Regina city administration has released its budget documents for next month’s budget deliberations and with it, is forecasting a mill rate increase of 15.69 per cent. “Administration forecasted status quo operating revenues of $636 million and expenses of $687 million. This leaves a funding gap of roughly $51 million,” said the city’s chief financial officer Daren Anderson at a media briefing Thursday. “Closing this gap with property tax revenue requires a mill rate increase of 15.69 per cent.” If approved by council next month, 15.69 per cent would be the largest mill rate increase in more than a decade and more than double the 7.3 per cent increase it approved for 2025. The forecasted hike is based on what administration says is needed to keep the city’s current services at residents’ desired levels, plus what priorities council has outlined. “[The city] provides over 60 different services,” Anderson said. “It’s hard to maintain what that impact is overall when you’re doing these small little slices. It puts a lot of pressure on the finance team to make sure we haven’t forgotten or overlooked any of these small little increases.” City expenses related to property taxes would rise $33/month or $369/year for the average Regina household valued at $300,000. The city attributes the forecast largely to inflationary pressures, created by a historical capital and infrastructure deficit. “There’s an understanding and a realization you’re only going to have financial sustainability if you are actually bringing in the required revenues to operate everything you’re doing,” acting city manager Jim Nicol told reporters. “As we’ve seen in some of the referrals from council, particularly the ‘Cut to the base’ projection, you don’t want to have the funding required for the services people are demanding. Then you have to cut the services,” he added. An approach which has now caught up with the city. “Were mill rate increases in the past kept artificially low? I think that would be some argument perhaps that they were,” Nicol said. “Politically, no one wants to stand up and say, ‘We’re raising your taxes two or three-fold.” “That can’t be done anymore,” Mayor Chad Bachynski told CTV News. “We’ve, in fact, even used our reserves to keep [taxes] artificially low. And now our reserves are to a point where they’re essentially depleted.” Utility rate projections Accompanying the mill rate increase is a utility rate hike of 7.82 per cent. “The user pay structure of the utility fund means that fees paid by customers cover the costs of providing water, wastewater and drainage services and maintaining the necessary infrastructure,” Anderson said. “Instead of covering these expenses as part of your property tax. They are billed separately, which ensures the sustainability of the program.” The rise in utility bills could see the average Regina resident pay an additional $14/month, $168/year. In total, with the forecast mill rate increase, city expenses could increase $47/month or $537/year. Curbing the climb Sworn in as mayor just over one year ago, Bachynski made campaign promises to curb steep property taxes ahead of the 2024 election. Despite today’s forecast release, the mayor still believes he can follow through on the promise. “But the math is the math,” Bachynski said. “We have to look at what is in front of us today, to find a balance between the cost of delivering the services residents expect and the affordability that residents are looking for.” Bachynski says he and his fellow council members have learned more about the budget process after going through it early in their term. Adding he hopes this year will create a more understandable and transparent deliberations. “We went through a budget process very early on and I saw right away we needed to change the way we were doing things,” the mayor said. “I advocated, very strongly, we needed to change the way we do our budget process going forward.” Nicol says the release of the agenda ahead of previous years is administration’s way of increasing transparency for residents and understanding for councillors. “This is a realistic expenditure increase we need to run the city as the citizens of Regina want,” he emphasized. Administration also did additional expenditure work outlining potential service outlooks should councillors want to bring forward additional cuts at budget deliberations. “We would have to close a fire hall, stop transit or close neighbourhood community centres,” Nicol said. “We don’t do this lightly. We’re not taking any joy or any professional recommendation to do that. We were tasked to say, ‘How would you find $68 million in a budget that is tight and the public is expecting from services and programs we do.” Service partner funding requests During deliberations, the City of Regina also approves its service partner funding requests from organizations like the Regina Police Service (RPS) or the Regina Exhibition Association Limited (REAL). According to the budget agenda, RPS has requested a city-sourced funding increase of $7.2 million, or 2.2 per cent of the overall mill rate increase. In 2024, the service requested less than $7 million in funding increases, which was further reduced and approved by council. The city says REAL, Economic Development Regina and the Provincial Capital Commission have each requested status quo funding and is not forecast to increase taxes in 2025. The Regina Public Library, however, has brought forward a 9.35 per cent library-dedicated mill rate increase, which amounts to less than one per cent of the general mill rate. When are deliberations? The 2026-27 budget deliberations are scheduled over five days in mid-December from the 15th through the 19th. When approved, any changes will not be in effect until spring 2026. This year, the city is approving a two-year budget in attempt to streamline the process in 2027.
