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CBC
22-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Regina city council votes to cut nearly $1.6M from this year's budget
Social Sharing Regina city council voted Wednesday to cut $1.55 million from the 2025 municipal budget, honouring a commitment it made in March to fund a 0.5 per cent reduction in the city mill rate. The move came after a decision during the 2025 budget debate to lessen the city's 7.33 per cent increase — the biggest hike in over 10 years — to this year to its mill rate, which is the amount of tax payable per $1,000 of taxable assessed value. The city had originally proposed saving the money by terminating 34 external consultants and "out of scope" management-level positions, but that plan was scrapped after a backlash. Instead, council tasked city administrators to return in May with a number of cost-cutting options for them to vote on. "We committed to bringing you a menu of options," said Regina city clerk Jim Nicol told council on Wednesday. "We looked at this very carefully so that they would be feasible, acceptable and doable." Ward 3 Coun. David Froh said there are "no perfect cuts." "I certainly have an expectation that the people of Regina aren't interested in us reducing our mosquito control services or our dust suppression," he said. Council found the $1.55 million in savings after being presented with 13 different city programs and budgets. The largest cost savings by far came from the carbon tax payments the city stopped having to make on its electricity and natural gas bills after April 1, when Prime Minister Mark Carney reduced the consumer carbon tax to zero per cent. That accounted for $600,000, or 39 per cent, of the total shortfall. The next largest cut was to the transit fleet reserve, which funds the replacements of city buses and other vehicles. Its budget for 2025 was cut by $500,000, from a total of $6.2 million. The city's budget for natural gas, its workplace improvement budget and its facility retrofit budget were each slashed by $100,000. The city cut a further $80,000 by reducing the frequency of custodial services in non-public spaces like city hall, transit facilities and fire stations. Another $26,000 was saved by deferring a cybersecurity audit. And the mosquito control budget did end up being cut by $44,000, to arrive at the $1.55 million goal. "It was a list [of] items that were not a major impact to services," Mayor Chad Bachynski said after the vote. "We recognized the services that would maybe have a more visible impact to residents than others." Along with Flores and Bachynski, Couns. Clark Bezo, Mark Burton, Victoria Flores, David Froh and George Tsiklis voted in favour of the framework. Couns. Dan Rashovich, Shobna Radons and Sarah Turnbull voted against it. Turnbull attempted a different suite of cuts. She wanted to reduce the transit fleet reserve's budget by only $250,000, and make up the difference by cutting the external and professional services budget, which funds external consultants to work on special city projects, by the same amount. That option, which was only supported byTurnbull and Radons, was rejected. City council also voted unanimously to accept the donation of a storage building by the Regina Ski Club at Kinsmen Park, and enter into a lease agreement with the Regina Rugby Union for their clubhouse.
CBC
08-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Regina to provide $6.8M incentive for 2nd Costco location
Regina city council voted on Wednesday to provide Costco with a $6.78-million incentive to build a second local location in the city's Westerra area. The funds will be taken from Regina Land Development Reserve. The city estimates the money will be paid back through property taxes within seven years. The decision followed a contentious discussion at city council, with several councillors expressing displeasure at having to provide a monetary incentive to the private business. Mayor Bachynski said city council learned on Wednesday that after Costco had reached a deal in principle to build the second location within the city, it cancelled the deal in favour of building at the Global Transportation Hub west of Regina. The reason for that change, according to Coun. David Froh, was that the transportation hub — which is managed by a Crown corporation — provided much cheaper land subsidized by taxpayers. This in effect forced Regina to compete with an entity funded by the provincial government. "If Costco is built outside of Regina, we will lose hundreds of millions of investment, and millions more in ancillary residential and commercial development," Froh said. "The lesson here is we need to avoid multiple levels of government competing for local investment." "How we got there was a little bit unfortunate," Mayor Bachynski said in an interview with the CBC's Morning Edition Thursday. "The end result is a positive one for the city of Regina and especially the west side of Regina. "It will provide growth for that area. It'll provide other commercial entities to develop around that anchor tenant and ultimately provide somewhere in the realm of half a million a year in tax revenue from Costco." The mayor was also clear that the funding shouldn't be viewed as a precedent for more corporate incentives being offered by the city. "This is a very, very unique situation," he said. "It was not an apples-to-apples comparison in terms of land cost. "Developers are consistently competing with each other on an even playing field with the land within the city and we do not get involved in."
