Addressing our gaps: While the City is currently financially stable, we are operating under a system of funding from hundreds of years ago. Cities across the country are finding it challenging to sustainably fund their programs and services. That is why I asked Administration to come to Council with a report on how to address our fiscal gap. The report has 11 recommendations that Council will assess and action to get us off the rollercoaster of tax increases.
See my OpEd on this report in the Edmonton Journal.

‍Advocating for fair funding: I continue to advocate to the Provincial Government to reinstate the Grant in Place of Tax Program retroactively to 2019, as well as advocate for equitable funding for maintaining provincial highways within the City of Edmonton limits, as well as provincial support for major infrastructure projects, like Calgary’s downtown arena. Council has already committed to using the tax payments owed to us by the provincial government to directly lower the tax rate if they are paid.

‍Comprehensive Review of Budget Process for the Future:  Our Council must address systemic budget issues that challenge our ability to meet the needs of a growing and dynamic city. This requires a comprehensive review of our budgeting process to ensure transparency, efficiency, and alignment with our priorities. Council must also evaluate our programs and services to confirm they are delivering value and meeting the expectations of Edmontonians. Read more in my letter to Council.

Challenges like inflationary impacts, rapid population growth and changing service needs mean that we are delivering services beyond what our current budget can support. That’s not sustainable and we need to make changes to our budget in response.

City Council approved a number of adjustments to the 2023-2026 budget on April 23, 2024 to arrive at property tax levy increases of 8.9% in 2024, 7.0% in 2025 and 6.3% in 2026. The average tax increase in the last decade (2015-2024) was 3.5%.

During the pandemic, the City kept tax increases below inflation, including a decrease of -0.3% in 2021 and a 1.9% increase in 2022, which was the lowest increase among major cities in Canada.

Over the past decade, the City has worked hard to find efficiencies and savings to keep taxes manageable without significantly impacting services. Since 2015, these efforts have resulted in a cumulative savings of $1.9 billion.

The budget is our plan for investing taxes and other funding to provide 70 services and more than 200 construction projects for Edmontonians.

We’ve identified 44 different variances in our budget where services are either costing more or not bringing in as much revenue as budgeted. Together, they add up to $88 million, which if we solved through a tax increase would have brought us to a 13% tax increase this year, but we had no plans to do that. 

Instead, we’ve looked at bringing the services in line with the budget. It takes time to do this and realize the savings. Our Fall budget recommendations will reduce these variances by $29 million.

Finding efficiencies is essential, but cutting corners is not. Short-term sacrifices in core service areas will lead to long-term consequences for our City.

My priority is to protect core services like public transit, affordable housing and community safety that directly support working families, seniors and youth, ensuring no one is left behind.

Our investments have produced results. Overall crime is down, transit ridership is at historic levels, we are seeing record housing starts, and we have invested the highest amount for climate action of any Council ever.