Christmas was always my father’s most favourite time of year, and he loved getting the decorations out and up as soon as possible, even coming up with the idea of turning the tower on Broadcast Hill into ‘Calgary’s largest Christmas Tree.’
A special ritual every year at our house was a dinner just before the decorations went up. At the dinner, my brothers, sisters, and I were given a piece of paper on which we would write out our wishes for presents and get us into the Christmas spirit. (We were already in the spirit; the dinner was really for him.)
We weren’t limited to how many items we put on our lists, and so, as kids, we thought we had a chance of getting everything we listed.
As I got older, I realized the lists gave my mother and father ideas of what we wanted and what they could afford. There were eight kids in our family, so getting us everything on our lists was out of the question.
It reminds me of the brouhaha making the rounds in Calgary with the disclosure by Global News of confidential lists of want-to-haves in the upcoming four-year budget deliberations at city council.
The lists are compiled by various city departments, from police to fire, to internal administration departments, and submitted to council. There were 107 requests for funding increases from the departments, which were laid out for city councillors at a closed meeting on July 28. Together, they totalled an increase in city spending of $510 million that would be required to fulfill everything on the wish lists.
Fulfillment would require a property tax increase of 20.2% in 2027. Additionally, funding all those requests would mean increases of 8.5% in 2028, 9% in 2029, and 8.9% in 2030.
Those numbers are stratospheric, and even in the days of Mayor Naheed ‘Spendshi’ Nenshi, tax increases of that magnitude didn’t happen. They may have come close, but not over the course of one year.
During the July 28 meeting, administration pretty much acknowledged that a 20.2% increase wasn’t in the making, saying, “It is important to recognize the significant gap between funding requests and available funding.”
A presentation to council during the meeting indicated the city has additional funding capacity of $139 million for the various budget requests without the need to increase property taxes in 2027.
During the meeting, councillors were provided workbooks to rank and prioritize the budget requests in front of them. Many requests aren’t expected to make it into the finalized four-year spending plan (much as everything on my Christmas presents wish list wasn’t going to materialize). However, word out of City Hall is that property taxes would need to rise 5.4% next year just to maintain services.
There are a couple of lessons to be learned here.
One lesson is, be sure you know the entire story before commenting on it.
After Global News broke their story about a potential 20.2% tax increase, it consumed social media and bar talk all over the city, but the fact that it was highly unlikely to happen never came up on Facebook or X or in the bars.
Another lesson.
The city holds confidential meetings, not offering even an iota of information about what was discussed in those meetings, leading to clouds of misinformation circling the city.
Ward 14 Cllr. Landon Johnston gave the confidential budget documents to Global News. He has been advocating for more transparency on city council since being elected last year, to which I agree.
Certainly, there are things council needs to discuss behind closed doors, but after those meetings, a press release should be issued with an overview of the meetings, while not exposing sensitive information.
As Johnston said this past week, “This council is supposed to be different. Now is the opportunity to show we’re different.”