The province has tabled its 2024 budget with a forecast surplus of $367 million in 2024-25.
Key investments, according to the province, include $7.2 billion over three years for municipalities. Those dollars are broken into money for local infrastructure, growth initiatives and rail transit projects in Calgary and Edmonton. The municipal funding makes up 29 per cent of the province’s capital funding.
“Alberta is growing. Budget 2024 is a plan that manages the pressures faced by a growing province today while securing the future for generations who follow. I’m proud of the choices we made in this budget that support Albertans’ top priorities and prepare our province to meet the challenges that lie ahead. Budget 2024 invests today and saves for tomorrow so we can continue to be the nation’s economic engine,” says Nate Horner, president of Treasury Board and minister of finance.
For Lethbridge specific spending, the province budgeted $26 million for the University of Lethbridge Rural Medical Teaching School.
The budget includes $539 million across the province for water and wastewater infrastructure upgrades. Alberta Municipalities says the funding for municipal infrastructure is not enough.
“Alberta’s population growth in the last few years has been remarkable, but it is putting tremendous strain on existing roads, bridges, water and wastewater treatment facilities, energy infrastructure, schools, recreation facilities and hospitals. A long-range strategic plan for infrastructure (complete with funding), with input from municipalities, is critical to addressing this extraordinary challenge,” the group said in a news release responding to the budget.
Alberta Municipalities adds it is pleased to see the province invest in drought and wildfire preparedness. The budget includes $251 over three years in capital funding for flood and drought mitigation projects.
Fourteen per cent of the capital funds are for healthcare, with $3.6 billion budgeted for health infrastructure. Friends of Medicare criticized the budget, saying it does little to address staffing problems in healthcare
“As our population has continued to boom, we have fallen further and further behind in hospital bed capacity in Alberta. We are short hundreds of beds in Edmonton, and thousands across the province, with no plans or timelines to get facilities built and open,” reads a statement from Friends Of Medicare.