Portage City Hall brings 2022 financial plan forward

At tonight’s city council meeting, the 2022 financial plan was brought forward.

Finance, legislative, and property committee chair Brent Budz says the city leans on the budget to invest in its infrastructure, the Saskatchewan Ave West project, and much more. The RCMP member unionization, however, has thrown a wrench into the council’s plan regarding property taxes.

“We did have to deal with a larger than expected expense regarding the RCMP operating costs and retroactive pay,” explains Budz. “so municipalities have been planning for this, and we did too as a municipality, but the increases were larger than what we anticipated.”

The city needs to make up $500,000 for the RCMP unionization. This means, that for a residential property assessed at $250,000, the increase will sit at $77, and for commercial properties assessed at $500,000, they’ll have to deal with a $191 increase.

The 2022 tax payment deadline is Friday, July 29th. You can visit city hall in person, drop off the cheque at the drop box at city hall, mail the cheque in, or e-transfer.

Budz goes into detail on what he’s most excited about with the plans.

“I've been doing this for a while now and I continued to talk about the infrastructure that the city continues to invest in and we've seen a lot of that come to fruition,” notes Budz. “People don't see the work that's being prepared on our utility side of things.”

The budget will total $39,267,000 and 53 per cent of that will be used for government grants. Utility revenue sits at $20,422,000 and the expenses total $13,528,000.