Humboldt city council has approved a tax hike in its 2023 budget. (file photo/northeastNOW Staff)

By Doug Lett

Humboldt budget

Humboldt council approves tax and utility hikes

Dec 5, 2022 | 4:00 PM

Humboldt city council has approved a 2023 budget with increases in both property taxes and utilities.

Property taxes are slated to go up by 5.1 per cent. Utility costs are slated to go up by about three per cent. The increases were approved at a budget meeting on Monday.

The mayor and several councillors said they don’t like raising taxes, but all pointed out the increases are lower than inflation.

“I’m quite happy with the 5.1, considering the inflationary costs we were met with,” Mayor Michael Behiel said. He said there were concerns the tax hike might be even bigger.

“It’s still not ideal, but it’s probably a lot better than having a double digit and then some tax increase,” he said.

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The city’s finance manager Jace Porten told council they worked at keeping the increase as low as they could.

“The year over year consumer price index is approximately eight per cent for Saskatchewan,” he said. “Administration reviewed the past four years of operational spending to identify trends and seek any possible opportunities to reduce budget expenditures without reducing service levels.”

Coun. Larry Jorgenson pointed out the last few years have seen property tax increases in the range of two per cent, and called it a “catch up year.”

“Nobody wants to pay more in taxes,” he said. “But due to inflation, I think it was unrealistic to think we could maintain that two per cent tax increase forever.”

Porten told council some of the significant “cost drivers” include rising wages and benefits, higher policing costs, higher costs for solid waste disposal, and higher insurance costs.

“The net effect of these cost drivers approximately equates to the required tax increase of 5.1 per cent,” he said.

The city’s revenue in 2023 is expected to be slightly over $18 million. Operating expenses are planned at $13.9 million.

The difference, about $4.1 million, is mostly going into reserves, which help pay for everything from vehicles to water mains.

While the city received some increases in revenue, such as an increase in provincial revenue sharing, costs went up even more.

“Most of our budget is kind of out of our control,” Coun. Roger Nordick said. “There’s huge inflation factors in insurance, in costs of fleet and that sort of thing…. I don’t like to see any more taxes, but I’m OK with the 5.1.”