Service level changes, external decisions from other levels of government, inflationary increases, and funding allocation to community groups will be top of mind for City of Lethbridge Council, as they head toward approving a 2027 Operating Budget.
Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Darrell Mathews presented an update to Council’s Community Issues Committee (CIC) last week to assist with the upcoming deliberations.
Between June 10-11, Council will meet as CIC to deliberate the Operating Budget, and the committee will send a referral and recommendations to Council for approval in July.
The Operating Budget includes ongoing operating costs for services or programs, including police, fire, electric, parks operations, public transit, water and wastewater, road maintenance, snow removal, libraries, arenas and swimming pools.
“These budget pressures could put an upward burden on property taxes at a time when residents and businesses are also dealing with a high cost of living,” Mathews said. “When there’s pressure on the City‘s Operating Budget, Council has two choices: raise more money, usually by raising municipal property taxes or fees or spend less money, which might mean cutting services for the community.”
Mathews pointed out currently the City is at about a 3.49 per cent tax increase for 2027, which doesn’t include contract negotiations regarding Emergency Health Services.
“The reason for that is a number of pressures that came our way, including differences from photo radar, body-worn cameras and a number of other pressures that came in,” Mathews added.
The City practices multi-year budgeting. The current four-year 2023-2026 Operating Budget was approved at the end of 2022.
Last year, Council approved changes to the Capital and Operating Budget process by staggering the two budget deliberations by one year.
Due to this process change, the 2023-2026 Operating Budget will need to be extended by one more year to include a “stub year” for 2027.
The 2027-2030 Capital Improvement Program budget deliberations and approval will take place at the end of 2026.
The next full four-year Operating Budget deliberations, for 2028-2031, are anticipated to take place in late 2027.
According to Mathews, there’s also budget reduction initiatives that will come for Council’s consideration. “At that stage, there could be another one per cent reduction. That doesn’t include anything on EHS components, nor does it include some of the other pieces.”
“Those numbers are just on the tax side. The utility front will also come May 13,” Mathews noted.
