Weyburn City Council approved the budget for 2019 Monday night, in their first meeting of the year. The budget contains a 3.81 percent property tax increase across all classes of property.

Overall, the city has a total budget of $35.7 million, $26.6 million of it is for operating costs, while $9.1 million is for capital costs.

“A big thing for us is we want to be fiscally responsible,” explained city manager Mathew Warren. “What we do is we look at all of our project bases, we do it through each one of our departments.”

There are a number of key capital projects planned for the year, including the start of the construction of the proposed Weyburn Recreation and Cultural Centre, the planning for the proposed Fleet Storage Facility, paving on Government Road, Sims Street and 16th Street, as well as the completion of the new water reservoir. There is also the start of phase 1 of the Landfill Redevelopment project included in the budget.

The impact on the average home in Weyburn is expected to be in the neighbourhood of $50.50 for a home with a property assessment value of $300,000. This works out to roughly $4.20 a month.

The increase to the mill rate saw an increase of $25.50 on the average annual tax bill, while an increase to the base tax of $25 was also factored in.

As for where the money goes each year, the city will see increases in the budgets for a number of departments. Administration, police, fire, leisure, planning and works and park budgets were all up for the year, while the budget for administration actually fell by 9.39 percent.

This results in works & parks accounting for 33.71 percent of the budget, the Weyburn Police Service 27.79 percent, leisure services 24.26 percent, the fire department 9.39 percent, the engineering department 2.55 percent and planning 2.30 percent.

The vote to approve the 2019 budget was unanimous. The councillors all agreed while no one likes to see a tax increase, the work to keep the city running doesn’t stop.

You can read a detailed breakdown of the budget here.