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“Heading into this Budget, Swift Current had the lowest municipal portion of property taxes among cities in the province,” he said in a written response. “Despite this year’s increase, we anticipate we’ll remain in that position in 2018.”

The mayors of both cities say they’re still dealing with ongoing fiscal fallout from provincial budget cuts, especially the end of grants-in-lieu from Crown corporations. Moose Jaw Mayor Fraser Tolmie said last year’s PST increase is also making construction more expensive. According to Moose Jaw’s budget proposal, capital projects are at risk of being delayed or cancelled.

Tolmie declined to speculate on what could go, and what has to stay, saying the budget is still in its “early stages.” But he hinted that cutting spending might not be the wisest way to close the gap.

“We’ve had some infrastructure challenges that have been overlooked, and the tax increases that are coming, people are seeing that they’re being used for fixing the roads, fixing the water main problems that we’ve had,” he said. “We don’t like putting things off, because the longer you put them off, the more you’ve got to put into repairing or replacing them.”

Swift Current’s budget shows how hard it can be to keep spending in check. Perrault said the city is maintaining a hiring freeze, but contracts are still pushing up labour costs. The city is also spending more on software. The biggest line item driving up costs is the city’s financial strategy, a multi-year plan to reduce the city’s reliance on debt to fund capital projects. That’s responsible for nearly half of the tax increase.