Prince Albert city hall. (Susan McNeil/paNOW)

By Susan McNeil

2025 budget

City adopts budget with $8 million increase

Feb 4, 2025 | 6:00 AM

With their hands somewhat tied by several renewed labour contracts, include two CUPE locals, the fire department and the police, the City of Prince Albert formally adopted its 2025 budget during a special meeting on Monday.

Council unanimously approved a 22 per cent increase in the amount of money it will collect through the general municipal levy.

Mayor Bill Powalinsky explained residents have been seeing increases lower than other cities for about the last six years, and this year, more was needed.

“Other municipalities were looking to four to five per cent per year for the last six years and we were between zero and two per cent so of course that eventually catches up to you,” he said.

READ MORE: That would put the total city revenue from property taxes at just shy of $57 million.

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Last year, the city examined its internal staffing and made some changes that saved them $1 million on payroll, but all of the wage settlements added up to 11 percent increases over the several years and some backpay was owed.

The change in wages and backpay for city staff and police led to about 2/3 of the spending increase this year.

In 2024, the Prince Albert Police did not get the overall budget increase they looked for and this year, they were given a $2.2 million increase. In addition to a new wage grid, they created two new crime analyst positions and invested in upgraded technology.

The job of reviewing the staffing out of city hall will continue, Powalinsky said.

“This was a very difficult budget. I call it a stabilization budget in terms of this gets us on the path so that we can continue to offer services and supports without cutting services,” he said.

“That’s really the key thing, we need to move forward and get that base established – or re-established.”

Property owners in Prince Albert may need to brace for a shock when they get their tax bills as 2025 was also an assessment year province-wide.

Not that far away in Saskatoon, residents are reporting 13 per cent increases in their valuations.

Once the province finalizes its financial requirement for education funding which partially comes from property taxes, council will decided how to portion the total bill between residential, commercial and other properties. They have a variety of ways to do that, including changing mil rates, base taxes, minimum taxes and special taxes (such as the snow removal tax).

One way to reduce the future hits to individual ratepayers is to increase the number of taxable properties, Powalinsky said.

“Well, the thing that we’re doing right now is we’re working inside community planning and development to look at, you know, economic development opportunities, really increasing the tax base.”

That means new businesses and new privately-owned properties are needed.

While organizations like Prince Albert Housing provide a needed service, their properties do not necessarily increase the tax base.

Powalinsky said that he was interested to hear during a recent visit to Langford, B.C. that they funded improvements and enhancements just by increasing the number of businesses in the community.

“There’s a lesson to be learned there and certainly that’s an objective of our community development. We have had some ongoing talks with the province and we’re looking at economic development opportunities beyond the One Sky development,” he said.

Property owners usually see their annual tax bill in the mail in May with June being the deadline to pay.

Council also added a motion to their adoption of the budget to have staff bring the entire document back as needed should the Canada/US trade war make it necessary.

While the tariffs promised by President Donald Trump and counter-tariffs announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were delayed by a month even as council was adopting the budget, the issue is far from over.

Council and staff had to work in the lead up to the meeting to find a way to address the potential issues.

“We did a little bit of scrambling today to get our heads wrapped around, what do we do? We have no ability to predict how the tariffs are going to land on our doorstep,” Powalinsky explained.

The most likely area it would hit first is in the city’s procurement process. Staff have been instructed to prepare by looking for likely areas of impact and to come up with strategies to mitigate any changes.

“We have to have a mechanism to correct and to just basically pivot, depending on the directions that the two governments take. It will affect us at a municipal level if tariffs are imposed.”

One way or another, the city will still need to keep their costs within their budget and that could mean changing what or where they purchase items or services.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: @susanmcneil.bsky.social