It’s that time of the year again, folks. It’s budget time.
If you’re here for my usual historical look back, that’ll return next week. This week, I wanted to use my allocated space in the paper to talk about my other passion, municipal politics.
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If you follow any of the news coverage I normally partake in, you’ll realize I love the goings-on in council chambers.
Nov. 5 blessed us with the first 2026 budget deliberations. Every year, the City of Lloydminster is required to present an entirely balanced budget. At a municipal level, they cannot run a deficit, meaning there’s a lot of work on administration and council to cut their costs.
It’s also required the budget is passed by Dec. 31, meaning they have little time from presentation to passing to finalize it. As I said last year and I say quite often, I am very happy to sit on this side of the table. As opposed to being someone who has the technical skill and knowledge to crunch the numbers and build a solid budget, I simply get to judge it.
Lloydminster faces an increase in taxes of 3.9 per cent. For most people, any tax increase is too high. If you’re looking at just an inflationary increase of roughly two per cent, the city’s increase outside of that would amount to 1.9 per cent. Every one per cent of tax increase is about $500K in the pocket of the city. Which, when you’re trying to fund multi-million-dollar projects, is a drop in the bucket.
It’s also important to note Nov. 5 was a governance and priorities committee meeting, it’s a committee that doesn’t make decisions. If the budget were to pass, it would have to be during a regular council meeting. Also, to pass the tax increase, council will pass a bylaw later in 2026 to set it in stone.
Budget talks are still in their early phases, as council had an opportunity to discuss and ask questions surrounding the budget. Council, along with administration, have to work to figure out what are the most important projects that need to be completed. While people will criticize the city for wasteful spending, unfunded capital projects frighten me quite a bit.
The reason being, there’s things that need to happen in the city. Road improvements, building fixes, sewer maintenance, and the city has to carefully pick what they fund. Under current leadership, the city has done well to balance what projects they move forward with and how much they put back into reserves. Mayor and council also spend time in the ear of provincial and federal officials trying to get the word out about what Lloydminster needs.
That doesn’t include the complexities we face as a bi-provincial city. Unfortunately, grants are often calculated based on what side of the border you’re on. Populations in Lloydminster, Alta., and Lloydminster, Sask., are used to figure out how much we get from grants, even though we’re one city.
Another point I really want to touch on is budget engagement. The city spends quite a bit of time in the community trying to get people engaged with how the city’s spending and hear what people want to see. Often, these ventures turn up little feedback. Personally, I filled out the survey and always made a point of stopping at the booths to let them know I want to see more museum funding. I encourage everyone to get engaged with budget surveys, provide your feedback and help city officials make important decisions.
I commend the city on the work they did to bring down the municipal tax increase and provide a solid budget for 2026. There’s plenty of work left to do and I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say about the budget.
I also invite anyone who’s interested in coming to a council meeting to see it first-hand. The budget will likely return on Nov. 24 for further discussion and possible decision.
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