Business groups put pressure on city to find savings during budget adjustment

Edmonton City Hall can be seen in this undated file photo. (File)

As city council prepares to talk about the budget – and next year's property tax increase – local business groups say they're here to help address Edmonton's slumping finances.

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The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce (ECC), the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Edmonton and the Commercial Real Estate Development Association met with council on Wednesday.

"Edmonton is at a crossroads with proposed property tax increases of 8.1 per cent in 2025 and 6.3 per cent in 2026, the financial burden on families, citizens, businesses is becoming unsustainable," said ECC president and CEO Doug Griffiths.

"They threaten our city's competitiveness and place undue strain on families and businesses."

The group said it presented the city with "actionable" ways to improve the city's financial situation. Those include cuts to non-essential services, though the group didn't want to offer specifics, as well as a sizable cash injection for the downtown core.

"Every single dollar invested in downtown development generates up to $3 in new economic activity. A thriving downtown is not just about aesthetics, it's about economic returns," Griffiths said.

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi responded to the recommendations, saying the city would not stop building recreation centres or other facilities that improve "quality of life" in Edmonton – but he agrees changes need to be made.

"We need to build them better," he added. "We need to build them cost-effective, and we need to build them in a way that they are well functioning and sustainable for the long run," Sohi said.

He said the city is focused on core services – like housing, transit and public safety – all of which the ECC has previously called for added investment in.

"They're also asking us to invest close to a billion dollars in downtown that we don't have," Sohi said.

"If they want us to be disciplined, which we are, then they also need to stop asking for additional investments into areas that are non-essential at this time."

The group said it's also calling on the city to review infrastructure requirements and find out why Edmonton projects are costing so much.

"Our fire stations cost $27 million, whereas they cost in the neighbourhood of six to seven on the other side of the line in Leduc County," Griffiths said. "It's not to say that we can't have nice things, but there is a limit."

A report submitted to council on Wednesday identified timing and escalation as the greatest driver of additional costs on city projects, something Sohi and Ward pihêsiwin Coun. Tim Cartmell both agreed needs to be changed.

"When you take away the cost of all the materials and all the labor that is building a building, all of the administrative cost should be somewhere between four and six per cent, and it's 12 … it's in the time we take to get something shovel ready," he said.

While the report identified several factors behind the ballooning budgets, Cartmell said it failed to point to which specific policies are to blame. 

He would like to see the budget looked at line by line to find out what exactly is inflating taxes. Then, he said, the whole system needs an overhaul.

"We're going to talk about tweaking and pulling and pushing here over the next couple of weeks and if we get the percentage of increase down by a couple of percentages, we'll call ourselves heroes and go home for Christmas.

"That is not going to work here, that is not the repair that we need."

The two weeks of budget talks are set to begin on Monday.