The City of Moose Jaw completed and approved it's 2020 operating budget just under 2 weeks ago, which included a revised version of the hospital levy.

The hospital levy, which is being renamed to an Infrastructure Levy, will be increasing by $15 per resident, and the city will be creating a specified capital reserve for the cast iron reserve fund.

Mayor Fraser Tolmie talked about the amount of money the city has spent over the last year on water main breaks, and how it relates to cast iron

"We're putting right now 2 million dollars into water main breaks because we're at a critical point because this has been left for so many years. That money has been argued that it could be put into replacing the cast iron water main lines, but then the problem is we won't have any money to deal with the emergency breaks that we have."

"We're dealing with the emergency breaks, then over time that two million dollars will be put into...- say next year we don't have two million dollars worth of water main breaks, we only have a million dollars [worth of repairs]. That unused million dollars can then be carried over."

The increase to the Infrastructure Levy will allow the city to spend $9,100,000 on the Cast Iron Watermain Replacement Program, and an additional $9,100,000 in 2021.

"So then that [money from the infrastructure levy] will be put away, and then the next year it will be another $502,000, and then after another year we will be up to almost 1.6 million dollars. Now if we get some return on our water main breaks we will have even more money for our cast iron water main projects."

The infrastructure levy wasn't the only thing that increased in the 2020 budget, there will also be a 2.3% property tax increase, as well as a 6% increase to water rates, and a 5% increase to sewer rates.