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Edmontonians can now weigh in on what investments — or cuts — they think the city should make.
Mayor Andrew Knack campaigned on getting more everyday people involved in shaping the city’s priorities for the next four-year budget. That process is now underway, with a survey open until May 1, and in-person engagement sessions scheduled next month.
“My call to Edmontonians is to please get involved,” he said Wednesday.
“These decisions we make about the budget will affect you in the next four years and beyond.”
Knack’s call for public input comes as the city needs to make some tough financial decisions.
Stacey Padbury, the city’s chief financial officer, said a lot of work has been done already to find efficiencies.
“This means that there is relatively little room left to cut costs,” she said.
Inflation and population growth also continue to drive up the price tag of delivering the same services, Padbury noted.
But at the same time, there is an understanding that property taxes can’t go up to the same degree they did last time around, Knack said.
“There is an affordability crisis that is happening, the price of gas, everything that’s cumulative right now,” he said.
Knack told reporters property taxes were artificially kept too low during the pandemic years, leaving the last council to play catch-up with consecutive sizable tax hikes.
“My goal is to not have either of those two extremes in this next four-year cycle — to have something more moderate,” he said.
Both Knack and Padbury said that leaves service levels as an area of spending that needs a hard look.
Knack said he wants to know if there are areas Edmontonians might be willing to compromise on. He gave the example of perhaps having city crews mowing the grass less often if it means firehalls can be built without driving up property taxes.
“We should actually embrace those tough conversations, because they are the conversations that council goes through every single day.”
The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce wants to see business interests have a seat at the table, vice-president of economy and engagement Heather Thomson said in an interview on Wednesday.
“In previous budget iterations, we haven’t seen as much investment as we’d like to see from a business perspective,” she said.
Thomson said the city needs to put money into projects that attract new sources of revenue — ventures that will boost the downtown and Edmonton’s commercial tax base for example.
“That would … allow for the city to balance its budget and not put so much pressure on the residents to make up such a substantial amount of the tax base.”
During the election, the chamber had called for the city to strike a fiscal task force of business leaders to have a say in the budget process. Knack has previously said he wants all Edmontonians to have a say, which he said this engagement process will provide.