The City of Yorkton continues to invest to make the city a better place.
That was the over-arching message from Mayor Bob Maloney who gave a ‘State of the Union Address’ following the annual general meeting of the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce Wednesday.
“The city of Yorkton continues to be the third largest trading area in Saskatchewan,” he began, noting the city is a hub of regional trade.
But trade takes place far beyond the local region, he added, pointing to local manufacturing which serves customers “from Bredenbury to Kazakhstan.”
While business helps bolster the city, Maloney did note there are challenges, in particular “our aging infrastructure and drainage.” He said both were a concern when he was first elected to Council in 2003, “and they continue to be our biggest concern in 2019.”
Still, in spite of the issues, Maloney said Council has tried to keep tax increases reasonable, at 2.9 per cent in the most recent budget, with two per cent going to operations, and the remainder to capital.
Looking at the expenditures as a percentage of a dollar in revenue, 8.24 cents goes to managing debt, said Maloney, adding that most of the Gallagher Centre debt will be retired in 2020.
Among other costs, capital takes another 16 cents of every dollar, public works 13, RCMP 14.2, and fire services 8 cents.
The average household in the city now pays $1907 in city property taxes, or $159 per month, explained Maloney.
School taxes, set by the province, but collected by the municipality add another $817 to the average tax bill.
The revenue side of the City ledger recently got some good news with the federal gas tax rebate to the city “doubling to $1.8 million,” said Maloney.
The money is a one year increase, but “hopefully the federal government will see its way to making it an annual thing,” he said.
As noted Maloney said the need to address the issue of water drainage has been a major cost of late, at $31.8 million from 2014-18.
This year $11.4 million will be invested in upgrading the drainage system to get water from Dracup Ave and York Road to York Creek where 80 per cent of the water ends up.
The work will include replacing 90-100 year old culverts with bridges on Highway #9 and on the landfill road.
This summer another a major project will be to complete the ‘shave and pave’ which was started in 2018.
Maloney said the City “really wanted to” undertake a bigger project that would have up-dated the underground infrastructure along Broadway Street, but with a cost of $52 million estimated about seven years ago that was not affordable.
“It is a very expensive project we can’t take it on on our own,” he said.
Still the repaving has addressed some of the concerns.
“The project was very well received,” said Maloney.
Another project is a new $5 million dollar cell at the landfill which is the size of six Canadian Football League fields.
The new cell has a life expectancy of five-to-10 years, and will service more than the city as more than 40 communities outside of Yorkton currently deliver to the landfill, said Maloney.
In time, Maloney said servicing other communities might even generate a profit.
“As anyone will tell you there is money in garbage,” he said.
