A big item on the agenda of last night’s city council meeting was the 2022 budget presentation.  

The proposed budget included continued funding to the Humane Society, upgrades for police and fire services, Spark Centre operations, and sidewalk and road repairs. It passed unanimously.  

Three main essential services are used in calculating the base tax, which is applied to single-family properties, Police Services which will see an increase of 5.5 percent, Fire Services with an increase of 8.5 percent, and Snow removal and street sanding with a decrease of 2.6 percent.

In this year's budget, Weyburn police will be able to transition from the 40 caliber Glocks that are 25 years old to the 9mm Glocks, and welcome a new K9 to the service. The fire department will see better fire protective clothing, an air compressor upgrade, and extrication equipment.

“I’m very pleased with administration on all the effort and work they put into it,” Councillor Dick Michel said. “Especially engineering coming up with an infrastructure plan that we lacked a few years ago. Now we have a plan of attack to fix our streets. That's very important.” 

The budget also includes a 4.58 percent increase in taxes per household, which works out to around $114.

“It’s always hard to have a tax increase.” Councillor Jeff Richards said. “This year, 4.58%, It's tough to do, but as I said the last couple years have been tough on all of us, but that doesn't mean that costs don't go up. The cost of fuel goes up, cost of Labor goes up, cost of everything goes up.” 

He adds that when you break it down, the cost of services is worth it. 

“The breakdown monthly of what it costs every household for the services that they get, all of a sudden it sounds very reasonable, right that that the cost of Fire Protection services in our city is about the same cost a month as Netflix.” 

The next City Council meeting takes place on Monday, January 24.