Edmonton homeowners may be paying even more taxes than expected in 2024 in order to maintain services, according to a fall budget adjustment announcement from city administrators on Thursday.
The city released its fall budget adjustment reports, recommending a 7.09 per cent tax increase next year — 2.13 per cent above what was originally approved by city council when it set the four-year budget in December 2022.
At that time, Edmonton city council approved the 2023-2026 budgets with annual property tax rate increases of about five per cent each year.
The recommended hike is in response to increased costs and reduced revenues in order to deliver on 2023-2026 budget commitments, city administrators said, adding it will cost an additional $41.2 million to maintain services in 2024.
“We have limited resources, and we know that many Edmontonians are also stretched thin,” said Stacey Padbury, chief financial officer and deputy city manager.
“We are only recommending budget adjustments that are necessary to maintain our services and deliver critical capital projects.”
The city’s financial pressures include significantly higher energy costs, as well as lower-than-forecast revenues from transit fares and ATCO Gas franchise fees, and a higher-than-forecast arbitrated salary settlement.
The recommended tax increase would mean Edmonton households would pay about $750 dollars for every $100,000 of their assessed home value in 2024 — that’s $49 more than in 2023.
That means for a typical single-family, detached home assessed at $400,000, the property taxes would be about $3,000.
“The 2024 budget is going to cost you more and give you less,” Coun. Tim Cartmell said in a statement to his constituents. “Less snow clearing than last year. Less grass cutting than taxpayers were promised. Less maintenance for our road, buildings and other infrastructure.
“This is simply unacceptable. The cost of living is continuing to increase and people cannot absorb a significant property tax increase.”
Cartmell said the downtown core is diminishing in value and that means less tax revenue and a transfer of tax to other non-residential properties.
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“If you rent or own property for your business outside of downtown, your taxes will likely go up,” he stated.
Cartmell said he has heard the city has high building standards, but that has been misinterpreted as freedom to build without consideration of cost.
“I have suggested a challenge panel, made up of industry professionals that can identify the expensive elements before they find their way into a building,” he said, adding perhaps cheaper aesthetic elements could be picked.
“Maybe we can design a standard, robust but not overbuilt recreation centre, and build five of them instead of expensive one-off designs. Maybe we should use some coloured, patterned concrete for our street medians instead of complicated landscape designs that we don’t have the money to maintain,” he wrote.
The city said the tax increase is an early estimate that will be refined as administration advances through the annual budget, assessment and taxation process this fall.
The annual tax increase will affect individual property owners differently, depending on how their property’s assessed value shifts relative to the real estate market.
Property owners will learn about their 2024 assessment in January, and will receive their 2024 tax notice in May.
The budget pressures are expected to continue for the rest of the four-year cycle. The city said it has already experienced most of these pressures this year, leading to the first budget deficit in many years.
“We are continuing to deliver 70 services that Edmontonians rely on every day, and more than 200 construction projects to serve them now and into the future,” Padbury said.
The 2023-2026 budget provides for increased affordable housing, transit service, snow and ice control, as well as energy transition and climate adaptation initiatives, along with major construction projects like the Valley Line West LRT, the Lewis Farms Recreation Centre, the rehabilitation of the High Level Bridge and Hawrelak Park, and the Yellowhead Trail freeway conversion.
The city adjusts its multi-year budget each fall and spring to account for anything significant that has happened since the budget was set.
The new four-year budget came after the city held steady trough the pandemic: there was no tax increase in 2021 and the tax increase in 2022 was the lowest among major Canadian municipalities.
“These low taxes were necessary, but they aren’t sustainable, especially in the current environment with high prices and significant population growth,” Padbury said.
“It’s costing the city more to deliver the same services all while experiencing a growing demand for those services.
“We can’t continue to absorb the financial impacts we’re facing without adjusting taxes or our service levels, and it will likely take both strategies to ensure we don’t create long-term financial sustainability issues.”
The fall budget adjustment also includes recommendations for the 2023-2026 capital budget. The city said it is recommending an $88.9 million increase to the capital budget, mainly for affordable housing and critical renewal projects. This increase is less than one per cent of the approved $10.3-billion capital budget.
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5% tax increases for next 4 years in Edmonton’s 2023-2026 budget -
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Edmonton city council meets on break day to continue gruelling budget deliberations -
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Edmonton budget increase could now be 5% — and they’re not done yet -
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Business community has ‘deep concerns’ with Edmonton budget, tax increases -
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Edmonton city councillors face a tough four-year budget -
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Edmonton city council begins 2023-2026 operating budget deliberations -
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Edmonton city councillor speaks about upcoming budget deliberations -
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Several unfunded services in proposed City of Edmonton operating budget -
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3.9% property tax hike in Edmonton’s proposed 2023-2026 operating budget -
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Crunching the numbers in Edmonton’s capital budget -
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Edmonton city council looking at new idea to deal with problem properties -
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Edmonton councillors to decide between raising taxes or delaying construction
The city also released its first annual update to the carbon budget. It’s a tool to support councillors’ decision-making as they adjust the capital and operating budgets. It also tracks progress on Edmonton’s energy transition goals and reducing carbon emissions, the city said.
The 2023-2026 budget includes more than $376 million in services and construction that support the transition goals.
The city said the carbon budget update makes it clear just how much more needs to be done, both with the community and other orders of government, to meet Edmonton’s goal of being carbon neutral as a corporation by 2040, and as a community by 2050.
“Without further action, our updated forecasts show that we’ll deplete both our corporate and community carbon budgets one year earlier than anticipated. This is not the result of any budget decisions made by council, but rather community impacts as activities return to pre-pandemic levels,” the city said in a news release.
The fall budget adjustment reports will be presented to city council for discussion and deliberation on Nov. 7, along with the first annual update to the carbon budget.
Council will discuss and finalize any budget adjustments during the last two weeks of November.
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