Lorne Gunter: Edmonton city council could have looked deeper to cut 2026 budget

Ward tastawiyiniwak Coun. Karen Principe and Ward pihêsiwin Coun. Mike Elliott. I want you to remember those names. They are the only two city councillors with enough respect for taxpayers to have voted against last week’s city budget, the one with a 6.9 per cent increase in property taxes.

The other 11, including Mayor Andrew Knack, voted in favour of digging deeper into your pockets to support their $6-billion spending scheme.

No one else on council could bring themselves to defund bike lane and LRT construction, to get by with existing transit buses, to put off upgrades to transit stops or continue the city’s own development of the Blatchford subdivision at the old municipal airport site, and more.

Council even voted to set aside $17,500 so they could attend the Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual convention next June.

And just where is this expensive conference? Why right here in Edmonton. No flights or hotel rooms will be required, but council has nonetheless voted in favour of $17,500 while they were “rinsing” taxpayers for nearly seven per cent more.

Since the average single-family home in Edmonton currently costs $560,000, the tax increase will work out to a total property tax bill of not quite $4,600 a year.

To add insult to injury, the city’s free-spending administration had only asked council for a 6.4 per cent increase. It was council’s idea to jack that up to 6.9 per cent so they could increase funding for the city’s tourism office.

Knack argued that was money well spent because for every dollar spent on Explore Edmonton — the tourist office’s official name — $29 comes back to Edmonton events and businesses.

Frankly, I find that ratio hard to believe since it works out to nearly $320 million a year.

But even if it’s accurate, that money doesn’t come back to the Edmontonians footing the bill. Council raises your tax bill. The beneficiaries are hotels, restaurants, sporting events, conferences and concerts.

All Edmontonians benefit from a boost to the local economy, but council doesn’t seem to have considered the impact of their decision on your family’s budget.

In the past 20 years, Edmonton property taxes have risen by more than 100 per cent. And just where does that money go?

Increasingly it is going to bike lanes, LRT construction and other capital projects.

While the $3.9-billion operating budget and $2.3-billion capital budget are supposed to be separate, the lines between them get blurrier every year.

Up front, it may appear as if the police service, at 14.7 per cent of the budget, is the city’s largest expenditure. And transit (12.5 per cent) is second. But capital expenditures have actually become a bigger chunk than either of those.

Another 9.6 per cent take transit, down from 11.4 per cent before the pandemic. Meanwhile biking is the choice of just 2.3 per cent, down more than half from 4.7 per cent.

There are cuts to be found in the city’s budget, however councillors have got to be interested in finding them.

lgunter@postmedia.com

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