Rocky View County (RVC) residents will be paying about six per cent more in property taxes in 2023.
In a narrow vote at the Dec. 14 special meeting, Rocky View County council approved its draft budget in principle for 2023.
The final numbers will still have to be approved in April 2023, but by approving the draft budget as presented, RVC council acknowledged a significant tax increase would be needed to continue to deliver services at the levels residents are used to, and to offset inflationary pressures driving spikes in municipal governance costs.
Before the vote, RVC’s corporate services director Kent Robinson stressed to council the increase would likely be about six per cent, but may end up being slightly less, depending on what reserves the County might want to draw from in April when the final budget is passed, and what the yearly tax assessment may look like when it arrives next spring.
While there did seem to be widespread agreement among councillors that some form of tax increase would be needed to cover the inflationary pressures the County is facing, and no appetite for significant cuts, RVC management did introduce about $800,000 in new spending measures that it felt was needed outside of the base budget – mainly to cover new staffing costs.
It was these new initiatives that some on council objected to.
The County has proposed a base budget of about $213 million for 2023. The $800,000 in new measures would be on top of that.
While acknowledging some of these new expenditures might indeed be necessary, Division 2 Coun. Don Kochan felt council should not be approving any new spending outside the base budget until it had a stronger handle on what kind of revenue streams might be available from the 2023 assessment, and after an expected analysis of RVC reserve funds was completed by staff next spring.
The County is expected to have about $91 million in reserve funds for 2023, some of which could be leveraged to offset a portion of the expected tax increase, if council so chooses.
Division 5 Coun. Greg Boehlke agreed with Kochan, and also felt council should just pass the base budget, as is required by the end of the year, but should hold off on approving the additional expenditures until the final budget numbers were fully finalized next April.
“I didn’t realize the new initiatives would be part of the base budget,” stated Boehlke. “I wasn’t prepared to start passing new initiatives on a base budget.”
Division 1 Coun. Kevin Hanson said he was prepared to make a motion to adopt the entire draft budget as presented by RVC staff, including the new spending initiatives.
“We already reviewed it (on Dec. 14), and it is already a pretty trimmed down list,” Hanson stated, “and the six per cent is decided later. There are multiple ways to get to six per cent. We can even have minus two per cent if we wanted if we draw down all the ($43 million) tax stabilization reserve.”
Hanson’s motion to adopt the draft budget as presented passed by a narrow vote of 4-3, with Boehlke, Kochan and Division 7 Councillor Al Schule opposed.
The proposed six per cent increase at RVC is in line with what the City of Airdrie passed on Dec. 5 in its own 2023 budget – a tax increase of 5.7 per cent. The City of Calgary is also proposing a 5.2 per cent tax increase in 2023. The Town of Cochrane proposed a nearly eight per cent tax increase in its 2023 budget, but eventually passed a 3.7 per cent tax increase after pressure from councillors for staff to find additional cost-saving measures.
