YORKTON, Sask. — The City of Yorkton is pushing back against suggestions it has a spending problem after a Canadian Taxpayers Federation report ranked the city third highest in Saskatchewan for per-person municipal spending.
The report found Yorkton spent $3,298 per resident in 2024, behind only Swift Current and North Battleford among the province's cities. Melville ranked fifth at $3,129 per person.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation said residents should question why their municipalities are spending more than most others in Saskatchewan.
“Yorkton and Melville taxpayers need to ask councillors why they are spending more per person than almost every other city in the province,” said CTF Prairie director Gage Haubrich in a news release.
City of Yorkton director of finance Ashley Stradeski said the report provides useful information but does not tell the full story because it focuses solely on expenses and not how projects are funded.
“This kind of report looks at spending, but it doesn't look at the revenue side of things,” said Stradeski. “If we get a big grant for $25 or $30 million and then spend that appropriately on whatever it was granted for, that counts as spending. That doesn't mean taxpayers' taxes increased by a huge amount.”
Stradeski said Yorkton has undertaken several major infrastructure projects in recent years, including the York Road reconstruction project, which he described as the largest construction project in the city's history.
“Those are investments in our community,” he said. “The chart's not wrong. We are spending more, but those are investments in our community.”
He said future projects could push the city's ranking even higher, pointing to plans for a new wastewater treatment plant expected to cost more than $300 million.
“I suspect that when we complete this wastewater treatment plant that we just got record grant funding for, that thing's going to be north of $300 million,” he said. “That's going to put us right to the top of the list, but I would say that's a good thing because we're getting federal and provincial funding to help us with one of our biggest needs.”
Stradeski also argued that comparing municipalities based strictly on spending can be misleading because cities provide different services.
He noted that some communities with lower spending figures do not operate their own water and wastewater systems, while Swift Current operates its own electrical utility.
“The numbers are true and factual, but we do need to pay attention to what makes them that way,” he said.
While Yorkton's spending ranked near the top of the provincial list, Stradeski said the city's tax increases have remained comparatively modest.
“I think over the last 10 years probably our average tax increase has been right around that three per cent mark, which kind of matches inflation,” he said. “In the last bit of the last council term and this council term, we're ranking below or well below the average of the cities in Saskatchewan.”
Stradeski pointed to grant funding as a key factor in allowing the city to complete major infrastructure projects without placing the full cost on local taxpayers.
The York Road reconstruction project carried a budget of approximately $25 million, including about $4.5 million in provincial funding, he said. A previous North Outfall project, valued at roughly $13 million, received about two-thirds of its funding from provincial and federal governments.
“We do get a lot of grant funding, and we're going to continue to try to get grant funding for these major infrastructure projects,” said Stradeski.
He added that discussions about municipal spending can help residents better understand how local governments balance infrastructure needs with affordability.
“Every year we look at our tax increase, and that's the number it boils down to,” he said. “How do we keep it as affordable for citizens as possible while making those necessary investments to keep the water flowing and wastewater working and that kind of thing?”
