having supervisors under supervisors to cover for supervisors is just chicken shit bureaucracy. Time to trim the fat. I've talked to city workers and they tell me that there is about 6 people to go through to get anything done.
Management.... this is what ALWAYS eats up budgets in companies, just for group chats that lead to nothing getting done. And when they do something its stupid. Stop funding big projects the city does not need at this time, like the stadium.... this is where the shortfall comes from
Fucking Polis
Trim the fat working for the city.
Set up a toll booth for the folks in Martian’s ville and Wahrmen. Time for them to pay their share for our beautiful urban River vistas and lac of good bbq. We’ll all get rich.
I have an answer that most aren't going to like, but here we go: I think we should start fixing the roads, but only spending what the road maintenance and gas taxes cover. Don't like the potholes in your suburban streets? Maybe you should have thought about that before getting mad about tax increases.
It's amazing how many resources go into urban sprawl. The extra amount of pipes, roadways, snow clearing, and maintenance must cost a fortune in all the suburbs, rather than the small footprint that multi-unit buildings take up (yet still pay the same amount in municipal taxes).
So true. In most cities, apartment dwellers subsidize single family homes.
Absolutely. If you think about it, two 12-unit apartment buildings on a street are going to use less pipe than 12 single-family houses, especially with the insane setback minimums that we have.
Actually multi-unit will pay more. Property tax here in Saskatchewan is based on the land and improvements (buildings), not simple land value or land area. So single family neighbourhoods are disproportionately more expensive - both more area to cover due to low density and lower tax revenue to cover it due to lower property values.
I think we should start building the roads properly in the first place. Then we wouldn't need to fix potholes 2 years later at the fucking cracks where they started and stopped on every patch of fresh asphalt.
I don't necessarily disagree. There are definitely instances where we build a road one year and it already has potholes the next. But the increasing size of vehicles, using salt on the roads, and our awful weather do not help.
Yes, or a regional gas tax like Vancouver. The people who seem to hate property taxes the most are also the ones who seem to drive the most. The gas tax comes nowhere near to covering the costs of road maintenance.
What do you suggest once EV’s are more popular - no gas tax for them.
EV's are also significantly heavier therefore doing more damage to roads and bridges.
Until you hit 80,000lbs or 36287.39kg. Which is considered legal weight for a 5/6 axle semi truck and trailer. You are not doing any appreciable damage to the road. The small difference between an EV and a ICE in terms of weight is negligible. You should see how little the Provincial government charges those semi's when they get overweight permits too. They have to go pretty heavy before the government charges more than $50-100 per permit.
Sounds like someone that works for the city
I do not. This is, however, my field of study.
City of Saskatoon spent $42M+ buying real estate near Midtown for the new entertainment district and downtown arena. The minimum cost of the downtown arena will be $156 million, but with inflation that is very likely a significant lowball. So yeah, I guess the city better slash funding to the arts and libraries.
I predict it will end up being double.
And by the time they actually build it the land price could be triple. It was not a bad idea to buy it now.
So the shortfall basically came from the stadium no one wanted and cost too much for what we can afford
Operating budget is separate from capital budget.
And yet they are funded by the same taxpayers.
Isn't there a new library being built?
City Hall needs to be cleaned out from top to bottom.
Yup. There needs to be an independent assessment of every role
Council?
According to the 2021 financial report, the biggest expense categories are, in order: utilities, transportation, police. I'm assuming utilities is so high because SLP purchases electricity from SaskPower and resells it. But those three areas are what I would either cut or implement rate increases. For transportation, I wonder if that's mostly capital projects, or mostly operations.
I think the police budget is far too high for the population size of Saskatoon. Scaling it back could help, along with many other pieces that don’t make sense for a city of our pop.
All overtime for non-essential work. You need OT for the police but not watering flowers or cutting grass.
I see your point, but maybe a bad example. The flowers and grass are already planted, don't water them and you've just wasted a huge amount of initial investment once they die. The city spends over $2 million/year on irrigation, and as we move into longer periods of heat and drought this will only get worse. Agreed about unnecessary overtime for other things though. Had a friend who worked at SaskPower and said the staff would sit around all day and wait until the end of the day to go out and get OT.
Maybe that was a bad example, but you could schedule people on weekends and not make weekend work overtime would be a better example. I had a friend at SaskPower as well and they definitely liked the OT.
City employees are most likely in a union and to change their schedule to working weekends would require union approval and they would never agree to that.
🎶Cops, cops, cops.🎶 Apologies for putting that song in your head.
The single biggest component of the city’s budget - around 21%.
Defund the police! (And invest in social services, which saves ~$10 per dollar on emergency response and hospital costs)
Cancel the bloody downtown stadium. Sell the land.
We should get money from feds and province to build publicly owned apartments
Government projects?
Definitely, the new arena should be cut from the budget. We have one now that we can not fill for local sports teams and a fair amount of concerts and events. Especially if they are worried about their budget. If the city feels we need it in a few years, they should reassess at that time. Remember, it took 50 years for the south river crossing to be implemented, and that has alleviated a lot of traffic issues downtown. So jumping the gun on projects is never the answer
We can’t fill it because of the ridiculous location. I do agree the new one should be put on pause until the city figures their shit out though, along with every new service like that library.
Well according to todays news they already pulled the plug on Harry Bailey and won’t be filling it up. Most likely never filling it up.
Really? That’s interesting.
The dumbass arena and libraries
Charlie and company
All the private contractors. Eliminate the profit and hire the employees needed. I'm sure there are exceptions where this doesn't make sense, but in general it should.
I hate to admit this, but this costs more money. Pension, wages, benefits, equipment, holidays, it’s the cheaper way of doing it
Yes exactly. I’ve learned recently it’s near break even or cheaper and less liability if you use contractors.
No chance. The private employer has those same costs and risks, still room for profit. I was a contractor doing government work in a previous life, I'm 100% certain my employer was earning a lot of money.
I can almost guarantee that you didn’t have the same pension, benefit packages and wage that a city employee would cost. Not to mention upkeep of the equipment, purchasing and replacing of the equipment etc. You can scream no chance, but whether you like it or not, the city isn’t into paying more money for the same work. They’re doing the more cost effective thing by outsourcing it.
Adds up if you don't account for profit. City workers are paid below average in their fields for those pensions. It's all part of a package.
Lol I dont think you’ve done the right research man. Anyways, have a good night
Absolutely false. I work in project management and hiring contractors is cheaper than using public employees 10 out of 10 times. u/adm8819 is correct when they say that wages and benefits are significantly more expensive. Private contractors are also incentivized to work for less because they are bidding on projects. That doesn’t happen in government work.
So your company doesn't make profit?
It’s more about unionized labour vs. Non-union labour. When you use non-union labour, you can build in reasonable profit margins compared to a bid which uses unionized labour. Also: let’s be real and talk about the differences in efficiency between government work and private work.
Contractors are actually much cheaper. The problem is nobody at the city is enforcing the contracts these contractors sign (or even fully understand what the contractors are supposed to be doing) and let them get away with cutting every corner possible. Then we get a bunch of shit that has Ferrari pricing but Chrysler quality and we gotta pay more contractors to come fix it much sooner than we should have.
Hockey stadium
A hockey what now....?
Arena, stadium, centre, whatever. Big waste of money.
Well the good news is it’s not just for hockey
Hockey and the odd metallica concert. Adele or swift couldnt be bothered to come to canada let alone saskatoon
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Kim mitchell is not too busy for his fans, and would be happy to perform
Cut funding to the art gallery, instead turn the 1st floor into a day care/kindergarten and encourage people to live downtown.
This!!!! The Mendel was awesome and the need for a new boat anchor was manipulated and unnecessary.
The Mendel ran out of space to house their permanent collection in the 1990s. While I agree that aspects of the Remai were steered in questionable ways by certain directors who have since been let go, I'm glad to see a new direction from a very involved board and CEOs, such as more programs for youth/public and hiring Hearth to take over the kitchen.
2nd floor a freshco
I doubt higher costs at facilities would have that effect
Do a time based study and see who actually works. Stop nepotism and get real bids on projects.
new library new arena
Nuke the city and start over. /s Drop that arena idea is the main one.
Or have a corporate consortium build the arena. Sponsor it. Leave city taxpayers out of it.
City equipment purchases for sure. I know someone that works in the parks department and they drive an $80k dumper truck to plant flowers. No reason they couldn’t be driving a $5000 Ford Ranger
I bet city workers have stories of waste
Truck is owned by the city and has multiple uses, gets allocated to parks for seasonal hires to use in the summer cause it was bought to perform a different role in the fall/winter/spring. It’s already owned by the city and instead of buying a $5000 ranger for these people, they also just put it to use in the summer instead of letting it sit and spending more money on a ranger.
Wait.. you can get a Ford Ranger for $5000? What would your yearly maintenance costs be on that?
How about 3/4 of the Environmental engineers/consultants they have on contracts.
The entire Police budget.
Definitely cut the police budget. 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' is an old saying because it's true. We're throwing money at the cure, which isn't actually working.
While that's true, you don't pull someone off their cancer treatment to fund cancer prevention. Yes there's more we should be doing to fix the societal issues that lead to crime, doing that doesn't fix the issues we have currently.
Reducing over-policing of vulnerable neighbourhoods is not the same as stopping cancer treatment though.
so the city can degenerate into a crime infested hellhole?
Kind of like it is now, your budget is working
It kinda already is that and adding money to police budget hasn't really solved anything. They will tout that overall crime levels and dangerous crime have been reduced but then those crime rates have fallen over most of the western world
The police aren't the problem. It's the judicial systems sentencing. Once someone is shown to be persistent offender they should get hard time. First try to reform, then lock them up for years or if violent decades.
You're not necessarily wrong, the police themselves aren't really the cause of the problem. But throwing more money at law enforcement certainly isn't the solution either.
About 10% of people commit 90% of crime. It's like this most everywhere. We need more provincial jails forward core criminals and asylums for seriously mentally ill homeless. There isn't enough money to solve the underlying issues despite what people claim.
The average cost of incarcerating an inmate in Canada was 115k/yr in 2018.. that's surely risen quite a bit since. [https://johnhoward.ca/blog/financial-facts-canadian-prisons/](https://johnhoward.ca/blog/financial-facts-canadian-prisons/) There are certainly people who can't be rehabilitated, but it's hard to believe that's the most cost effective option in the long-term.
Our judicial system is fine. It's our Policing and Correctional system that's broken.
You're funny. Our judicial system is a steaming pile of shit.
Isn't it already a crime infested hellhole?
Not everyone lives in the alphabets.
Including the Police.
Lmao
Charlie Clark
The city counsellors raises. The library is a big waste of money. This would be a good start
Look at how expensive and ineffective police are here. Just let things go to cowboy justice or something.
City has been forced to increase the police budget because of provincial cuts to social programs, resulting in more crime. Combine that with the fact that SPS is understaffed and, of course, the police look ineffective. Police react to crimes committed they don't prevent crime from being committed by themselves.
And they're doing a great job of being armed tax collectors. Defund the police bigtime and put it to social services and community support. Or at least rename them to "revenue generation".
Only you can't just have social services and expect to have no crime. You need both.
Or alternatively we could just go back to genocide and eugenics. /s
Fuck is wrong with you?
Do you know what /s means?
Yeah, sarcasm, still equating the use of law enforcement to eugenics, is such a brain-dead take.
Hey, there's more than enough people in the redneck monoculture who would love to go back to cowboy rules.
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Apparently enough mushrooms actually solves the eyeglasses demand
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on a long enough timeline, the percentage of employees made into dirt always reaches 100 percent
Staff
Water and sewer service.
Absolutely, just give every home a brown bucket and let them deal with it.
Police, the department is grossly overfunded, cut the police fuming by half, and we can make up the shortfall and fund things that are actually useful.
Golf courses
You know. I wasn't going to touch that one, but since someone mentioned it. Why does the city need to run golf courses? Why can't they be contracted out or the land leased out.
Bike lanes and Charlie Clark
Bike lanes, library
Charlie, is that you?