{"id":607255,"date":"2026-04-16T04:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607255\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T04:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:51:15","slug":"gibbons-may-lose-town-status-amid-15-3m-in-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607255\/","title":{"rendered":"Gibbons may lose town status amid $15.3M in debt"},"content":{"rendered":"

After last fall\u2019s municipal election, new councillors in the town of Gibbons <\/a>started the job dealing with an unexpected debt load of $15.3 million.<\/p>\n

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In February, the council notified its residents that it was at risk of insolvency and could lose its town status. However, the town has managed to pull itself slightly above water over the last few months.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe previous administration and previous council left a pretty big hole for us to fill,\u201d says Rick Henderson<\/a>, mayor of Gibbons.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the reserves had been depleted.. we were living basically paycheque to paycheque.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to council, the finances are still being investigated but previous spending decisions around infrastructure are what mainly put the town of about 3,300 people in the red.<\/p>\n

Some of those decisions include funding a traffic light installment of over $2.4 million, as well as the Heartland Station Commercial Shopping District that was roughly $4 million.<\/p>\n

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Henderson said the shopping district is a continual expense since it was never hooked up to the town\u2019s sewage system. Gibbons has been paying roughly $15,000 monthly to have the district\u2019s sewage drained.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not normally paid by a small municipality. It\u2019s paid by developers or it is paid by the province,\u201d says Gibbons town councillor Ashley Morrison.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s pretty messy how they\u2019re having to deal with it from the previous councillors that were in place,\u201d said says resident Donnie Morrison.\u00a0\u201cThe councillors that are in place right now are doing an amazing job.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, council predicted that a tax increase of 50 to 100 per cent was needed in order to fix the town\u2019s finances, along with adhering to an extremely tight budget.<\/p>\n

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To try and avoid that, the council hired Bloom Centre for Municipal Education \u2014 an independent company that specializes in municipal finances \u2014 to help.<\/p>\n

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Over the last few months the town has laid off five staff members, eliminated multiple vacant positions, and made deep service cuts.<\/p>\n

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The council is currently in budget deliberations for 2026. Despite financial hardships, it\u2019s expecting to finalize a balanced budget on April 28th.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bloom team\u2026 has not only been able to balance our budget, but start to build our reserves back,\u201d says Morrison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat right-sizing of service delivery coupled with looking at what are we paying for contractors, what are we paying for services and reducing and having a high scrutiny on those costs has really shown a tremendous impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the services taking a hit include grass cutting, road painting and pothole maintenance, as well the arena\u2019s operating schedule \u2014 going forward, it\u2019ll only be open during the winter months instead of year-round.<\/p>\n

Youth programming and senior services will continue to operate as normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe must-haves remain and the nice-to-haves will take the hit,\u201d says Henderson.<\/p>\n

The town asked the province for help and was given a $500,000 Alberta Community Partnership grant. Morrison says Gibbons hasn\u2019t used any of the grant yet and is keeping it as a safety net.<\/p>\n

It also negotiated to defer payments to the provincial government.<\/p>\n

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The Ministry of Municipal Affairs appointed Harold Johnsrude as official administrator to supervise the municipality and its council.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administrator\u2019s role is to oversee the municipality, with authority to allow or disallow any council resolution or bylaw,\u201d said the ministry in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo bylaw or resolution that incurs a liability or disposes of the municipality\u2019s money or property has any effect until the official administrator has approved it in writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gibbons also requested Municipal Affairs conduct a viability review of whether it\u2019ll be able to keep its town status.\u00a0Council has since requested to have the review paused, since it has a better financial outlook \u2014 but the review is already underway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to hear the voices of the folks in Gibbons so I\u2019m going to stay out of that conversation. Let them have it and then we\u2019re going to respond in government after we\u2019ve heard what the citizens of Gibbons have to say,\u201d said Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams.<\/p>\n

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As a part of the review, Gibbons\u2019 resident will vote in June on if it should stay a town \u2014 but that vote is no longer binding under the newly passed Bill 28.<\/p>\n

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According to the legislation, regardless of the vote, the minister has the final say on whether the town loses its status and becomes a hamlet as part of Sturgeon County.<\/p>\n

Gibbons is also looking to Sturgeon County for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are living right next door to the Industrial Heartland and yet we receive absolutely none of the tax revenue that comes out of the Industrial Heartland. All of that for this area goes to Sturgeon County,\u201d Morrison said of the large industrial area northeast of Edmonton that\u2019s home to upgraders and other large petrochemical complexes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not seeing any of that and it\u2019s time that we do, because we provide the urban services to those Sturgeon County community members.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a proposal for a revenue-sharing deal that Sturgeon County isn\u2019t buying into.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do often invest in our neighbouring communities. It\u2019s usually around a specific project,\u201d said Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo simply choose one town out of the five in total that we have in Sturgeon County, and just start transfer payments without any discussion around governance or oversight of that, is not something that we\u2019re interested in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Sturgeon County and Gibbons say they want conversations on how to work together to continue.<\/p>\n

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Gibbons town council predicts it\u2019ll take roughly five to 10 years to regain full financial stability.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After last fall\u2019s municipal election, new councillors in the town of Gibbons started the job dealing with an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,229179,229180,229181,229182,134,714,229183,229184],"class_list":{"0":"post-607255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-gibbons","13":"tag-gibbons-insolvency","14":"tag-gibbons-town-council","15":"tag-industrial-heartland","16":"tag-money","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-sturgeon-county","19":"tag-town-of-gibbons"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607255","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=607255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}