Calgary’s mayor wants more line of sight on property tax dollars headed to the province to ensure the city is getting its fair share in return.
The province delivered its red ink budget Thursday afternoon, pegging a $9.4 billion deficit for 2026-2027, with billions in additional spending delivered in healthcare and education.
A shifting global economic landscape means that Alberta’s fiscal outlook continues to face further challenges. The province cited tariffs, low oil prices, and trade uncertainty as factors in a slowing of Alberta’s GDP to 1.8 per cent.
“Our responsibility is to the families raising kids, the workers keeping our economy moving, and the communities people rely on every day,” said Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner.
“This budget protects the services Albertans depend on while making sure we don’t pass on today’s challenges to the next generation. It’s about seeking stability when times are tough and making choices that keep Alberta strong, long term.”
Though there’s more spending in some areas, the province reduced the amount going to municipalities through the Local Government Fiscal Framework (LGFF). The LGFF is a three-year lagging calculation that takes into account population, capital assets, length of local roads and a five-year average amortization on tangible capital assets.
The amount for the LGFF has dropped $20 million compared with 2025, but is expected to rise $95 million in 2027, and stay stable ($895 million overall) in 2028.
Meanwhile, the province is increasing its take from cities through the Education Property Tax, with it jumping from $3.124 billion to $3.592 billion in 2026 (15 per cent increase). The number will rise by $200 million in 2027, and another $56 million in 2028.
More focus on infrastructure funding is needed: Mayor Farkas
Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said that the province has to recognize that the city is the economic engine of Alberta, and what’s good for Calgary is good for the rest of the province.
He said, given some of the major infrastructure issues Calgary is facing, they were hoping for more help from the province.
“From our perspective as a city council, we’re united in advocating to the provincial government to ensure that we are getting our fair share of municipal funding, as well as addressing some of the root causes of these issues, so that we’re not just passing them… down the road to some other government next year or the year afterwards,” Farkas said.
With Calgary giving a considerable amount of education tax to the province, he’d like to know where that’s going.
“With the property tax increase that they’ve imposed on the education portion, it’s very unclear whether that’s going to come with a commensurate level of investment back into the city,” he said.
Farkas said that it’s realistic in the not-too-distant future for Calgary property tax bills to be a 50-50 split in the amount collected from citizens via property taxes going to the city and the province.
“What this means, essentially, is that we’re getting very close, perilously close to half of every property tax dollar being collected in the city of Calgary going to the provincial government to fund provincial priorities without a very clear line of sight in terms of whether that’s being invested back here in the City of Calgary. So, it bears a bigger and a deeper transparency question,” he said.
“Most Calgarians, they’ll open up their property tax bills. They will assume that most, if not all, of the money … they’re going to assume that money is going to the city for city priorities.”
Farkas said that he’d like to see the Government of Alberta be a good partner, working on solutions to help some of Calgary’s challenges.
“A big focus of ours is to be able to demonstrate to Calgarians that we are doing our part, (and we’re) calling on the province to do theirs,” Farkas said.
