Taxes in Grande Prairie are up by nearly 0.7 per cent, to a 3.97 overall municipal mill rate increase following city council’s decision to not move forward with a separate Stormwater Utility billing system.
During council’s 2024 budget deliberations, a proposal would have seen residents and businesses paying a separate utility charge for stormwater drainage, as opposed to the current model which includes stormwater utilities in property taxes. Grande Prairie Mayor Jackie Clayton says the decision comes after a series of public engagement sessions that ultimately led to the proposal being shot down.
“Council’s discussion tonight considered the fact that in consultation with the community, the community would rather see that revenue recouped for stormwater through taxes rather than a separate stormwater utility bill,” she says.
As a result, the municipal government was forced to find money from other avenues to fill the gap that was originally included in the 2024 budget. Council identified four items to reduce the tax increase including the $1 Million originally allocated for firebreaks that have since been completed utilizing solely provincial funding, a $600K surplus from the year-end of 2023, “some amount” from council’s Strategic Priorities funding pool, and approximately $400K from the proposed covered dome structure, which Mayor Clayton says will have no impact on the project this year.
“The dome amount doesn’t impact the future of the dome, this was because the dome will not be operationalized in 2024,” she says.
Despite the increase, city council maintains that the 3.97 per cent rate still puts Grande Prairie at the lowest increase of property taxes compared to Edmonton, Calgary, and other mid-sized cities.
“It also puts us at the lowest tax increase on a 10-year average across Alberta,” Clayton says.
The topic of council’s continued efforts to mitigate tax increases in the city came up as well with some councillors expressing concern that pulling funding from reserves to artificially lower taxes in Grande Prairie might not be sustainable; however, Mayor Clayton says that with the city’s revenue streams being so “limited” it is important for council to keep taxes low no matter the cost.
“Revenue streams are very limited, we do not have linear assessment growth, we do not have machine and equipment revenue, we pay a significant amount of money to public safety, and so unlike other municipalities we are limited in our revenue streams,” she says. “There is discussion around how often can you put reserves towards keeping the taxes affordable, and end of the day, that is limited by the amount in your reserves.”
“We know that people are under stress, we recognize that it costs more for people to simply live every day, rents are going up, utilities are going up, groceries and gas go up, and so council works very hard to keep tax as minimal as possible.”
Mayor Clayton adds that her council remains “optimistic” that revenues will increase through taxation, not through additional increases but by growth in the community.