Revenue sources was the hot topic during the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association’s (AUMA) information session at the Cochrane RancheHouse, which looked at ways to improve the Municipal Government Act (MGA).
The province is currently exploring options in an effort to improve the MGA, and members of local governments have been asked to provide feedback during the process.
Town of Cochrane CAO Julian deCocq attended the March 27 session, and said the AUMA is attempting to coordinate an advocacy position over the next few months to bring forward to Municipal Affairs.
The AUMA is asking its members to first look at their primary revenue source.
“The main source of revenue for municipalities comes from property taxes,” said deCocq, “which most feel is a regressive form of taxation and not adequate to deal with major infrastructure costs.”
According to deCocq, municipalities are looking for more long-term, consistent and reliable sources of revenue, enabling local governments to better plan for their financial future.
Some areas of revenue sources that deCocq said were discussed during the AUMA session included an additional fuel tax, a penny tax (or consumption tax), a share of income tax and other forms of revenue sharing, such as gambling and hotel taxes.
As for the province’s municipal grant programs, deCocq said many are not long term or reliable, and if any given program changes, local governments have to change their plans as well. Whether these grant programs should be protected within legislation to make them less susceptible to change was discussed during the session.
How revenues would be distributed to municipalities and provincial accountability when it comes to the education tax were also discussed during the AUMA session. Education tax was an item deCocq said has become a target for many municipalities.
“The province needs to be more accountable for the dollars they are collecting for education,” said deCocq, “instead of simply telling us what our assessment will be and leaving it up to us to pass the cost along in terms of a specific tax rate.”
Communities like Chestermere, deCocq said, which saw an increase of 53 per cent in its education assessment this year, are hoping the province will find another way to collect these taxes. Cochrane may also face an increase in its education tax as a result of the most recent provincial budget.
“Cochrane would always benefit from a solid and predictable long-term revenue source,” said deCocq, “as we have a carefully laid out 10-year financial strategy, which would benefit from more certain funding commitments.”
Along with deCocq, Mayor Truper McBride and councillor Joann Churchill attended the AUMA session and both concurred with the CAO’s analysis.
The Alberta Government has identified approximately 800 issues with the MGA and is proposing an ambitious timeline for completion of the review, with the fall of 2015 being their completion date. The purpose of the effort is to coordinate policies and modernize the MGA to help governments at the municipal level have the right tools to perform their duties.
A mayors’ caucus will be held in Canmore in June, providing an additional opportunity for mayors to give their input into the MGA review.
The current MGA was established in 1998 and has seen several amendments since.
