Saskatoon council passes police budget on first day of deliberations

Saskatoon city council began its three-day budget process by listening to a variety of budget “asks” and unanimously passing the police service’s budget for 2024-25.

The Saskatoon Police Service asked for an increase to its operating budget of $8.052 million for 2024 and $6.982 million for 2025. The total operating budgets for those years now sit at $134,455,700 and $141,438,400 respectively.

According to a city report, most of the increase in the operating budget is for staff pay, inflation and adding more officers. The police force plans to hire 14 full-time-equivalent positions (FTEs) in 2024, including another five Alternative Response Officers (AROs), tech crimes and serious assault unit officers, and other constables.

In 2025, the plan is to hire another 10 FTE officers.

The capital budget includes expenses for things like equipment and technology. Included in that budget is nearly $800,000 for pistol replacement, more than $200,000 for conducted energy weapon replacement, and $195,000 for vehicles for AROs.

Other expenses in 2024 include $144,000 for aircraft equipment replacement, which Chief Troy Cooper said was not just for the airplane but to hire a third pilot — adding about 600 hours of flying time to the 1,200 hours of current flying time.

Saskatoon property tax increases

Clae Hack, the city’s chief financial officer, described where property tax increases stood.

“The revised starting point for today’s meeting is 7.22 per cent and 5.58 per cent for ’24 and ’25 respectively,” he said.

“If no further mitigation was implemented, for a average household in Saskatoon with a $344,000 assessment, this would equate to an increase of $12.53 per month in ’24 and $10.38 in 2025.”

Hack told council that the city is in a solid financial position, and said he was even prepared to present numbers showing a small surplus for 2023.

That said, there was still a long way to go before closing an estimated $40-million budget gap over the next two years.

Several councillors stated that while they were prepared to accept the increases to the police budget — and to other core services like the fire department, water and roads — they were not going to do so for every funding request.

“I will not run up the credit card,” said Coun. Randy Donauer. “We have to choose between nice to have and must have. We need to budget and spend with the city’s finances and our residents’ finances like we do at home.”

“At the end of the day, we cannot reduce or even not look at keeping up to pace with our police services,” added Coun. Troy Davies.

Councillors will continue their deliberations over the next two days.