You’ve told us that you’re fed up with unsustainable spending by your municipal government, which often translates into property tax hikes. You work hard to live within your means and expect your municipality to do the same.
The fact is: municipal governments are spending faster than their communities are growing. To support these spending habits, municipal governments are having you foot the bill. It doesn’t make sense that many cities continue to hike property taxes each year - even when they have received 174% more on average through revenue sharing from the provincial government since 2007-08.
Given all of the challenges which small business owners across the province continue to grapple with as they try to recover from the pandemic, municipalities must do everything possible to prioritize its spending and find further efficiencies to mitigate any proposed property tax increases in the future.
The biggest cost for municipalities to control is labour. Did you know that Saskatchewan municipalities on average pay 14% more to their staff in wages and benefits than what those same employees would make in the private sector?
CFIB`s recommendations for municipal governments include:
- Limit annual operating spending growth to no more than inflation and population growth;
- Conduct municipal core service reviews to identify key services and ensure effective fiscal management;
- Develop a long-term strategy to narrow the compensation disparity between public and private sector employees;
- Introduce a plan to reduce the size and cost of the municipal civil service (primarily through attrition); and
- Help to establish both provincial and national committees that would provide municipalities with an opportunity to collect and share information in order to achieve more sustainable labour agreements.