North Battleford ranks third highest for cities with most per-person spending

He noted through a Freedom of Information Request, the CTF obtained the financial statements for all RMs, towns, cities, and villages in Saskatchewan, and ranked them by their per person spending limits.

“When we did this, we found that North Battleford spends the third-most out of all small- and medium-sized cities in the province,” Haubrich said. “That means the taxpayers have to go up to their [municipal] councillors and ask whether they are getting the value for the money that the government is spending. Are city taxpayers in North Battleford getting $2,900 of value, compared to services happening in Moose Jaw or Prince Albert that are spending much less? So, we got to check it out with this report.”

The total expenses for the City of North Battleford amounted to $41,355,367. For the population of 13,836, that amounts to about $2,989 per person in 2021, according to the study available online here .

In comparison, the average city only spent about $2,600 per person.

Haubrich said North Battleford is spending about $300 more per person than the average city.

“The taxpayers need to ask: ‘Where that money is going; why can other cities do the same for less; and why are we getting this extra spending?'” he said.

Now that the study is completed, the CTF hopes it will be easier for taxpayers to compare spending in cities and towns across the province.

“We’ve set up an online database where taxpayers can go and look at the financial statements from any municipality across the province, and find out what is being spent so they can decide whether or not they are getting value for their taxpayer dollars,” Haubrich said. “Unfortunately, we had to do this, at the Taxpayers Federation. The [Saskatchewan] government used to post financial statements for all municipalities on the internet. But they have derelicted their duty in doing that in the past couple of years. So, what we are also doing is calling on them to keep doing that in the future, so the taxpayers have that resource.”

For small- and medium-sized cities, Swift Current came in with the highest at $3,741 per person spending. Yorkton, the second highest at $3,108 per person spending.

Meadow Lake landed around the middle of the ranking, with $2,585 in per-person spending, with a population of 5,322.

Lloydminster was sixth highest on the list, a little above the middle of the ranking, with per-person spending of $2,726, with a population of 31,582.

North Battleford City Manager Randy Patrick issued a statement to battlefordsNOW in response to the City of North Battleford’s higher ranking on the CTF study.

“The City of North Battleford has unique spending priorities that are vastly different from other municipalities’ priorities,” he said. “For example, as a City, North Battleford spends more per resident on Community Safety than most communities.

“As the hub location for the region’s premiere recreational facilities, the City, and by extension, its residents, provides services to numerous communities,” Patrick added. “These recreational facilities are unparalleled in other similarly-sized communities. Interestingly, the City’s spending in 2017 as compared to 2021 has overall increased from $41,355,367 to $41,431,386 – which equates to about $6.00 per resident. In addition, in 2021, the City incurred an additional cost of approximately $1 million for RCMP costs, or the equivalency of $72 per person.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow

by Angela Brown

North Battleford ranks third highest for cities with most per-person spending

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