Provincial report takes city to task over debt, tax rate

Edmonton is scoring a lower grade for fiscal responsibility than comparable municipalities, according to data from the Alberta government.

New “report cards” released by the province this week show the City of Edmonton has higher spending and debt per capita than the City of Calgary and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, considered comparable based on a calculated municipality index.

The new report cards, also referred to as the municipal measurement index, don't give out letter grades, but allow residents to look at the annual financial performance of their region and compare it among the province's 338 municipalities.

Available data includes property tax rates, major revenue and expense categories as well as assessment and debt values.

Premier Jason Kenney announced the launch of the program back in September when appointing Tracy Allard as Municipal Affairs Minister. This information isn't new and has been presented in a single spreadsheet by the province since 2000. But the new platform is designed to be more user-friendly for residents to access and compare against other jurisdictions.

“We want municipalities to be strong, fiscally responsible partners in the province's economic recovery. Having a tool Albertans can use to view and compare data for municipalities across the province will increase accountability and transparency, while helping improve local decision-making,” Allard said in a statement. “This was one of the government's election platform commitments and, with this tool, Albertans now have the ability to grade the performance of their local government.”

But the City of Edmonton is leading the way in categories where a high score isn't the goal. Edmonton's residential tax rate has been on a steady rise since 2014 and is larger than those of Calgary and Wood Buffalo. In 2019, the Edmonton tax rate was $6.50 for every $1,000 of assessed property. Calgary's was $4.50 with Wood Buffalo at $2. During budget deliberations this month, Edmonton city council approved a tax freeze for 2021 — the first since 1997.

Edmonton also had the most debt per capita in 2019, $950 more per person than in Calgary. The city also had the highest amount of long-term debt, totalling $3,294 per person.

Franco Terrazzano, Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said Edmonton's report card is a clear sign that the city needs to rein in spending.

“I think the provincial government is right to be shining the light on big-spending municipalities and to give taxpayers another tool to hold their councillors accountable,” he said. “People are struggling in Edmonton and for the city to provide meaningful tax relief, it needs to stop overspending.”

Terrazzano took issue with the city's rate of spending, particularly for its workforce. In 2019, the City of Edmonton spent $1,683 per capita on salaries, wages and benefits. This compares to $1,540 in Calgary.

“The cost elephant for Edmonton is its bureaucratic costs, its labour costs,” he said. “We've really seen labour costs in municipalities in Alberta become detached from the realities that are facing the taxpayers who are footing those bills.”

In the future, Terrazzano said he would like to see the platform expand to compare with other major Western Canadian cities to get a better sense of spending in Edmonton and Calgary.