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“I can’t recall it ever happening,” he said. “I think we tried to look in our records and I don’t think that’s ever happened before.”

In 2017, the city bumped the property tax hike to 4.82 per cent from 3.89 per cent and took other measures to make up for lost revenue. The elimination of certain grants-in-lieu paid by provincial Crown corporations as well as the increase of the provincial sales tax to six per cent left Saskatoon with an $8.3-million crater to fill in the 2017 budget and another $3.1 million hole in the 2018 budget.

The province’s March 2017 budget eliminated grants in lieu of taxes from SaskPower and SaskEnergy, which compensate municipalities for services for provincial infrastructure. Some felt this unfairly targeted urban municipalities and characterized the move as an ambush.

The Saskatchewan Party government under newly elected Premier Scott Moe vowed to consult more with municipalities, and this month’s provincial budget restored some of the grants-in-lieu. In particular, revenue from SaskEnergy, which is now referred to as a surcharge, was restored by the province, which gives the city an extra $1.99 million in 2018.

Next year, the city will have an extra $2.66 million with the surcharge revenue for an entire year.

“It was a situation that we felt was kind of a fair approach,” Tarasoff said. “We’ve asked the taxpayers to open up their wallets to help our situation over the past couple of years and then with this money coming back we felt it was probably fair to return some of that as well.”

City council, which approved the 2018 budget in November, will consider the proposal to drop the property tax hike at Monday’s governance and priorities committee meeting.

The report council will consider notes there is continuing “pressure” on the 2018 budget projections from areas where revenue may not meet expectations.

The report says reopening a budget “should not be a regular practice.”

ptank@postmedia.com

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