Calgary mayor Jeromy Farkas said Thursday that recently published numbers on a potential four-year cumulative property tax revenue increase of 42.5 per cent just represent a wish list, not reality.

Mayor Farkas held a media conference on Sept. 3 to address the budget numbers, first reported by LWC and Global Calgary.

The stories reported that city council, in a closed-door session, had directed City of Calgary administration to come forward with a property tax revenue increase of 15 per cent in 2027, a 12.5 per cent increase in 2028, a nine per cent increase in 2029, and a six per cent increase in 2030.

Farkas said that he couldn’t comment directly on budget numbers that were spoken about in a confidential meeting, but he acknowledged that there’s been a lot of budget asks this year.

“It’s a standard process that council, as well as city administration, will hear from many different business units, departments within the city of Calgary, but also civic partners like Heritage Park, the zoo, and so on, in terms of what they’d like to see in a budget,” he told reporters.

“But that said, at this time, the city council hasn’t adopted any tax increase; we haven’t even adopted a proposed tax increase. We’re still pencils to the paper to really make sure that we’re focusing on the needs over the wants.”

Farkas said that he didn’t want to provide a lowball number for political reasons. He said he’s probably the hardest on city administration to prove their worth and prove that money is being well spent.

“When it comes to hypothetical numbers, look, anybody could come to city council and ask for a pony, and that’s added to a wish list,” he said.

“It doesn’t mean that I’m going to get a pony or ride a mechanized dinosaur in the Stampede parade. There’s a lot of things that are wishes, and council’s job is to say no.”

Already millions in spending commitments

While a so-called wish list from external partners and organizations may be piling up at council’s feet, a series of approvals since this group took office represents hundreds of

There’s more than $130 million in spending on infrastructure, transit peace officers — plus added cash for Calgary’s Safer Together plan — along with promises to boost frequency on Calgary’s RouteAhead plan, that’s been approved by Calgary city council.

On top of that are multiple council approvals to prioritize further spending on the Route Ahead transit strategy, the GamePlan recreation strategy (Wave 1 project priority list already approved in principle), along with backing a $190 million playground funding plan over 10 years, and an upcoming sidewalk maintenance improvement budget that’s being presented for approval at committee next week.

Each roughly $28 million in added budget cost represents a one per cent property tax increase.

Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston said that council’s got to buckle down and stop asking taxpayers to front the cost of city council mistakes. He feels that any additional expenditure, be it fire services or other city departments, should come with that level of cuts.

“I don’t know which council member said that, but if you’re going to run a household income, you don’t go buy a new truck if your water doesn’t turn on. You prioritize,” he said.

“You don’t go buy a new truck. You pay your bills first. So, to say that there has to be a tax increase, well, you’re just not creative enough on making cuts.”

Johnston said that the numbers that have been put out in local media will change before they get final approval in November. However, he said they haven’t even heard “the parade of asks” yet.

“A lot of us councillors have been very consistent on what core spending is, and the mayor hasn’t,” Johnston said.

“The mayor is just going wherever the wind blows on this, and you know, he’s going to have to eat whatever this tax increase is going to be. It’s going to be on him.”

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said some of the infrastructure deficit, much of which he said is the result of a building boom in the 70s and the infrastructure reaching end of life, is not something that will be fixed overnight.

“It’s going to take time, and it’s going to require some successive tax increases to address this deficit, unless we can get the federal and/or provincial government to come to the table to help us with that infrastructure deficit,” he said.

City officials said that the public budget would be released sometime in November, with council deliberations and a public hearing to happen later that month.