The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has analyzed how much money small- and medium-sized Saskatchewan cities spent per person in 2021 and determined that the City of Moose Jaw’s spending landed roughly in the middle.
Moose Jaw’s spending per person ranked ninth out of 14 cities — excluding Regina and Saskatoon — in the province, based on total expenses divided by population, according to a CTF report that reviewed municipalities’ financial statements.
The CTF calculated that based on total expenses of $84,260,577 and a population of 33,665 two years ago, Canada’s Most Notorious City had per person spending of $2,503.
In 2020, Moose Jaw’s spending per person was $2,232, based on $75.1 million in total expenses and a population of 33,665. This represents a year-over-year increase of $271 in per person spending.
In 2019, Moose Jaw’s per person spending was about $2,100.
Meanwhile, Moose Jaw’s per person revenue in 2021 — taxes and user fees collected — was $3,395 based on $114.2 million in total revenues, compared to $2,258 in per person revenue in 2020 based on $96.2 million in total revenue. This represents a year-over-year increase of $1,137 in per person revenue.
“(Moose Jaw) taxpayers need to pressure councillors to make sure spending doesn’t start to rise. Moose Jaw is doing better than other cities, but it needs to keep spending under control,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF’s Prairie director.
Provincially, in 2021, Swift Current had the highest per person spending at $3,741, followed by Yorkton at $3,108 per person, while Martensville had the lowest per person spending at $1,794.
The average per person spending amongst small- and medium-sized municipalities in 2021 was $2,635.
Haubrich told the Moose Jaw Express that CTF highlighted Moose Jaw because council has kept spending “relatively low” compared to other municipalities like Swift Current and Yorkton.
“So relative to them, Moose Jaw did pretty well. But, of course, we always want to caution against giving them (council) too much credit because spending has gone up a bit,” he said. “So we’re always going to caution them to keep spending under control and make sure it doesn’t rise too much.”
The CTF obtained every municipality’s financial statement through freedom of information requests.
In its report, “Which Saskatchewan municipalities spent the most of our tax dollars?” the federation explained it pursued this project because it believed taxpayers deserved to know how their mayors and councillors were spending their tax dollars — transparency, essentially.
The organization pointed out that the provincial government used to publish municipalities’ annual financial statements on its website — it is the law to submit the documents — but discontinued the practice in 2008. It promised to install a new system in 2021 but hasn’t done it yet.
Since the province has failed to collect financial statements in one spot, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation acquired the documents and posted them to its website.
It’s important for taxpayers to know this information because municipal governments are sometimes forgotten about compared to provincial and federal spending, Haubrich told the Express. Residents need to realize their city also spends plenty of tax dollars.
Haubrich added that other provinces, such as Alberta and Ontario, have web portals where taxpayers can access their municipality’s financial documents, so the CTF hoped the Saskatchewan government would do something similar.
For more information visit www.taxpayer.com.
