By KEVIN BERGER, Local Journalism Initiative
Two roadwork projects near Delisle and Aberdeen, plus funding to advance planning for the replacement of the Rosthern Hospital, are some of the local impacts from the provincial 2025-2026 Budget.
On March 19, Finance Minister Jim Reiter tabled a balanced provincial budget that projects a small surplus of $12.2 million after taking in $21.056 billion in revenue and spending $21.043 billion.
In an e-mail, Warman MLA Terry Jenson acknowledged that this was a “very unpredictable time,” so having a balanced budget puts the province in a strong financial position “to weather the storm as it pertains to comes from tariffs that might be imposed by the U.S. government.”
Notably, the budget makes good on the Saskatchewan Party’s election promises to reduce income taxes by raising the basic personal, spousal and dependent child exemptions and seniors supplement by $500 per year.
The Active Families Benefit refundable tax credit has also been doubled to $300, the Home Renovation Tax Credit has been reinstated allowing homeowners to save up to $420 annually and the Disability Tax Credit and Caregiver Tax Credit has been increased by 25 per cent.
Health care and education spending have gone up to $8.1 billion and $3.5 billion respectively, which represent increases of 6.4% and 5.5%.
While not a big-ticket item like health care or education, this budget also included more than $800 million to help ensure safer communities, including $679.4 million for the Ministry of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety, $118.9 million for the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency and $8.8 million for the Saskatchewan Firearms Office.
Jenson said that while knocking on doors last fall in the lead-up to the provincial election, he heard often that the priorities of residents in his constituency are improved health care, education, public safety and affordability.
“This is a budget that increases investments in those areas and also contains the largest personal income tax cut since 2008,” he said.
Incidentally, funding for social services (which Jenson is the minister of) was also increased in this budget to just over $1.61 billion. Among the new initiatives include $11 million to increase the Saskatchewan Income Support (SIS) and Saskatchewan Assured Income for Disability (SAID) monthly benefits by 2%.
Another $10 million is going towards increasing the Personal Care Home Benefit to $3,500 a month, while Food Banks Saskatchewan will receive a $1 million grant.
Local impacts
The Ministry of Highways’ budget now stands at $777 million, which will include improvements to more than 1,000 kilometres of provincial highways.
This includes repaving of nine kilometres of road along Highway 7 north of Delisle and 17 kilometres of “seal coating” along Highway 27 east of Aberdeen and Vonda.
Seal coating is when hot liquid asphalt and crushed gravel are applied to a highway surface to reduce deterioration and cracking.
In total, there is $4 billion in spending on capital projects, making it the largest total capital budget in Saskatchewan’s history.
Among these projects is $250,000 to advance planning for the replacement of the Rosthern Hospital. According to the Ministry of Health, this funding will be used to support project management, technical analysis and business case advisory services.
“This work will be done in partnership between the Ministry of SaskBuilds and Procurement, the Ministry of Health, the Saskatchewan Health Authority, the Town of Rosthern and surrounding communities…and foundations, including the Rosthern Hospital Foundation and the Sask Valley Hospital Foundation,” the ministry stated in an e-mail.
The budget also includes funding to facilitate the planning of a new South Corman Park School, which is part of the Prairie Spirit School Division.
According to PSSD communication manager Brenda Erickson, a major renovation of the school was approved in last year’s budget, which would change the building from a K-8 school to a K-12 school.
This would be a completely new K-12 school, Erickson said, adding, “This project is in its very early stages and we are waiting for direction on next steps from the Ministry of Education.”