latest budget<\/a> will hit Calgary households far harder than the municipal increase. <\/p>\nWhile the city\u2019s portion adds about $50 to the average annual bill, the provincial hike will tack on nearly $350.<\/p>\n
Homeowner Phillip Leibrecht admits he rarely looks past the total amount on his bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest I just look at the top line number,\u201d he says. \u201cI go woah, went up, well that sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Farkas says that\u2019s exactly the problem. He worries Calgarians will blame city hall for a spike largely driven by the province.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in an egregious situation right now where this biggest tax increase in Calgary\u2019s history, being pushed down Calgarians\u2019 throats by our provincial government, is going to trigger an extreme affordability crisis in our city, and we cannot abide by that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
To make the distinction clearer, he\u2019s considering sending municipal and provincial tax bills in separate envelopes.<\/p>\n
Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly wants the city to revive the Municipal Fiscal Gap report, which outlines services that Calgary funds that may actually fall under provincial responsibility. He plans to bring a notice of motion to council\u2019s executive committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile there is no new real funding for Calgary, we are seeing a 21 per cent increase in our property taxes,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of unacceptable to me. That money is clearly going somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean offered a more pointed suggestion to the province.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to the minister, just write us a real big fat cheque for our water pipes, and maybe we can sell this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Speaking to a Calgary business audience, Finance Minister Nate Horner said the city shouldn\u2019t be surprised.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said I was going to do it last year,\u201d Horner says. \u201cWe are getting to 33 per cent. We didn\u2019t want to put it all on folks in one year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking on Thursday after the budget was tabled, Farkas said the hike in education tax comes as Calgary is set to see a $6 million reduction in funding from the Local Government Fiscal Framework a fund that helps with infrastructure needs, due to lower provincial revenues.<\/p>\n
He called the \u201canother version of equalization.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calgary\u2019s mayor is calling the UCP government\u2019s sharp increase in the provincial education property tax the largest property…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-504666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-calgary","10":"tag-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}