A new report released by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) shows the amount that municipalities are spending on a per capita basis in Saskatchewan, and it paints an interesting picture for Estevan.
The CTF grouped communities into five different classifications, with one for Regina and Saskatoon, another for the small cities, including Estevan, and then towns and rural municipalities. The CTF did not release figures for villages and northern municipalities due to a small sample size of available data.
It also didn’t calculate per person spending for resort villages due to dramatic population fluctuation in many of these communities.
The CTF also examines how the numbers have changed from 2017-2019, using audited financial statements. (Numbers for 2020 would not be available as of yet).
And while there are some discrepancies in terms of population, and some glaring data entry errors (Bienfait’s population was listed as 4,597 for 2017), it offers a snapshot of spending over a three-year span.
In the case of Estevan, it ranked third in spending per capita from 2017-2019 among Saskatchewan small cities, but the spending has remained consistent.
The city’s expenses were at $31,030,403, or $2,756 per capita, based on a population of 11,258 from the 2016 census. Spending number grew slightly to $31,087,937, or $2,761 per capita, in 2018. Expenses for the city increased to $31,537,340 in 2019, but the CTF used a different population figure for Estevan of 11,483, leaving spending for the city at $2,746 per person.
The 2019 expenses would include expenses associated with the water intake project that shifted the city’s primary water source from Boundary Dam to Rafferty Dam. Estevan received millions of dollars from the federal and provincial governments for the project.
However, the CTF report does not account for projects made possible through government grants.
Swift Current led the province’s small cities in per capita spending in all three years, and was at $3,718 per person in 2019. The next four cities in 2019, including Estevan, were separated by $48 per capita.
Mayor Roy Ludwig said he expects to see the city’s overall ranking in spending per person decline, as it has been holding the line on expenses in recent years.
“We’re not looking at more expenses as we continue to hold the line on taxes,” said Ludwig.
He pointed out that the municipal portion of property taxes increased just one per cent in 2018, and remained unchanged since then.
“I think over time you will see us at a lower level,” said Ludwig. “Once we get our debt paid, we will have roughly $5 million a year (to spend) that we don’t have now. It will free us up for more things without going to the taxpayers. It will allow us to do more things without having to go to the taxpayers for anything extra that we do.”
The city’s debt has been dropping most years since 2014, but there is still a lot of money tied up in both the debt principle and interest.
“Once we have our debt paid, that will free us up to continue to … hold the line on our tax increases,” said Ludwig.
As a city’s debt rises, they have no manoeuverability when it comes to tax increases or infrastructure projects, because they’re so hamstrung with heavy debt load they have to pay down.
“You’re obligated, you have to pay your debt back, so the more debt you’re carrying, the more of a millstone it is around your neck. It’s somewhat unsettling for those that have a huge debt owed, because it has to be paid back,” the mayor said.
The mayor found it interesting to see how much the different municipalities were spending, and how it has changed over a three-year span.
The RM of Estevan has seen its expenses decline annually from 2017-2019. With a population of 1,370, the RM had listed expenses of $4,317,778 in 2017 ($3,152 per capita), $4,248,197 in 2018 ($3,101 per capita) and $4,213,793 in 2019 ($3,076 per capita).
Todd MacKay, the Prairie director for the CTF, said this report isn’t a detailed analysis of spending in each municipality, because it would take thousands of hours to sort through everything.
“There’s going to be some situations where different municipalities account for things differently, and I think that’s natural in a situation like this, but we’re just trying to get out some of that information, create a little bit more transparency out there, get the conversation going, and most importantly, point out that the provincial government really needs to be sharing this information,” said MacKay.
It’s time for municipalities to post these documents online, so that people can do more analysis and delve into questions more closely. MacKay pointed out that some municipalities still require ratepayers to drop by the municipal office to pick up these documents.
MacKay said communities had ample time to submit audited financial statements to the CTF.
“In some cases, there might be some reasons for that. There are small communities where they struggle with the internet access and stuff like that.”
Other provinces post all of this information online pro-actively, and MacKay believes it’s time for Saskatchewan to follow suit.
MacKay defended the CTF’s decision to lump in all of the expenses into one large pot, such as with Estevan’s water intake project – a project that the city has said previously wouldn’t have happened without support from the different levels of government.
After all, according to MacKay, all of the money still comes from taxpayers, even if it’s not Estevan.
“One way or the other, we need to have that accountability to show how much municipal governments are spending so that they can be accountable to taxpayers,” MacKay said.
Among the findings that caught his attention was that a lot of rural municipalities have reduced their spending.
“You don’t often hear about governments spending less money, so on the off chance that you do see that, it’s always kind of nice to see,” said McKay.
