City taxpayers were given a bit of a break on Thursday evening, when city council reduced the municipal tax increase from four per cent to 1.25 per cent for 2003.

Council held a budget review meeting, and had planned to extend the review to two evenings to complete the budgetary process, but were able to cut the extra expenditures in the budget in the one meeting, which will require a tax increase of just over one per cent to cover them. The budget ended at being $52,500 in spending over revenues.

For residents who have paid their tax bills early, the difference will be credited to their account, said city manager Bob Smith, noting for most homeowners the credit would be about $21-25.

The increase for an average $80,000 home in the city will be $10.86 a year or 90 cents a month, bringing the year's municipal tax bill to $880.54, or $73.37 a month (not including school taxes). For each $10,000 in property value, the tax increase is worth $1.35 a year; for example, a home worth $30,000 would see a total increase of $4.05 on the year, or 34 cents a month.

The meeting wasn't without controversy, as councillors had to defend some of the cuts against accusations of bias, and some proposed cuts were not approved.

Prior to making the cuts, some new spending had to be added to the budget, including $17,000 to the snow removal budget, mainly caused by two spring snow storms which blanketed the city in heavy wet snow; staffing costs of $3,000 for the Turner Curling Museum; an addition of $1,700 for the outdoor rink; $3,050 for 50 per cent of the cost to put new shale on a ball diamond at Jubilee Park, split with Minor Ball; and $3,000 to improve the lighting for City Hall's archives room in the facility's basement.

An increase is anticipated for the city's natural gas costs, but it wasn't included in the budget, said the city manager. Coun. Rob Stephanson noted that SaskEnergy announced a hike of 22 per cent for natural gas to take effect on Thursday, May 1.

A number of budget cuts were suggested by administration, but few of them were acceptable to council, including reducing street cleaning, which would have saved the city $16,000; delaying new lights at the airport for a year, which would have saved $2,500; cutting the pickup of lawn and garden refuse, which would have saved $5,000; and cutting the three free days of disposal at the city landfill, worth an estimated $3,000.

The biggest saving to the budget came when Mayor Don Schlosser proposed using $62,000 from reserves for the city's portion of a shared-funding grant for Tatagwa Parkway, rather than from general revenues. He noted these are matching dollars from the province available for a limited time.

Another big cut was a proposed $25,000 to do some upgrades to the Signal Hill Arts Centre, over and above its normal yearly program and maintenance budget.

Coun. Ray Hamm said a meeting had been held with arts centre users about this item, and was told by the groups they felt the building is in fairly good shape right now. In addition, he was told replacing the windows in the centre may not provide the energy savings they originally had hoped for.

Opposing this cut was Coun. George Kalman, as he felt this cut was a slight against one of the few facilities on the South Hill operated by the city.

"I find it interesting; Signal Hill is a heritage building, and we're cutting back on this, and on the T.C. Douglas building and on the water tower. Why are we taking all these cuts on heritage buildings when we should be looking after them?," he asked.

"If we're going to get down to a zero increase, some cuts have to be made," answered Coun. Dick Michel.

Mayor Schlosser pointed out that the T.C. Douglas Centre is looked after by a volunteer board, and the water tower had been painted a couple of years ago.

"I would like to bring to council's attention that Signal Hill is the only building that is operational by the city on the south side of town. We've had a lot of buildings on this (north) side of town. I think it's very important to keep this building going. It's a tourist attraction. It would be very negligent by this council to take that $25,000 away, when we're looking at spending $1.5 million on the Colosseum which is only 40 years old," said Kalman.

The city has spent over $700,000 on Signal Hill since they took over the building in 1983, noted the mayor; Coun. Stephanson added there is $90,000 budgeted for the facility for programming and maintenance already.

Coun. Debra Button also recalled that Coun. Kalman had suggested at council retreat that the Signal Hill program could be moved to where the Turner Curling Museum is located.

"It's surprising how you have different statements in committee than you make in public," added the mayor, going on to decry how the councillor seems to be trying to split the city.

"What you're trying to do is work the South Hill against the other side. That's not the reason why we're here; we're here for the betterment of the City of Weyburn.

"No one is trying to destroy anything," added Coun. Bill Rudachyk, saying it was untrue that the council was working against the South Hill. The motion to cut the $25,000 was passed 6-1.

A proposal to replace the sign at the Colosseum for $10,000 was also cut from the budget, along with $5,000 for the start to a training tower for the Fire Department, and $3,000 from a $4,000 account to buy new tables and a desk for City Hall.

On the proposal to reduce street cleaning, Mayor Schlosser objected, saying, "I feel our residents are used to seeing our streets clean and I feel we'd be taking a step backwards. Next thing we'll be talking about cutting back on snow removal."

"We've had a tradition of being a very pleasant-looking clean community, and we stick out our chests in pride when visitors remark how clean our community is. They feel this community is exceptional in that way," commented Coun. Ray Hamm. Motions to cut the street cleaning by $16,000 and by $8,000 were both defeated, with the latter by a close 4-3 vote.

The two items related to the city cleanup campaign were vigorously defended by Coun. Button, who pointed out the city's cleanliness was noted by the delegation from Wal-Mart when they paid a visit to the city.

Coun. Stephanson, who formerly chaired the cleanup campaign, said residents will still make the effort to clean up the city even if there aren't free dropoff days at the landfill.

An attempt to cut a proposed $6,000 equipment trailer for the Fire Department was defeated, after Chief Denis Pilon explained that currently emergency equipment is scattered on two or three trucks and in storage rather than in one convenient place. As an example, he brought in a hazardous materials kit in a battered case, and said this condition was due to the lack of an adequate place to store or carry this equipment.

The last cut which was approved was for gravel worth $4,500, which brought the expenditures down to $52,500.