The City of Yellowknife's draft 2025 budget was presented for the first time during the Governance and Priorities Committee meeting at city hall on Tuesday.
As it stands right now, the municipality plans on spending $143.8 million in 2025, which is almost dead on last year's budget of $143.3 million. The proposed property tax rate hike is pegged right now at 7.06 per cent.
Broken down, the two main areas of spending are wages and benefits at 28 per cent while capital projects stands at 27 per cent. Operations and management (O&M) costs will consume around 23 per cent, with 11 per cent of the annual budget set aside for amortization.
Addressing the list of things residents want from the city next year, $310,000 is proposed for what the city called sports courts while added swimming lessons and safer streets were also among top concerns. However, some city councillors have already made it clear they are looking for a back-to-basics budget when it comes to new spending.
Two projects have updated estimated costs that are substantially higher than initially projected. The estimated cost for a new lift station, to move wastewater, has ballooned to more than $40 million from a revised cost of $15 million in 2022, for example. And a fire hall is now on pace to hit $20 million after originally being budgetted at $2 million.
City manager Stephen Van Dine also said in October that the $15 million to be spent on renovations and repairs for city hall might actually cost more than anticipated.
The city also expects a deficit of close to $6 million for 2026's capital fund. That number is meant to drop to about $5 million by 2027.
And the municipality still has about $18 million in loan repayments. The last loan the city took for its aquatic centre has had long-term affects, said Kavi Pandoo, the city's director of corporate services. It means that the city might not be able to borrow again for the next few years, he added.
The city projects its property tax rate will be about seven per cent in 2025 and 9.6 per cent in 2025. That follows a five per cent increase in 2024.
There will be another budget-related presentation to city council come Nov. 25 and budget deliberations begin on Dec. 2.
The public can sound off to administration between Nov. 12-24 by emailing budget@yellowknife.ca.
