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2023-26 Edmonton Budget

Proposed operating budget focuses on maintaining services, financing transformational projects​

November 3, 2022

City Administration has released the 2023-2026 Proposed Operating Budget, the second of four budgets that City Council will consider and finalize over the next six weeks.

The budget lays out the City’s proposal for the programs and services it will deliver to Edmontonians over the next four years. It focuses on maintaining the services that Edmontonians need and expect, and delivering the transformational projects that will help to achieve the City’s long-term goals.

“The Proposed 2023-2026 Operating Budget balances the needs and aspirations of Edmontonians with economic realities and pandemic recovery,” said Andre Corbould, City Manager. “We understand the financial pressures that Edmontonians are facing, and we have worked hard to maintain service levels while keeping tax levels as affordable as possible.”

“The City acted quickly at the outset of the pandemic to reduce City budgets and set up a reserve fund to manage the costs associated with the impacts of COVID-19,” said Stacey Padbury, Chief Financial Officer. ”Those financial strategies were effective and, while the City is in good financial shape going into the next budget cycle, we are feeling the effects of economic uncertainty, high inflation, rising costs and reduced revenues.”

The proposed budget calls for annual revenues and expenditures to range from $3.2 billion in 2023 to $3.5 billion in 2026 and includes:
  • $14.3 million over four years to grow existing services to serve a growing city, including funding for the next municipal election.
  • $92.8 million over four years for new or enhanced services, including those that respond to emerging needs like the Downtown Vibrancy Strategy and the Chinatown Strategy.
  • $57.2 million over four years to fund operations for new fire stations, improvements to 911, implementation of the safe mobility strategy, new LRT lines, improved air and surface purification systems on public transit, another phase of Nature’s Wild Backyard at the Valley Zoo and the planning needed to open the new recreation centre at Lewis Farms.
  • $7 million increase to the base budget for the Edmonton Police Service in 2023, which equates to $28 million over 4 years. The increase is based on an updated funding formula, which accounts for the impacts of inflation and population growth.

After years of tax increases lower than consumer inflation, a slightly higher increase is needed now. This proposed budget will require annual property tax rate increases of 3.9 per cent, each year, from 2023 to 2026. This comes out to about $718 for every $100,000 of Edmontonians’ assessed property value in 2023—an increase of $27 compared to 2022.

The 2023-2026 Proposed Operating Budget will be presented to Council on November 14. It is one of four proposed budgets—capital, operating and two utility budgets—that Council will consider this fall. The City also released a Carbon Budget for the first time to provide a holistic view of the carbon impacts for requests in the capital, operating and utility budgets. This allows Council to weigh climate change impacts when they’re making decisions about the City’s budget for the next four years.

Edmontonians will have an opportunity to speak at a non-statutory public hearing on November 28 and 29. Registration will open on edmonton.ca/meetings after the agenda is published on November 17.

Council will discuss and finalize the budget in December. Edmontonians can view the City’s 2023-2026 Proposed Operating Budget and learn more about the budget process by visiting edmonton.ca/Budget.​

For more information:
edmonton.ca/Budget
edmonton.ca/meetings

Media contact:
Dorothy Wasak-Reikie
Communications Advisor
Communications and Engagement
780-222-2733​
 
From the budget PDF
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IanO said:
From the budget PDFView attachment 436958View attachment 436959View attachment 436960
Click to expand...
One of the things I continue to take issue with this council and previous council is the lack of commercial mindset. Among Edmonton's many problems is a revenue problem and it seems like this current councils solution is just to raise taxes yet again.

I have yet to hear any council member address our downtown office vacancy with any solutions or attracting companies to downtown. With this in mind, these are a couple of ideas I believe the city should be exploring to increase and diversify revenue's:

1. Take a page out of Calgary's aggressive corporate recruitment playbook and start actively trying to attract companies to downtown. Whether its through partnerships with the U of A, NAIT, GMac, or incentive grants similar to the development incentive grant but for corporation, we really do need to kick start economic activity downtown and with it, new/additional tax revenue

2A. Sell the Blatchford and Northlands land. This city needs to get out of the development game it is not a developer, does not have the appropriate skillset to be a developer, and is not realizing the revenue from the development due to its incompetence in this area. The city spun off EPCOR which then spun off Capital Power because the city is not in the business of utilities, why is the city in the business of land development?

2B. Don't want to sell off these lands (which has already been publicly stated after Cartmell had this investigated)? Spin them off into a municipal land trust with the city being the sole shareholder. Again, look at the EPCOR model. The city has no expertise in utilities so it created EPCOR in which it is the sole shareholder. In the graph above, 5.5% of city revenue comes from dividends from EPCOR, why can this not be achieved on the land development side?
 
Given how much we spend on policing, why are there not targets/projections for the below given that almost all of the other reports had targets. What am I missing here?
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Yeah, I am unsure as well, but I'd hope that they set targets based on their evidence/data-based policing models; they have to have metrics, trends and a ton of dollars invested in that world.
 

Doesn't appear Edmonton, with the highest GHG emissions per capita in Canada, one-third of which are from vehicle emissions/transportation, is going to be meeting its targets based on the 2023-26 budget despite declaring a climate emergency in 2019.

Coun. Ashley Salvador:
When it comes to climate action, we have "numerous levers that we can and should be pulling on — everything from land use planning, to transportation, to the efficiency of our buildings."

Salvador said there is also a financial imperative to either mitigate climate change now or pay for its impacts later. Coun. Andrew Knack holds the same view.

"It is going to be far, far, far more expensive to not address the environmental goals than to do it at the right time," he said, noting the $1.6 billion flood mitigation plan in 2019 due to changing weather patterns.
 
Edmonton's first carbon budget highlights lack of action and investment

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edmonton.taproot.news

Edmonton's first carbon budget highlights lack of action and investment

Despite declaring a climate emergency and aiming to be an emissions-neutral community by 2050, Edmonton's carbon deficit continues to grow, and current investments are not enough to achieve reduction targets, according to the city's new carbon budget.
edmonton.taproot.news edmonton.taproot.news
 
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