Regina city council votes to cut nearly $1.6M from this year's budget

Chris Edwards · CBC News

· Posted: May 21, 2025 10:06 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Regina metropolis assembly voted Wednesday to chopped $1.55 cardinal from the 2025 municipal budget, honouring a committedness it made successful March to money a 0.5 per cent simplification successful the metropolis mill rate.

The determination came aft a determination during the 2025 fund statement to lessen the city's 7.33 per cent increase — the biggest hike successful implicit 10 years — to this twelvemonth to its mill rate, which is the magnitude of tax payable per $1,000 of taxable assessed value.

The metropolis had primitively projected redeeming the wealth by terminating 34 outer consultants and "out of scope" management-level positions, but that plan was scrapped aft a backlash.

Instead, assembly tasked metropolis administrators to instrumentality successful May with a fig of cost-cutting options for them to ballot on. 

"We committed to bringing you a paper of options," said Regina metropolis clerk Jim Nicol told assembly connected Wednesday. "We looked astatine this precise cautiously truthful that they would beryllium feasible, acceptable and doable."

Ward 3 Coun. David Froh said determination are "no cleanable cuts."

"I surely person an anticipation that the radical of Regina aren't funny successful america reducing our mosquito power services oregon our particulate suppression," helium said.

Council recovered the $1.55 cardinal successful savings aft being presented with 13 antithetic metropolis programs and budgets.

The largest outgo savings by acold came from the c taxation payments the metropolis stopped having to marque connected its energy and earthy state bills aft April 1, erstwhile Prime Minister Mark Carney reduced the user c taxation to zero per cent. 

That accounted for $600,000, oregon 39 per cent, of the full shortfall. The adjacent largest chopped was to the transit fleet reserve, which funds the replacements of metropolis buses and different vehicles. Its fund for 2025 was chopped by $500,000, from a full of $6.2 million. 

The city's fund for earthy gas, its workplace betterment fund and its installation retrofit fund were each slashed by $100,000.

The metropolis chopped a further $80,000 by reducing the frequence of custodial services successful non-public spaces similar metropolis hall, transit facilities and occurrence stations. 

Another $26,000 was saved by deferring a cybersecurity audit.

And the mosquito power fund did extremity up being chopped by $44,000, to get astatine the $1.55 cardinal goal.

"It was a database [of] items that were not a large interaction to services," Mayor Chad Bachynski said aft the vote. "We recognized the services that would possibly person a much disposable interaction to residents than others." 

Along with Flores and Bachynski, Couns. Clark Bezo, Mark Burton, Victoria Flores, David Froh and George Tsiklis voted successful favour of the framework. Couns. Dan Rashovich, Shobna Radons and Sarah Turnbull voted against it.  

Turnbull attempted a antithetic suite of cuts. She wanted to trim the transit fleet reserve's fund by lone $250,000, and marque up the quality by cutting the outer and nonrecreational services budget, which funds outer consultants to enactment connected peculiar metropolis projects, by the aforesaid amount. 

That option, which was lone supported byTurnbull and Radons, was rejected.

City assembly besides voted unanimously to judge the donation of a retention gathering by the Regina Ski Club astatine Kinsmen Park, and participate into a lease statement with the Regina Rugby Union for their clubhouse.