Calgary has absorbed roughly $100 million in provincial and federal costs annually over the past decade, while funding going to cities has declined, according to a new report.

Calgary’s Executive Committee will review a report on June 9 that shows the City of Calgary estimates the direct downloading costs between 2016 and 2026 to be roughly $1.05 billion.

That cost is anticipated to hit $145 million in 2027, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the City of Calgary said that provincial transfers, specifically, have essentially been halved in that same period, with the switch from the Municipal Sustainability Initiative Funds to the Local Government Fiscal Framework.

“In conclusion, this report finds that municipal fiscal gaps in Alberta have deteriorated as expenditures continue to outpace constrained revenue growth,” the report concluded.

“To manage this imbalance, municipalities have become increasingly reliant on intergovernmental transfers, which have declined over time, creating growing risks for capital investment amid rising service demands.”

The report also notes that while funding has gone down, downloading has increased,  and Calgary has dealt with considerably higher education property taxes, along with significant growth in population and demand for services.

“The municipal fiscal gap represents a structural imbalance between the fiscal outcomes (surplus/deficit) of municipalities compared to those of federal and provincial governments,” the report reads.

“This gap is driven primarily by a misalignment between revenue-generating capacity and spending responsibilities. In 2024, municipal fiscal gaps in Alberta continued to widen. While fiscal capacity improved for both federal and provincial governments, municipalities were the only order of government to experience a worsening fiscal position compared to 2023.”

In 2024, the Municipal Fiscal Gap report pegged the overall impact of downloaded costs to both capital and operational spending to be $436.9 million annually.

‘Gotten it wrong for a while here’: Coun. Kelly

Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly, who initially asked for an updated municipal fiscal gap report to come forward, said that they need to step up their advocacy to the provincial government.

“What’s done is done in the past, and more so at this point, the billion dollars shows that we’ve gotten it wrong for a while here, and the province is not stepping up to fulfill the areas of provincial responsibility that they are legislated to fulfill,” he told LWC.

In the past, the City of Calgary has pointed to obvious areas where the province isn’t pitching in its fair share: Low Income Transit Pass (LITP), cutting photo radar funding, the overwhelming number of medical calls to which fire departments are responding, and in handling housing in income supports overall.

Previously, the Government of Alberta has addressed funding questions on all fronts, including commitments to the LITP, along with other investments in policing, including a recent $8 million investment into dealing with the rise in South Asian extortion cases.

The Calgary Fire Department has estimated that $13.5 million annually is needed for medical first response, though some money has come back for things like medical first response units.

On the provincial education property tax front, the Government of Alberta noted the 45 schools being built in Calgary as proof that a considerable portion of education-related spending is happening in the city.

Kelly said he wanted the updated fiscal gap report so city council could methodically chart out its plan of attack in each of the areas where these expenses are being downloaded.

“There will be members of council who will make the argument that we should just not offer that particular service anymore if the province is not going to step up and deliver what they’re legislatively mandated to,” he said.

“In other cases, we can see that the only people that are hurt are Calgarians, and so as a result, we as council need to decide what’s best for all Calgarians.”

Kelly said that he has no interest in covering provincial costs.

“If it comes down to a safety choice or a livability choice, in many of these cases we have very little option other than to cover them while we wait for the province to be able to get their fiscal house in order,” he said.