Budget adjustment report recommends city further hike 2024 property tax increase by 2.1% to 8.7%
City of Edmonton administration is recommending in a report released Thursday that property taxes rise by 8.7 per cent for 2024, an increase of 2.1 per cent from the 6.6 per cent hike city council approved in December.
The city's spring operating budget adjustment report says the further increase is needed because of the increasing costs of material and labour, says the city's head of finance.
"We now have a much better sense of how much higher some of our costs will be moving forward," Stacey Padbury, the city's chief financial officer and deputy city manager of financial and corporate services, told media on Thursday.
"We can’t continue to absorb the financial impacts we’re facing this year and beyond without adjusting taxes or service levels, and it may take both strategies to ensure our long-term financial sustainability."
In December, city council approved tax increases for the remaining three years of this budget: 6.6 per cent in 2024, 5.3 per cent in 2025 and 4.7 per cent in 2026.
City staff now say just to maintain services such as transit, snow clearing and recreation at their current price points, taxes need to rise by an additional 2.1 per cent this year.
For a home worth $400,000, it means the owner would about $260 more in taxes in 2024 than they did last year.
Recent labour settlements — with the police and with the Civil Service Union — are leaving a mark on budgetary demands, too, as is spending by city council on urgent issues such as housing, climate change, homelessness and transit safety. Substantially reduced municipal funding from the province has an impact as well.
The city has been streamlining the budget in various ways since 2015, saving $2 billion in that time. Padbury says there's no fat left to trim.
"Either there’s tax increases to pay for the services that continue to get provided, or there needs to be a discussion about which services Edmontonians no longer wish to pay for," she said.
This likely isn't the end of tax increases either. The city has dipped further into its reserve to pay off its $40 million deficit from last year. That account is now well below its minimum required balance.
Padbury says the legally mandated strategy to replenish that reserve will add one more per cent in property taxes for three years.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Trump confronts repeated boos during raucous Libertarian convention speech
Donald Trump was booed repeatedly while addressing Saturday night’s Libertarian Party National Convention.
This type of screen time has the worst effect on kids: experts
According to some experts, there is one type of screen time that is continuously excessive, and it's having a severe effect on our children.
Family of toddler found dead at small-town Ont. daycare no closer to answers after year of investigation
A year has passed since two-year-old Vienna Irwin was found on the property of a home-based daycare in small-town Ontario, but her family says they are no closer to answers of what happened that day.
Grayson Murray, two-time PGA Tour winner, dead at 30
Two-time PGA Tour winner Grayson Murray died Saturday morning at age 30, one day after he withdrew from the Charles Schwab Cup Challenge at Colonial.
Humboldt Broncos crash victims and families react to decision to deport truck driver
The family of one of the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018 says they are 'thankful' for a decision by a Calgary immigration board to deport the driver of the truck involved.
Fatal plane crash reported near Squamish, B.C.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has confirmed it is working with local Mounties and the BC Coroners Service after a plane crash near Squamish, B.C. Friday night.
'God forgives but we don’t': Loud outburst from stabbing victim’s family during sentencing hearing
An emotional outburst in a London, Ont. courtroom Friday disrupted the sentencing hearing of a woman who pleaded guilty for her part in the death of 29-year-old Mohammed Abdallah.
Three dead after vehicle plunged down a 100-foot embankment in Shediac, N.B.
Three people have died after a vehicle veered off the road in Shediac N.B., Friday morning.
Appeal denied for Edmonton soldier accused of trying to kill her 3 children
An Edmonton woman found guilty of trying to kill her three children has been denied an appeal.