Calgary faces massive funding gaps as Alberta municipalities rally for provincial help
Global News
Representatives at the Alberta Municipalities conference this week will debate a resolution calling for the province to increase municipal funding to $1.75 billion next year.
Calgary city councillors are getting set to juggle how to afford a slew of recommended investments in this year’s budget, and an ongoing gap in funding; as the city’s mayor joins a call from other Alberta cities and towns for the provincial government to step up.
On Tuesday, city council heard that Calgary faces an average annual funding gap of $311 million; city officials said the figures date back to 2007 and can be attributed to the city “stepping in to fund provincial responsibilities.”
According to Mayor Jyoti Gondek, those responsibilities include housing, mental health and addictions supports as well as public safety.
“We’ve been able to demonstrate that over time, there are hundreds of millions of dollars that we’ve had to take up in our budgets,” Gondek told reporters. “We simply don’t have the capacity to do that.”
City councillors were also briefed Tuesday on a list of 30 new unfunded budget items that will be brought up for debate in November.
The list includes investments in transit upgrades, affordable housing, new infrastructure to accommodate growth, fire response, the multi-sport fieldhouse, and other administrative improvements.
If the list is approved in its entirety, it would add close to $102 million to the city’s base operating budget, as well as nearly $70 million in one-time spending; it also includes around $817 million in capital spending through to 2028.
However, city council won’t know how much of the list it can afford until early November, especially without help from other orders of government.
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