Council OK’s 3.8% tax hike
City gives $20.8M boost to police, extends relief for business owners
The average Calgary homeowner will see a 3.8 per cent increase on the municipal portion of their property tax bill next year, after elected officials approved the 2018 budget following four days of questions, amendments and debate.
The nearly four per cent hike means the average Calgary homeowner will pay the city an extra $71.40 next year in the wake of this year’s effective tax freeze.
Next year’s municipal tax hike comprises a 0.8 percentage point increase so Calgary police can hire more officers, 0.1 point for money council decided to restore to civic partners, 1.5 points to cover the 2017 tax rebate, and 1.4 points in so-called “tax room” from the province that council voted to take for Green Line LRT financing.
At the conclusion of more than 30 hours of budget deliberations, Mayor Naheed Nenshi told reporters he was pleased with the decisions council made about a tough budget that includes cuts across all city departments and the elimination of 156 full-time equivalent positions.
“If you take the tax room out, we’ve actually increased our municipal taxes by less than the rate of population growth and inflation over the past seven years. And today, we did it again,” he said.
“People get very, very good value for their money and they’re paying far less than they would in any other big city.”
The city’s $4-billion operating budget was approved in an 11-4 vote after four days of debate, with councillors Joe Magliocca, Ward Sutherland, George Chahal and Jeromy Farkas voting against.
The $1.7-billion capital budget passed unanimously after less than 15 minutes of debate.
Ward 12 Coun. and Green Line LRT champion Shane Keating praised council’s 13-2 decision to take $23.7 million of tax room and use the money for the next 27 years to fund debt servicing costs for the massive multibillion-dollar transit project.
“Obviously, this is the way it had to go. It’s an exceptional project ... It has to go forward for the sake of the city and the sake of the residents in those areas,” Keating said after the vote.
Only councillors Magliocca and Farkas voted against taking the tax room — money that’s occasionally left on the table when the province takes less education tax than what the city budgets for.
Tax room was grabbed by the city from 2011 until 2013, until council rescinded a motion that saw the city automatically absorb the money left by the province.
This week’s deliberations also saw council approve $20.8 million for the police, including $14.3 million to hire 55 additional civilian and sworn members to address growing demands and fund body-worn cameras, and extend a $45-million relief program for business owners hammered by extreme non-residential property tax bills.
Council also approved $1.39 million to restore a portion of proposed cuts to the city’s civic partners, and voted in favour of reversing transit cuts put on the table by city administration by effectively taking $4 million from the rainy-day fund.
A last-ditch effort on Wednesday by Ward 11 Coun. Jeromy Farkas to cut $5 million from the operating budget was defeated in a 9-6 vote, much to the rookie councillor’s disappointment.
“I was shocked. I thought that council would have been able to find $5 million in a $4-billion-ayear budget, to be frank,” Farkas told reporters after urging his colleagues to be a little less comfortable and cosy.
“What I’m afraid we saw was just more of the same from this council. Despite all this doomsday talk about cuts, we’re still spending $150 million more than last year,” Farkas said.
Council did support an amendment by Ward 10 Coun. Ray Jones to allocate $3 million from the rainy-day fund for preventive programs to offset $10.5-million in cuts to community services, in a move that had no effect on taxes because of where the funds came from.
The full picture of what citizens’ tax bills will look like won’t be known for a few more months because the overall change in taxes is always dependent on the province setting its portion of the city tax bill, called the education property tax, in its spring budget.