City's Long Term Debt Over $52 Million

Without any further comment or questions the enquiry into City’s outstanding debt was answered and filed.

In a written response to an earlier enquiry by Acting Mayor Dawn Luhning the Department of Financial Services provided an update to the major debts owed by the City.

In a spreadsheet (pictured below) the City of Moose Jaw’s major debt obligations at the present time is $52,579,960 on four main loans.

The loans are for the Multi-Plex, Sanitary Sewer Funding, Waterworks Funding and the Buffalo Pound (Water Plant) Corporation.

The one time highly controversial Multi-Plex still has $13,307,000 owing with $12,178,358 so far spent on interest for the $20,828,000 loan with a 5.03 percent interest rate on the 25 year term loan ending in 2034.

The Multi-Plex, which includes Mosaic Place and the Field House, was highly controversial with two hotly contested referendums aimed at stopping the project as it was seen by a large percentage of the population as too expensive for the City to finance and money needed to be spent on other infrastructure.

The Multi-Plex project after its building has remained controversial and has endured three scandals ranging from financial, an alleged sexual harassment case and a ticketing company that rode off with hundreds of thousands of ticket receipts the City decided to honour with gift certificates in order to restore faith in the facility.

The Sanitary Sewer Funding has $2,841,000 outstanding on an initial $16,700,000 loan taken out in 2008 with a 4.64 percent interest rate. The loan is scheduled to be paid off in July 2023.

As part of that funding an upgraded sewer line was built on Caribou Street West to service the then XL Beef plant. There was talk of XL Beef helping to finance the sewer line as previously numerous residents had their basements fill with bloody water but with the demise of XL Beef and their moving operations to Brooks, Alberta no funding for the line was paid to the City.

Funding for Waterworks owes $25,773,000 on a $30,000,000 initial loan taken out at a 3.59 percent interest rate in 2018.

A major portion of this funding was to construct a new upgraded waterline from the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Plant and related upgrades. The initial steel waterline was near its end of life (50 years) cycle.

The final loan outstanding is the City’s need to upgrade its portion and share at the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment plant. The City is responsible for a share of the plant upgrades under a deal inked with the City of Regina which uses the plant to get the majority of its potable water.