Alberta Budget 2025: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Alberta Municipalities has put out a budget analysis looking at how the Provincial Budget will impact local communities. Here are the most interesting graphs. I’d encourage you to checkout the full report. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from my personal perspective:

THE GOOD: An increased investment in mental health and addictions treatment and intervention- this is addressing needs that are wrecking families, creating social disorder, and putting strain on municipal services like policing, fire, and parks. Reversing cuts to Grants In Place of Taxes- this is what the province pays instead of property taxes to help pay for the municipal services (police, fire, roads, etc…) provincial properties receives. Continued support of Low Income Transit programs- these help individuals and families go about their lives and also help our economy by enabling people to get to work.

THE BAD: Prevention of mental health problems still doesn’t appear to be a priority. The primary way preventative services are funded is through Family and Community Support Services: this continues to fall behind population growth and inflation pressures, meaning it is able to do less every year. Additionally, municipal infrastructure funding continues to be far below historical levels and is being cut lower than what was promised in the last budget. This means that municipalities need to let existing infrastructure crumble, not build infrastructure needed by growth, or raise property taxes. Most frustrating to me: the Local Growth & Sustainability Grant is being killed after only being introduced last year. This is a real blow to midsize cities: most don’t get the significant one off funding that Calgary/Edmonton receive and they don’t get to apply to several large grant streams available to villages, towns, and counties/MDs. This was one grant program that threw a bone to midsize cities, I’m very disappointed to see it cut.

THE UGLY: PROVINCIAL PROPERTY TAXES ARE INCREASING. Municipalities are required to collect these on behalf of the province. And those taxes are going up! The province will collect ~14% more in property taxes this year than it collected last year. This is a sneaky tax increase because many residents aren’t aware what portion of their property taxes go to the province. So the province gets to increase this revenue sources while local municipalities get the blame by many.  This is incredibly frustrating.. Municipalities have been working very hard to control costs to keep property taxes as low as possible while still providing the safety, infrastructure, and quality of life residents expect. I’ve heard multiple Ministers both commend this work and encourage municipalities to keep at it. To see the province undermining this work by increasing its property taxes is ugly.