A month of public consultations on what Edmontonians want to see in the next four-year budget cycle has kicked off, foreshadowing the city\u2019s spending and tax collection for 2027 to 2030.<\/p>\n
Council did a \u201cdeep dive\u201d into city operations in order to prepare. Getting through the city\u2019s 11 specific departments, each with its own budget, purpose and staff, took six full days of meetings. Below is a summary of what council heard. All listed budgets are taken from each department\u2019s total expenses for 2025.<\/p>\n
You can find dates and locations for upcoming budget town halls at https:\/\/engaged.edmonton.ca\/budget.<\/a>\u00a0You can also visit https:\/\/cityofedmonton.qualtrics.com\/jfe\/form\/SV_5yzNg3deH3Y4vNY<\/a> to submit your feedback.<\/p>\n Who\u2019s in charge here?<\/p>\n At the head of city bureaucracy is the \u2018office of the city manager.\u2019 It oversees municipal elections, coordinates with other governments, communicate with the public, operates the city\u2019s social media accounts, manages information requests, oversees security services and ensures the city is operating within the law \u2014 with a budget of $103 million. It also handles over $1.1 billion in payroll to city employees. The office itself employs 565 people.<\/p>\n \u2018Financial and corporate services\u2019 handles the majority of the paperwork and boasts a AA+ credit rating. Processing taxes and maintaining the books, 1,209 employees are also responsible for the city\u2019s warehouses, IT networks and other assets with a $238-million budget.<\/p>\n You may be familiar with the \u2018urban planning and economy\u2019 department \u2014 these are the folks who direct new developments, including infill. With a $209-million budget, they\u2019re also is in charge of safety inspections. Employing 695 Edmontonians, the department was ranked first in the country for development processes, timelines and fees by the Canadian Home Builders\u2019 Association in 2024.<\/p>\n Who\u2019s does the heavy lifting?<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, the largest slice of the pie goes to operations. Fighting fires, clearing snow and fixing potholes takes a lot of people, vehicles and equipment \u2014 maintaining all this costs over $1 billion and employs 5,346 personnel.<\/p>\n Maintaining all the city\u2019s infrastructure and assets falls under the purview of the department of \u2018integrated infrastructure services.\u2019 Repairing the city\u2019s over 12,000 km of road, expanding the city\u2019s LRT network and planting trees is coordinated by 558 employees. While the department has an operating budget of $96 million, most of the physical work is funded from the city\u2019s capital budget, which was $7.8 billion between 2023 and 2026; it is currently projected at $2.1 billion for 2027.<\/p>\n Keeping all these assets in decent condition is a full-time job in itself, so the city has an entire department focused on \u2018fleet and facility services.\u2019 Maintaining the city\u2019s 1,783 structural assets and 5,283 vehicles costs $365 million, employing 1,207 Edmontonians, most in the skilled trades.<\/p>\n Overseeing traffic safety enforcement, snow removal and parking enforcement, the \u2018parks and roads\u2019 department is also the reason why you don\u2019t see a lot of mosquitoes some summers. Responsible for the city\u2019s parks, the department employs 1,682 Edmontonians with a budget of $338 million.<\/p>\n Edmonton Transit Service (ETS) is its own $500-million department. It takes the work of 2,457 employees operating 984 conventional buses and 104 paratransit buses to get many Edmontonians to and from work every day. Each bus travels a distance between 50,000 to 55,000 km each year. Maintaining the buses cost the city $98.2 million between 2023 to 2026 and transit users contributed $111 million to the departments operations last year.<\/p>\n But who you gonna call?<\/p>\n Fire rescue services are included under the community services umbrella. Of the department\u2019s $615-million budget, fire services burn through just under $277 million \u2014 77.8 per cent of that goes into operations. But community services also oversees festivals, amenities such as arenas, swimming pools and art installations, affordable housing and the city\u2019s peace officer corp. All this work takes the effort of 3,087 employees.<\/p>\n Employing 189 Edmontonians, the \u2018social services\u2019 branch connects residents and non-profits to grants and manage the city\u2019s affordable housing assets. The department provides funds to 20 non-profits annually and is one of the few departments where personnel isn\u2019t the largest budget item. Approximately 70 per cent of its $100-million budget is subsidies and grants to those in need. Since 2023, the department has overseen the development or renewal of 3,541 affordable housing units.<\/p>\n Enforcing the city\u2019s bylaws and dealing with the non-human residents of the city currently rests at the feet of 434 employees in the \u2018community standards\u2019 branch. These are the peace officers who respond to calls of parking violations, loose dogs, problem properties and illegal encampments. Responding to over 240,000 complaints from Edmontonians costs just shy of $70 million.<\/p>\n Finally, the city\u2019s 1,103 employees in the \u2018community recreation and culture\u2019 department handle everything from swimming lessons to golf courses, hockey arenas to summer green shacks and the Valley Zoo. The department spends $169 million while collecting nearly $71 million in user fees. The department also oversees the city\u2019s cemeteries.<\/p>\n A few items were passed over during the deep dive \u2014 the biggest being policing, which costs $628 million and was excluded because the police deparment reports through the Edmonton Police Commission. In addition, the \u2018mayor and councillors offices\u2019 employs 52 people and costs $8 million. The \u2018office of the city auditor\u2019 costs $3.2 million and employs 17 people. Agencies, Boards, Committees and Commissions is budgeted at $58 million. Utilities also reports through the utilities commission \u2014 EPCOR told the utility committee on Feb. 2 it plans to spend $464 million on upgrades to the water system<\/p>\n ebowling@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a><\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A month of public consultations on what Edmontonians want to see in the next four-year budget cycle has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,12366,23752,219157,81091],"class_list":{"0":"post-569558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-department","11":"tag-edmonton","12":"tag-edmontonians","13":"tag-operating-budget"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569558","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=569558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}