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BATTLEFORD - The Town of Battleford's administration is proposing a two-fold budget for 2025.

The budget was presented by Finance Manager Tetiana Polishchuk at the Jan. 15 public budget deliberation meeting.

"There is zero per cent increase proposed to the operational taxation," Mayor Ames Leslie said following the meeting. "It's not a zero per cent tax increase because the proposal is for a $100 infrastructure levy to be added. So, the cost of the taxation in the town is going to go up by $100, but the operational taxation portion has been balanced at zero [per cent increase]."

The $100 levy will be directed to savings to help fund the building of future infrastructure in the town of Battleford.

"We have proposed a new fire hall that's been identified in the town that is needed," the mayor said. "There are talks of the Battleford District Care Centre that needs to be replaced, which the town is responsible to fund the capital expense of that. Our hockey rink is proposed that it's needing $2 million to $3 million worth of improvements. We have continual asset improvements to the Fred Light Museum that are required. As well, there are always other things that need to be built. The structure of this building - the Town Hall - is going to need future investment as well.

"So this money is identified to strictly go towards being saved for those projects," Leslie added. "The day when things will need to be done, the town will have money in the bank to address those facilities or the building of new ones, without having to exponentially have to raise taxation to do renovations or build new products. It's going to be very prudent in a proactive way to make sure the funds are there."

Town administration is also recommending a number of projects for the town to work on in the 2025 budget.

Among the projects, the town aims to look at increasing the scope and the size of one of its storm sewers to improve its efficiency.

"When we have large precipitation events, quite often you'll see around what is referred to as Central School the water pools," Leslie said. "So, we need to increase some of our ability to extract the water off our streets. Improving the flow of our sewer and increasing the size of our sewer is one of those ways that have been identified. It's been something that the utilities department and the works department have been has been addressing, and this is just the next stage."

Other proposed projects include plans to work on replacing some sidewalks on 22 Street in Battleford. As well, workers will completely resurface 34 Street. This work is part of the town's Battleford Asphalt Improvement Levy (BAIL) program.    

Leslie also mentioned there will be no increase to taxpayers for the town's utilities - water or sewer -  in the proposed budget.

Council members asked questions during the deliberation meeting to clarify various items in the budget. 

Next, council will vote on the proposed 2025 budget at its next regular meeting on Jan. 20.

"The budget will come back," Leslie said. "We'll look at doing some minor tweaks, just to make sure it balances, and it will come back to council as part of the council meeting Monday for one final review, and [to see if] there are any questions, and look to be approved."  

"Like I said at the last meeting, we're about a month behind," he added. "This should have been approved on the Dec. 16 meeting, but the election and some of the subsequent reviews and recounts kind of pushed this back. My goal is to have it done, so the tenders and RFPs [requests for proposals] we can get out to make sure that we are maximizing our spend, getting them out for the contracts, for the sewer project or the paving. The longer it waits, the farther down the line we come in getting these projects done, which at times can convert to costing more money to do those projects. So, it is this council's belief we need to get this budget passed as quickly as we possibly can now that we've spent some time diving through it. Hopefully, on Jan. 20 we get that done." 

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