February 24, 2025

The 2025 budget for the Town of Lanigan was approved by Council at their regular meeting of February 24, 2025. The 2025 budget results in total estimated revenues of $3.6 million, estimated general expenditures of $3.9 million, capital expenditures of $2.1 million and a transfer of unappropriated surplus of $400,000.

The 2025 Budget review process included a comparative history of 2021-2023 actual, 2024 projected results and forecasting 2025-2027, although the recommended budget approval is for the 2025 financial year alone. The purpose of forecasting 2026-2027 is for Council and Administration to gain a better understanding of what the short-term future looks like, especially as compared to Council’s recently adopted priorities, which include:

1. Zoning Bylaw Review
2. Residential Development
3. Daycare Expansion
4. Highway Commercial Development
5. Arts, Culture & Recreation Needs Analysis

Following are some of the highlights of the 2025 budget approved by Council:

• 2025 will continue to focus on staff training and retention to ensure that we have the necessary resources to continue current service delivery levels.
• 2024 included review of many policies and bylaws, which will now be brought to Council during 2025 for Council review and consideration of changes.
• Development readiness was a significant focus in 2024 and will continue in 2025 as we are starting to see an increased interest in new residential and commercial development in Lanigan.
• Completion of the Lanigan Water Park slide, which will be operational for the 2025 season.
• Completion of the access roads for the new school, which is proposed to be operational in May 2025.
• Demolition for the former swimming pool and tennis court.
• Construction of a new 90 space daycare facility in cooperation with the Lanigan Cooperative Daycare.
• Pavement assessment of the entire community was completed by BCL Engineering in 2024, which will guide future pavement maintenance, repair and replacement investment. Over the past four years, on average, approximately $200,000 per year has been spent on pavement maintenance, repair and/or replacement. This investment will be doubled in 2025 to $400,000, then increased to $450,000 in 2026 and $500,000 in 2027.
• Any major street reconstruction will be reliant on available provincial and/or federal infrastructure grants. For example, we know that Munster Street infrastructure is in poor condition, above and below ground. The estimated cost to address all infrastructure on Munster Street is in the $2.0 million range and we don’t anticipate any new infrastructure grant funding availability in 2025. Munster Street reconstruction was also deferred due to the new school construction, upcoming demolition of the former swimming pool and now construction of the new daycare facility. We are targeting on Munster Street in 2026, potentially as a multi year project.

There will be an impact on property taxation, which may result in a 6% property tax increase in 2025. However, that is yet to be fully determined due to 2025 being an assessment revaluation year. Assessment revaluation, also referred to as reassessment, takes place every four years in Saskatchewan. The 2025 property assessment will be based on 2023 property values, which are likely to have increased since the last revaluation in 2021 and then based on 2019 property values. There was also reinspection completed by SAMA (Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency) in 2024 in Lanigan that did identify some buildings that were not previously assessed. The overall result of the revaluation is not yet known and assuming that property values have increased, there will be a need to review the current tax tools used by the Town of Lanigan, including an adjustment to the current mill rate. This review will take place once the 2025 property assessment values have been received, which will likely be sometime in March or April.

The following table demonstrates annual, five-year and ten-year CPI inflation rates (%) as compared to the annual, five-year and ten-year history of property tax increases (%) from 2015 to 2024. On the ten-year average, CPI has slightly outpaced property tax increases.

	2015		2016		2017		2018		2019	2020		2021		2022		2023		2024
CPI	1.1%		1.4%		1.6%		2.3%		1.9%	0.7%		3.4%		6.8%		3.9%		2.4%
Avg	1.66%/year									3.44%/year
Avg	2.55%/year
P Tax*	3.0%	4.8%		2.1%		1.8%		2.1%			0%		-0.5%		10.5%		0%		0%
Avg	2.76%/year										2.0%/year
Avg	2.38%/year

* Property Tax

Note: CPI does not necessarily reflect the impact of price increases on goods, supplies and/or services related to the municipal field or construction industry; however, it is important to consider CPI from a consumer (taxpayer) perspective when contemplating any increases to property taxes. It would be fair to say that price increases in the municipal field and construction industry have far exceeded CPI over the past ten years and this table demonstrates that property tax increases have not kept pace with CPI over this period, let alone other cost increases. This simply means that the revenue stream is not and will not keep pace with cost increases if the same pattern were to continue.

Please download the 2025 Budget Highlights here.