Speaking Municipally

Mack Male:
A non-sexy budget. This week, administration released its proposed operating, capital and climate budgets for 2027–2030.

Stephanie Swensrude:
We take a look at what's proposed, what's left out, and what it could mean for the next four years.

Mack:
Hi, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 379. Uh, it's a little like Christmas, Stephanie. Budget documents have been released. You've been going —

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm —

Mack:
Through those?

Stephanie:
Yeah, it was very fun here at the City Hall offices. Normally, like today, I don't think there's another person here at all, but all of the offices were filled with reporters and when they finally got posted at like, noon, a few minutes after noon, everyone went, "Oh, they're live! They're live!" And everyone was looking through them. It's, it's, it's a very fun time when you're a big municipal nerd like us and like our listeners.

Mack:
Yes, absolutely. Well, we got a lot to dig into on budget, so uh, let's not waste any time. Let's get right into it. Edmonton has released its next four-year budget proposal. So these are documents that administration's bringing forward for council to consider, for all of us to provide input on. They're not the final numbers. It's a proposed set of figures. But it covers everything, right? Four-year budgets are big, big — well —

Stephanie:
What?

Mack:
All budgets are big, complicated things, but four-year budgets are especially big and complicated. Everything from what we're gonna build in terms of infrastructure, bridges, roads, transit, that kind of stuff, to how we operate the city and the services we provide, waste and snow clearing and all the rest of it. Our goal in this episode is to give you a bit of a primer on the budget, right? So we're gonna do sort of big picture look at it, then we're gonna drill into some details. You've already written a little bit about this, Stephanie. We're gonna dive further into that. And the goal here is just that you should have a pretty good understanding of what this four-year budget's about so that over the next few weeks we can continue to dig into it, find out other information, and then of course we'll keep you posted on what council ultimately decides. I want to start with Monday when the budget documents were released. This is a big deal, as you mentioned. And they did a press conference, right? To introduce these documents. So it's not just "We posted them online," like reports usually are, without any fanfare. There was some fanfare. Uh, city manager Eddie Robar introduced them. So you were there, Stephanie. Tell us, tell us what he said and what the mood was like.

Stephanie:
I mean the title of this episode is a direct quote from our city manager here. He said, "Yeah, I call this a not-sexy budget, 'cause it's not." You know, it's kind of exactly what we have been hearing for the past year to two years of "We got no money, we are broke, and you're not getting anything special." Eddie Robar said one of the most exciting things is the Well-Maintained City service package, which is quite possibly the most boring phrase that has ever, ever been uttered in human history. But —

Mack:
Ha ha.

Stephanie:
It's, like, a bit of a — we'll definitely get into that later. But you know, he was talking about what we've heard loud and clear about, you know, what Edmontonians want to see is improvements in things that they see when they walk out of their front door every day. So it's the snow clearing, it's the litter clearing, it's graffiti. And then he said, um, "It's a not-sexy budget. It does the things to create a foundation for us in the future. I always say I'm more excited about the next four years after this than I am about this four years that we're in, the '27 to '30, because the opportunities that exist beyond this, and we're re-establishing a foundation for success — the possibilities are endless." So uh, as Mack mentioned before we start recording, we're not even done with this budget yet.

Mack:
Slow your roll here, Eddie. Uh, that just sounds to me like uh, typical marketing playbook. What we have right now is not very good, but look, there's this shiny bauble out here in the future. You just, you wait. It's gonna be fantastic. Like I get it.

Stephanie:
As if we're not gonna have inflation and supply chain issues and global geopolitical uncertainty in four years. It'll be fine.

Mack:
There'll be all kinds of stuff, right? Even just basic, boring stuff like population growth. So anyway, a bit strange for him to get excited about, uh, about the next four-year budget before we're even through this one. Uh —

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Anything else stand out to you right off the top?

Stephanie:
Um, we'll talk — I think we're gonna talk about this also a little bit later, but Mayor Knack has, uh, announced an Ask Me Anything on Reddit on Nov. 10. And already people are so mad in the comments because they're saying, "How dare you?" First of all, he didn't do it. But "How dare you propose a, what, 4.9 per cent tax increase when it's literally just, like, the most boring budget ever?" And you really can't win. Like, no matter what you propose, people are going to be mad that their taxes are going up if it's more than 0 per cent. So it's boring and people are still mad.

Mack:
Yeah, on that note, I think, actually, administration has a bit of a victory here for keeping the increase under 5 per cent per year. We'll get into the specific breakdown, but to me it feels like there's a little bit of a psychological barrier with that number. Like, if you get over —

Stephanie:
I agree.

Mack:
5 per cent per year, I think people start to freak out even more than they would otherwise. You know, I think serious people, if I can use Succession terms, serious people — don't believe 0 per cent tax increases are realistic. And the one time that we did that, it caused all kinds of problems for future years. So I think some kind of increase is generally understood to be what the reality is going to look like. But over 5 per cent feels like that's quite a bit more, maybe, than inflation, or it's just that barrier that people have in their heads. So I think for administration, it's a bit of a victory to get under 5 per cent per year for all four years of the four-year budget. I think that gives council a little bit of runway to make some changes. Now, we know — I think I can pretty confidently predict — the numbers they proposed are not what the final numbers will be. There's going to be changes. My guess is they'll go up slightly. And it will be more than 5 per cent in some of those years, just as we saw in the last four-year budget. But keeping it under 5 per cent initially allows for that increase to happen. The other thought I had, Stephanie, just right off the top around budget is a lot of the reaction seems to be, you know, what I just said. An increase is expected, but it's gotta be justified. Like increases are fine, but like show us what we're getting for that. Demonstrate the value for our tax dollars. I'm not sure the budget as proposed does a great job of that, but I guess we have a month and a bit here for council and for administration to try to do more of that. So we'll have to follow along as they try to justify their decisions in the weeks ahead.

Stephanie:
I think there's a bit of like marketing here that's going on where like it's under 5 per cent. I agree with that whole um, psychological barrier. But at the same time, if you're also um, kind of advertising this budget as super boring, back to basics, nothing new, "Guys, we're tightening the belt so much," and yet it's still almost 5 per cent. Do you kind of see what I'm saying? Like it's a bit of a mismatch because like — we'll, again, we'll get into this — but, like, no new arts funding, no BRT down Whyte Avenue, no pedestrian improvements down Whyte Avenue, like nothing. No dessert to go with the meat and potatoes, and yet you're still paying more. I think that there's a bit of a communications mismatch, imbalance there. Yes. Yeah.

Mack:
Or at least a challenge that they're gonna have to consider, right? OK, well, we're gonna break this down. We're first gonna start with overview of the budget. And some of our listeners are maybe gonna wanna skip the next 30 seconds, but for everybody else, let's just — a little refresher, Stephanie. We mentioned off the top there's capital, operating, climate budgets. Like, just help us understand: What are the various budgets that council's talking about here.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so the operating budget is what it takes day to day to run the city. So that's gonna be like snow clearing, um, street sweeping, paying for you know, the people to go give out parking tickets, paying for gas for the parking ticket, like, bylaw officer cars. And then there's the capital budget, which is like kind of one-time expenses. So that can be trucks for city operations. Or it can also be, you know, something like the Valley Line LRT, like a big, big capital project, um, or anything even like as small as, you know, like office supplies or or stuff like that for, you know, offices for the city. Those are the two monetary budgets. And then we have the climate budget, which kind of it's kind of hard to explain because they changed it a little bit this year. When it was first introduced, it was called the carbon budget, and it was meant to show city council what impact their financial decisions would have on the carbon emissions of the city and of the community. So when I say the city, I mean those are things that, like, the City of Edmonton corporation can directly control. Like again, going back to trucks, like uh, emissions from city-owned vehicles, including buses and the LRT, emissions from buildings, but then the community overall are things that administration can direct, or can influence indirectly through policy, so making it much easier to ride the bus, take active transportation, etc. And then one other thing I'll say is the utility budget, which is kind of different. It sets the utility rates, so how much you pay for water and gas and whatnot for the next four years. Correct. Yeah.

Mack:
And that one's not out yet, right? We're expecting that one, I think, Nov. 12, it is.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So the car, the truck thing is a good way to think about it. The truck is a — the purchase of the truck is capital budget. The maintenance and gas and operation of the truck is the operating budget. And the amount of emissions that it puts into the air as a result of that operation is the climate budget. Utilities don't really factor in there. OK.

Stephanie:
Yep, exactly. Yeah.

Mack:
That's a good breakdown. Thanks for that reminder. So give us the headline numbers then. Like what are we talking for capital, operating? And we'll talk about climate later. Let's just focus on capital and operating to start.

Stephanie:
OK, so the headline, uh, the capital budget is proposed to be $6.3 billion. That's with a B. Roughly $3 billion of that is already approved. So they do that sometimes where on these massive um, projects like LRT extensions, the Yellowhead and the Lewis Farms Recreation Centre, you know, those have been in the works for maybe 10 years, and they approved this like humongous budget and then it just kind of gets carried on throughout the four-year budget. So about — just under half of that is already approved. The remainder, about $3.3 billion, about $2.3 billion of that is going to renewal. So that's you know, renovating and renewing rec centres and libraries and fixing bridges so that they don't fall into the river. And you know, there's a big emphasis on maintaining what we already own and finishing the major projects. That's another kind of funny thing that I noticed in the press conference is that they kept being like, "In the next four years, we're gonna finish a bunch of stuff." It's like, woo. Yeah. Um —

Mack:
All these things that have been ongoing for years, like the Yellowhead, for example. Yeah.

Stephanie:
So to go back a little bit, so this four-year budget proposed $6.3 billion. That compares to $7.9 billion over four years in the 2023–2026 budget. So honestly, that's a pretty substantial decrease.

Mack:
Yeah, a lot less than we spent in the last four. Yeah. OK, what about the operating budget?

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. And then so we look at operating budgets more annually just because they kind of get adjusted on a more annual basis. Um, so the operating budget is about $4.2 billion annually. Um, that compares to, uh, anywhere between — over the last four-year budget cycle it was anywhere between $3.3 billion and $3.6 billion. So up a bit. But like I said, that was just proposed at the beginning and these things change basically every year. So 2026 actually ended up at just over $4 billion. And Mack, you were doing some digging to kind of compare this four-year budget to the last one. What accounts for the operating increase from 2026 to 2027?

Mack:
Yeah, I'm always curious about this. Like obviously, like you said, the budgets go up every year because we make our best guess about what will happen three or four years from now, but then we've got to update it as new information comes in. We get better detail on how many people moved to the city and all that kind of stuff. I —

Stephanie:
Hmm. Or snow. Like that's such a big thing. It's just like, how much snow do we get? And we have to change around.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Like it's such a big thing. Anyways, go ahead.

Mack:
Some years we spend more on snow, some years we spend less, right? The bulk of the difference from 2026 to 2027, that increase of a couple hundred million dollars, the bulk of it is personnel costs. So it's about, almost $145 million. And they're proposing an increase of 566 more FTEs, full-time equivalents. So these aren't necessarily people, but they're — it's a rough translation into full-time positions. So that would take the city from just under 16,000 today to almost 16,500. So it's about a 3.6 per cent increase in the number of staff. And by 2030, under the proposed budget, it would get up to more than 17,400 FTEs. So when I read that Stephanie, I first had to think, "Wow, I gotta recalibrate my own number," 'cause in my head it's around 11,000 or 12,000. But no, the city's actually grown quite a bit. There's more FTEs than that. So that's one takeaway. A subsequent question might be: Why are we adding 566? Like if we don't have a lot of money, how are we adding so many people? A big chunk of that number is what the city announced previously, and we've talked about in the past, which is that they're taking over the Valley Line Southeast LRT. So instead of having TransEd operate that, we're bringing all of that in-house. That accounts for 131 FTEs in 2027 and another 137 in 2028. So the big chunk of that is just we're bringing this big, massive infrastructure project in-house and we're gonna operate it ourselves. The other number I wanted to share here quickly is, I was just thinking about, well, that sounds like a lot, 16,000 people. How does that compare to other cities, or how does that compare to the past? I don't have another city comparison handy, but I did look up for what we had in the past. So one way to think about this is not the total number but rather the number per thousand residents, kind of the per capita number, right? Because as I said, the city grows every year. These numbers would put us at 12.9, so about 13 FTEs per 1,000 people over the course of the four-year budget. It kind of goes up a little bit in the middle and then comes back down. Our peak was actually in 2015, 2016, when it was 14.5 FTEs per thousand people. So it sounds like a lot, but it's actually down the size of the city's workforce relative to the size of the population compared to, say, a decade ago. So I thought that was kind of interesting.

Stephanie:
Mm, that is very interesting. So They're making do with fewer people. You know, I guess, I guess. Yeah.

Mack:
That's maybe one way to look at it, potentially, right? Like, they're doing more stuff, servicing more people with fewer staff per resident, essentially, to do that, right? I think a big chunk of this, you know, a big factor in this four-year budget, obviously, is just the Valley Line Southeast LRT and hopefully the west LRT and how those two major projects, which have a lot of uh, personnel attached, are gonna impact things. OK. What is the city saying about what this will mean for people in their, uh, you know, when it hits their wallets at the end of the day?

Stephanie:
So the proposed municipal tax levy increases are 4.9 per cent next year, and then in each subsequent year, 4.7 per cent, 4.5 per cent, and 3.9 per cent. So that works out to about 19.25 per cent over four years. Um, but again, those will almost certainly change if we compare to what was approved at the beginning of the '23–'26 budget. That was 4.96, 4.96, 4.95 and 4.39. Those ended up to be very different. After council made its adjustments each year, it was 4.96, 8.9 — nearly, like, almost double — 5.7 and 6.9. Again, things are going to change, you know.

Mack:
Yeah, things will for sure change. Over the last four-year budget, what does that work out to? A total of like more than 25 per cent. The proposed budget currently, uh, less than 20 per cent, 19 and a quarter. We'll see where that ends up. So as I mentioned earlier, I think this value for money thing is something we're gonna hear a lot about in the next month. So did the city manager or anyone else who launched this budget on Monday, give us any good examples of "Here's what you're gonna get for this"? I know you said there's no big, flashy headline thing, but anything else stand out?

Stephanie:
Yeah, I mentioned earlier this Well-Maintained City package, and that's one of the things that he's most excited for. Again, it's when you, when you walk outside, it's the very, like, tangible things you can see right there that really make a difference to a lot of people. So this package would add 113.5 FTEs in 2027 and another 92-ish in 2028. Um, this is gonna cost annually $23.6 million for the operating costs of this, and one-time, uh, $11.5 million for that capital funding. And the goal for this is to just — yeah, I feel like this is sort of like Facebook page bait because you know how you always see, "Why hasn't the city mowed the turf? Why haven't they mowed the median? You know, it's such — this is disgusting. Are we seriously paying our taxes for this?" It's like they took all of those and were like, "Yes, OK, here is — we're actually gonna address this." Crazy how it has to come in like a special extra service package, but hey, what do I know? Um, they want to shorten snow clearing timelines a little bit. So residential road clearing from 14 days to eight days after the parking ban is called and add monthly residential road grooming. Again, that's a huge complaint that people have. Um, and it'll cover paths and bus stops for snow clearing. And also add in some extra grass cutting, graffiti cleaning, litter cleaning. Um, this is a year-round service package. So it's not just about snow clearing, it's also about maintenance all year round.

Mack:
And I understand if this gets approved, which seems unlikely to me that it wouldn't — like, I doubt council's gonna want to take this out of the budget, even just for the simple reason of the Facebook pages, as you mentioned —

Stephanie:
Ha ha ha —

Mack:
It doesn't mean Jan. 1 we now have better services, right? But it does mean over the course of the four years we should see an improvement.

Stephanie:
Yeah, it looks like they're planning to kind of phase things in. And, um, what I kind of like about this is that, based on my understanding, it kind of changes the whole, like, seasonal hiring thing of, like, "OK, we're getting — we're hiring just snow-clearing people." And then once summer comes around, it's like, "We're hiring just people to cut the grass." It's like those people could probably do the same job, like, those two jobs. It seems kind of similar to me. So I think that's part of it.

Mack:
OK, interesting. All right, so that's our overview of the budget. Before we go into some more detail, first let's just quickly do a bit of reaction. I know it's early days, but the mayor and the councillors and some others have already been saying what they think about the budget. So what have we heard so far, Stephanie?

Stephanie:
So Mayor Andrew Knack gave some, you know, like, you know, "This is OK. This is OK." Um, CityNews posted a story where he kind of linked this more moderate increase to delivering improvements that residents can see. He told reporters, "If I'm going to ask for more, it needs to be in a moderate amount. And I think $20 more a month is a moderate amount. And it needs to make sure it's providing real service improvements for Edmontonians." And then, uh, he said, "I don't know if boring is the right word or unsexy is the right word." so I guess he disagrees with that characterization. But, like, if I know Andrew Knack, it's that he's just like us where he's like he would never say that a budget is boring because every budget is beautiful in its own way, you know? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Mack:
He's a nerd about it too, just like we are, right? Yeah, yeah. OK, so the mayor, so far, onside. What about the councillors? Have we heard from any of those folks so far?

Stephanie:
So Coun. Reed Clarke of Ward Nakota Isga, he said, "Not bad. It's better," and he said it's better than where we were, and he likes how it's going down in the proposed four-year thing. When we talked to him a few months ago and, um, kind of got his opinion on, you know, budget building as a rookie councillor, he was like, you know, "There's not really much more to cut." That was one of the takeaways that I got from that interview is that he came in thinking, "There's gotta be a way to cut more," and there really isn't. And like that's that's one thing I would definitely say from this budget is that like it's pretty lean. It's pretty lean already. And then one thing that Coun. Erin Rutherford from Ward Anirniq said was that she was surprised to see so much funding for growth of roads in the budget. She would rather see the existing arterial roads be renewed rather than more expansion of roads, "just one more lane, bro," etc.

Mack:
I could get behind that. No more new roads. No more new roads. OK, so I'm sure we'll hear more from other councillors uh, as they digest this. I know it's only been a few days. What about people outside the city, other organizations? I know I think I saw the chamber had said uh, something about the budget already.

Stephanie:
So the chamber put out a response. It said that they welcomed the focus on infrastructure, maintenance, and essential services, but they called for further work on affordability and competitiveness. Again, for the boring and unsexy thing, that's kind of the whole tagline of this discussion. Uh, vice-president Heather Thomson said, "We're not saying no taxes. We're just saying if we're gonna have taxes and residents are gonna pay for services, we want those services to be really consistent."

Mack:
Yeah, what she means is tax increases, right? "We're not saying no tax increases. If we're gonna have tax increases…" I think that's a refreshing thing for the chamber to come out and say right away. I think it's much healthier than starting from "How could we increase taxes when things are so unaffordable for people?" Like a recognition that things have changed, the city has grown, there is new needs, we're gonna have to do you know, some kind of keep pace with that growth is I think refreshing. Uh, what about some of the other organizations that we've been talking to recently?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so, um, my budget story on that first day that it came out was I went and I went back to the five different groups that we talked to about what they want to see in the budget. So that was Sport Edmonton, Edmonton Arts Council, bike advocates, climate advocates, and the Prioritize Whyte Ave folks. I have really bad news for all five of those people.

Mack:
Oh no.

Stephanie:
Zero, not a — as far as I can tell. I was like, maybe I'm reading the budgets wrong, but not a single one of those five people got what they asked for. So sport Edmonton, they actually don't technically have a budget line in the budget, but I gave Evan Daum a call and he said, "Nope, core operating funding is not going up." Edmonton Arts Council, their operating funding is staying stagnant for another four years. Proposed. All of this is proposed. All of this is proposed.

Mack:
Longer than that, isn't it? I think I read in your story it's, like, 2019 was the last time they actually got a sizable increase. Is that right?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so by the time this budget cycle is over, if everything stays the same, I believe it'll be 12 years that they have not gotten an increase at all. Yeah.

Mack:
That's wild, wild. OK.

Stephanie:
No, no, no more arts funding, you know? Um, the bike advocates. There is — we'll get more into this later — but there was, like, a $30-million package, uh, that they could — it's unfunded. It's a potential thing that they can add on to the budget, but right now administration is not recommending it. So that's $30 million that is not included in the budget. Prioritize Whyte Ave. This is just me as a Strathcona resident. Don't mind me. But Prioritize Whyte Ave is not getting what they asked for. It is not included in the budget. And the climate, so the climate question is much more complicated because everything is kind of involved in different packages and capital profiles and everything. And the city was not able to tell me right off the bat exactly what from the new Climate Implementation Priorities plan, what exactly was funded. But we spoke to Alberta Ecotrust. And they wanted 10 million bucks in two kind of chunks to, um, help Alberta Ecotrust kind of partner with community. That is not funded either. I think that I think that's everything. So, like I said, it's a lean budget. And a bunch of these, like, yes, you can look at the 4.9 per cent and say, like, whatever you think about that tax percentage increase, but is it worth it? No extra arts funding. Question mark about climate funding. No bus rapid transit, no improvements on Whyte Avenue, and no extra sports funding.

Mack:
Now, this is proposed. So those things could change. Council could —

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
Uh, decide to do something about that. So maybe this is a good opportunity for you to explain — just remind us what this unfunded package means and how administration has gone about it. Because it's different than how we've done budgets in the past. And so if you're —

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
New to this or you've been following along for a while, you gotta know there's a different process this time. So help —

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
Us understand that.

Stephanie:
Well, I'll put — we'll put a link in the show notes to the interview that I did a few months ago with Erin Rutherford because we go deep into what an unfunded service package is. But basically, the analogy I use is like an Amazon online shopping cart. So every time the report comes to council and administration says, "Yeah, it would be, for example, $30 million to keep expanding the bike network." And they say, "That's interesting. I'm gonna put that in my cart," as an unfunded service package. So they click that. And then they've been doing that all year long, asking for unfunded service package, unfunded service package, unfunded service package. Now, in past years, what would happen is that then the budget would come, they would look at all the basic things that they have to have, like snow clearing and police and library and all that. And then they look at all these unfunded service packages on the side and be like, "OK, we overdid it a little bit. Let's remove some things from the cart. OK, no, that's good. Let's put it — let's actually press checkout for that." So that's how it would work in previous years. This year it's a little bit different because administration has kind of taken its own, you know, lens to all of these unfunded service packages and they're making a bit of a decision on their own. So even if council asks for it to be unfunded, administration can say, "You know what? This really lines up with council priorities, with the city priorities, strategic plan, city plan, etc. We're actually gonna make that funded." One example of that is the money that it would take to establish a non-residential derelict subclass. That was originally put into the budget as unfunded, but it is now funded. On my first basic glance, that was the only one that I could find. I'm sure there's more. Anyways, so it's a little bit different this year.

Mack:
So there are still some items in the shopping cart that administration hasn't proactively itself already put through the checkout. They have, I think, if I understand correctly, prioritized the items remaining in the shopping cart. The idea being that, you know, if you take the top item out, "Yeah, we're gonna do that." You take the next item out, "Yeah, we're gonna do that." Those are the most important. And then when you get to the bottom, then you might be deciding, "I don't have enough money actually today to pay for all this, so I'm gonna —"

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Have to put that back. Is that, is that a fair characterization?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so I think that is. And I think one example that I — when I was writing my story, I was really carefully trying to word it because another thing that is not funded at this point is the Safe Mobility Strategy. So basically, you know, adding in a lot of things on the roads to make it so that less people get hit by cars and die. And that was not funded. But the thing is, is like I don't think that —

Mack:
Wait, wait, wait. Just let me pause you right there. So the city basically looked at that package and said, "No, this doesn't align with anything that we care about. This doesn't align with previous council direct—" Am I understanding correctly?

Stephanie:
OK, I'm trying so hard to give the benefit of the doubt and give —

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Like, be, I guess, kind to city staff, because I really don't think that people in city staff are like, "Go, children, run into the street." Because that's what this is. It's very much so around —

Mack:
I get it. I get it.

Stephanie:
Schools. But then also they did not fund it. I mean, that is the —

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Fact. And what is the quote that you always say? "Don't look at a city's plans, look at its budgets to see, like, what its priorities are." But —

Mack:
Absolutely.

Stephanie:
The thing is, is that I believe that the two packages that council had asked for, the two different options, are priority two and three out of, like, 37 or something. So, I mean, I think admin —

Mack:
It's likely then that council will take the win on this and say, "We're gonna fund this. It's really important." I think those two packages you're talking about, uh, what is it? $161 million for the first package and $79 million for the smaller one. So the first one's kind of citywide, and the second one is like targeted areas, if I understand correctly.

Stephanie:
Yeah, and I think that it's one or the other. I think that they'd only do, like, the more expensive one. It kind of includes the cheaper one, if I'm correct there. But yeah, there's like 30 or 40 different prioritized unfunded projects. And you know, the word "climate" shows up a lot in this list.

Mack:
This is one of those like very interconnected topics, right? Where some of these things are part of other packages, I think, is a way to express it, or other, um, priorities. So there could be funding for things like a crosswalk, just as part of a different package or a different part of the capital budget altogether, not as this separate, clearly defined Safe Mobility package, right?

Stephanie:
Exactly. Like, I mean, a great example of that is that with that whole $30 million for active transportation, that is, like, the spiritual successor to the $100 million for bike lanes. That was a huge deal four years ago. So now the optional or the unfunded service package this time around is $30 million for active transportation infrastructure. Now that is not recommended to be funded. However, the city said, like, you know, "We're actually developing — or we're putting in a lot of bike routes with concurrent projects," you know, neighbourhood renewal. And then also every greenfield neighbourhood now is getting — every suburb now is getting bike infrastructure built right into it. So that's, like, a — and that is at the cost of the developers, because it's just part of the Complete Streets program. So that's a great example of, yes, of course it doesn't mean that not a single bike lane is going to be built for the rest of the next four years. Of course not. But it's just, like, the same targeted investment of, like, "We are specifically going out of our way to build a bunch of bike lanes." It's — as proposed, it wouldn't happen this next four years.

Mack:
Yeah, I think I'm on record saying a couple of times now that we should stop calling them bike lanes and just call them active pathways or whatever, because things that get built alongside other projects that we're doing would be a much more politically safe, potentially, uh, way to build bike infrastructure, right? Instead of calling it bike lanes. That said, there are just other connections that the bike network needs that aren't going to be attached to a bigger project. Like we need some funding to make the network actually make sense and not just have all these piecemeal things because we're building roads and other places, right?

Stephanie:
So yeah, those are all of the things that really caught my eye. Those are some very Taproot-y things, I think. Um, something else that I think is very Taproot-y is heritage. And Mack, you mentioned that there's a bit around heritage funding. What did you, what did you find?

Mack:
Yeah, so they have an unfunded service package as well, the Edmonton Heritage Council, and it would continue support that was kind of described as temporary in the last budget. My understanding is this is not currently recommended for funding. And so the Heritage Council is warning this could have a real big impact on their operations, a 40 per cent reduction in service — a 40 per cent reduction in services and grants. Granting is a big part of what the heritage council exists to do, of course, but it would also mean some staff positions lost. So they've sent out an email this afternoon as we're recording this on Thursday asking for supporters to write to city council, to register to speak at the public hearings that are coming up. And they said in there that in the last four-year budget period, the Heritage Council invested nearly $3.2 million in Edmonton's cultural heritage through their various programs. So HSiP, FIRE and ECAMP, and their ask is not for more money nor an expansion. It's just to maintain the same level of service again for the next four years. So I think a little bit of an example of what we're gonna hear from lots of different stakeholders in the context of this budget. OK, we can't talk about budget without talking about police, the biggest part of the budget. So Stephanie, what's the headline numbers here from the police as we head into this? They have both operating and capital impacts.

Stephanie:
So the police spending subtotal for 2027 is $675 million before internal recoveries. Two-thirds of a billion dollars. It's a lot of cheddar. Um, after —

Mack:
A lot.

Stephanie:
After uh, recoveries and revenue such as grants and fees, its net operating requirement is about $567 million, up from about $531 million in 2026. So about a $36.5-million increase.

Mack:
So we've had some councillors in the past not understand what net operating requirement means, but we understand what that means. That is the amount of money that will come from taxes, essentially, to fund the remainder of the operations of the Edmonton police. So what we're saying here is a 36 and — just over $36.5-million increase from taxes to fund police. So a big chunk of that increase is gonna be about personnel, adding people to the force, you know, uh, badges or not. They're looking at 31 FTEs in 2027. So 18 for body-worn video and 14 through the funding formula. And then that's offset a little bit by a provincial secondment ending. So that's kind of interesting. Funding formula. Something I mentioned there. That's come up. You and I were talking about this the other day, Stephanie. Uh, the last four-year budget is when they essentially approved the current police funding formula. Our understanding is that it continues as is. Doesn't have an end date, doesn't need to be renewed or anything like that. Uh, so tell us a bit about how the funding formula factors in for this budget.

Stephanie:
So every year the police are guaranteed to get a funding increase in the city of Edmonton. Every single year. Uh, not really much council oversight of that. It's not a yearly decision. It was made a long time ago. And it's designed to give predictable increases tied to population growth and inflation, and it also covers the operating costs of EPS-funded capital. So the draft of the budget says that the police budget is gonna go up by about $55.8 million, uh —

Mack:
Just keeps going up.

Stephanie:
And pay settlements can push it up even more because they have like labour disputes and stuff. So the policy, the funding formula policy does cap um, the police budget at 30 per cent of the civic spending. So it can never be more than 30 per cent of the entire budget.

Mack:
But as we know, the budget goes up every year. And so of course the police portion of that is going to go up as well. You mentioned pay settlements. That is the costs of payments and benefit changes from these labour contracts. Um, you know, if there's a raise that goes to people who have already worked, that can include back pay, that kind of thing. And so this increase um, that we talked about, this $36.6 million increase, about $17 million of that is for settled pay agreements taking effect in 2027. So this is outside the funding formula over, over and on top of that. Now, we just said $36.6 million, but I've seen in the news this other number floating around, $62 million extra. So what, what is that number?

Stephanie:
So basically, as far as I understand it, the city of Edmonton has proposed giving $121 million in capital costs to the police. But the police want about $183 million in capital costs. So that's what that difference is. And they're gonna be, you know, at council kind of fighting for this extra 60 million bucks. That unfunded portion includes about $35 million in renewal and $27 million in growth or enhancements. And it covers facilities, equipment, technology. And so that'll be separate from this annual operating increase that we just discussed.

Mack:
OK. And so part of the capital funding administration has already said, "Yes, we're going to do that. We've decided those are core." There's more that the police would like to do that council's going to have to decide upon as part of the capital budget. OK, good. One more budget we want to talk about, Stephanie, and that is the climate budget. So you talked a little bit about this earlier, how it's renamed from the carbon budget. Again, maybe helpful just to start with a bit of a definition here. There's two terms that come up quite a bit, mitigation and adaptation.

Stephanie:
So mitigation reduces the emissions causing climate change. Pretty simple, cut emissions. And like I said, it's either through direct intervention by you know, getting hydrogen buses or electric buses, or um, switching to the district energy system, which is a whole other thing that we should talk about in another episode. And then indirect is enabling people to live lower carbon lives here in the city. So making transit better. Making cycling better, making it easier to not own a car, making it easier, I think, to even have like electric vehicles, et cetera. Then adaptation is making a more climate resilient city. So making a city that's more resilient to those extreme weather events, adding in shade for heat protection, flood protection, which I think, like, you know, they're doing down by the river, and infrastructure that withstands extreme weather. I mean, we all remember the biblical floods of this, of this summer. Yeah.

Mack:
No doubt. OK. Uh, it sounds like a lot of bad news. My quick read of the document. What's the — what are they warning us about here? What do the numbers tell us about the climate budget?

Stephanie:
So I guess a bit of background here is that when it was originally called the carbon budget, the city was like, "OK, we have X amount of carbon that we are allowed to spend before 2050." And even when that first budget came out, they said, "We're actually gonna run through this by 2037." And then the next year they said, "It's actually 2036." And then the next year and the next year. So basically, by now, the community carbon budget will be used up in 2034 and the corporate budget in 2030. So both of them are even three years sooner than that original forecast. So it's grim. The corporate allowance is — at the end of this budget, it's gonna be used up. Um, pretty, pretty depressing.

Mack:
Yeah —

Stephanie:
And the thing — the way that it works with the budget is that, like, each year if you don't hit the emissions target, it gets harder to meet it the next year. And you know, one thing that just really highlights the complexity of this work is that the city budget says emissions remain stable at approximately 15 million tonnes annually, despite per capita emissions dropping 50 per cent since 2005. And this is pinned mostly on population growth.

Mack:
OK, you talked a little bit about the funding stuff already. Is there any good news? Is there anything that we should take hope or inspiration from as on the climate file?

Stephanie:
In a way, yes. I don't know. I've been feeling so pessimistic in the last few months, but the budget says that about $725 million of the whole entire budget is going to reduce climate risk. So that includes benefits from trees and parks, drainage, and then also things like — well, so a city spokesperson told me city administration's recommended climate investments are focused on reducing our risk to climate change impacts. It includes things that directly help to reduce risk, like dry ponds, renewing parks and tree planting. It also includes a lot of indirect investment, like renewing existing infrastructure, which helps make all our bridges, roads and buildings more resilient to climate change. I will just note, speaking of infrastructure and climate change, we are experiencing critical infrastructure failure due to climate change, the High Level Bridge. It needs to be closed an entire year early because of extreme weather. This is like, you know, there's that quote where the climate emergency is just watching videos on your phone of climate disasters just coming closer and closer until you're the one holding the camera. Right now we're holding the camera.

Mack:
Yeah. That's kind of depressing. True though. It's real. It's real. Yeah.

Stephanie:
Sorry. But it's real. I mean, I mean, the thing, and like — and like we're talking about the city of Edmonton's four-year budget. And part of that four-year budget is fixing the High Level Bridge that is getting swept into the river because of climate change. And then another part of it is, no, we're not gonna spend $44 million on bus rapid transit to get a few more people on the bus, and we're not gonna spend $30 million to get a few more people riding on their bikes. But no, what we're gonna do is we're gonna trim that grass one more time per week because people on Facebook are getting really mad. Like, oh OK, I'm getting really fired up here. Bridges, whenever we talk about bridges, I my heart rate goes up.

Mack:
We're gonna talk about bridges. This $725 million, another way to say this is there isn't like a package for climate change that is seven —

Stephanie:
No, exactly.

Mack:
Hundred and twenty. They've basically looked at all the other things that they're already funding and said, "That one probably could have some mitigation or adaptation aspects to it. Let's put that into the bucket and give this number." OK, let's talk about bridges. What did you find about bridges in the budget?

Stephanie:
So the proposed budget includes a composite capital profile that over multiple decades would fund the replacement of the Low Level Bridges and the High Level Bridge. The city has set aside $21 million for the planning and design of the Low Level Bridge replacement out of that total profile of $156 million. So that $21 million is for the next four years' capital budget. And also, we'll put a link in the show notes for a survey about the Low Level Bridge replacement. Um, they're asking — administration is asking Edmontonians, what should we prioritize as it designs the new Low Level Bridge? Also not a sexy bridge. It's gonna be very functional. And yeah, the survey's open till Nov. 30. Check it out.

Mack:
So not built in this four-year budget, but designed is the plan. So by the end of the four years we'll kinda know what we're gonna build and maybe an idea of how much it will cost to replace the Low Level. Is that correct?

Stephanie:
So the plan that the city has is to start construction in 2029, but they haven't yet kind of released the cost of the bridge because they haven't designed it yet. So they're gonna spend $21 million designing and planning everything, and then uh, they're holding funds in abeyance. And then that is later, they're gonna revisit this in a couple of years and be like, "OK, we designed the bridge. It costs this much. Can you please approve this?" And it'll come forward in another, um, thing before 2029, which is when construction is supposed to start.

Mack:
And then again, like you said much earlier in this long episode already, this is one of those bigger projects that will span multiple uh, capital budgets. And so it'll be — this four-year budget will be part of it, but the next four-year budget, the one that Eddie Robar is already excited about, will have more uh, funding for the bridges on there.

Stephanie:
Yeah, it's, it's, uh — the project is supposed to — for this whole thing with the Low Level Bridges, the project is supposed to be done in 2033. And then we haven't even talked about the High Level Bridge, which isn't even gonna be funded in — like, they're not even touching it for this cycle except for the rehabilitation to stop it from being swept into the river.

Mack:
Right. OK. One more thing we wanted to talk about in this episode. And then like I said off the top, we'll get much more into budget in the weeks ahead. We talked about police. That's, you know, one of the biggest chunks of the budget. The other biggest chunk of the budget is transit. And it's gonna be even a bigger piece now that we are taking over the full Valley Line LRT. What did you see about transit in the budget proposal?

Stephanie:
Fares going up. Um, that was, that —

Mack:
Fares going up, shocker.

Stephanie:
Was one thing that I just I just knew that our little our little Taprooties, our little Speaking Municipally fans would want to know about is that yeah, transit fares are going up. I think the thing that is gonna be most, uh, relevant to the listeners is the adult unsubsidized fares. So the single-trip price is proposed to increase by 25 per cent over the next four years from $3 — well, it's $3 now. When you tap your Arc card, it charges the card $3. And then by the time 2030 comes around, it's going to be $3.75, which is the same as the cash fare. Um, it's, like, an increase every year over the budget. And then the monthly cap is gonna increase by the same amount. So you'll still be getting the exact same amount of like, free rides in a month, um, with that fare cap.

Mack:
OK, so just to read this back, like today if you get on a bus and you're gonna pay with cash, you're gonna put coins in there, you gotta put in $3.75. But if you get on the bus and tap your Arc card or tap your credit card or your phone, it's gonna be $3 even. And you're saying by the end of this four-year budget, either one of those is gonna be $3.75. Interesting to me that they would increase the digital fare and not the cash fare as well. Like why wouldn't that one go up accordingly? You know, presumably there's already a premium on the cash because it costs us more to deal with cash than it does to have zeros and ones flying around, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not really sure. Maybe that'll be a question once we actually get into the budget deliberations. Um, the only thing that I can think of, actually there's two things that I can think of — is that so few people pay with cash still that it, like, they're like, "Whatever, it doesn't really matter, dollars and cents here and there." And the other thing is that I do, I do think that like vulnerable folks tend to be the ones using cash to pay for the bus. So, you know, we don't need to put it up to four bucks for the cash fare. And I don't know, though. I'm assuming motivation.

Mack:
Yeah, no, that makes sense. OK. There is other increases in the budget. There's a —

Stephanie:
Yeah, take a look.

Mack:
Nice table that they've got that outlines all the different, you know, U-Pass and charter rates and annual passes for seniors and stuff like that. The transit rates are kind of important because they're an example of one of these things in the budget that in a way offsets potential tax increases, right? If we generate more revenue from fares — it's called fare recovery — then it takes less tax dollars to run the transit service, right? And so there's a few things like that, you know, rec passes, transit, some of those things where there's a question about increased taxes or increased fares. And they impact people in different ways. And they, as you kind of point out, impact different demographics, different, you know, communities within our overall city population in slightly different ways. And so those are things that the city has tried, I guess, to address in its proposed budget and things that council will be considering when they get into the nitty-gritty of the discussions.

Stephanie:
And I somehow five or I guess four days later, I still have not read things in depth because it's a humongous document. Just for the operating, it's 1,200 pages. The capital —

Mack:
It's like 1,200 pages, isn't it? I don't know if — yeah.

Stephanie:
Is another 700 pages. And then there's all of these extra addendums and attachments, which again, like I said, it's exciting for me, but I still haven't even gotten into it. But I want to look at the fee schedule because I'm like, are parking rates going up more? Are development rezoning application, uh, permit fees and everything going up more? Are OSCAM, the On-Street Construction and Maintenance permits, where, you know, developers get charged when they have to block a road — Is that going up? I think I think I remember seeing that those are. But yeah, lots of different — see, it's not just about the tax percentage increase. It's about important stuff like your transit fare going up 25 per cent. That is more than 5 per cent, I think, if my math is right. Oh thank goodness.

Mack:
Your math is correct. Uh I mean, don't give too much fuel to folks who want to complain about the taxes because then they'll say, "How could you increase taxes? You're also increasing user fees." Uh, you know, those are, those are things that council's gonna have to deal with over the next little while. OK, well, we've given you a lot of information about the budget in this episode. I hope that was a helpful overview and breakdown of some of the big things. We're gonna dig into more of these different pieces in the weeks ahead. Stephanie, what is next? What are sort of the key dates that people should be paying attention to here?

Stephanie:
OK, so I mentioned this earlier, but probably the most important part of the budget uh, process is that Mayor Knack is gonna do a Reddit AMA on Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. Um, no, me too. Um, gosh.

Mack:
I'm stoked for this. I think it's gonna be so interesting. Yeah.

Stephanie:
He, he is — he just — I could not handle that. Um Nov. 12, utility budgets are due to be released and then they're gonna likely decide on that on Nov. 26. Backing up a little bit, Nov. 23, the whole budget process and public hearing phase begins, with deliberations continuing into December. The aim is to be approved by Dec. 18, because then that's like a Friday. And then the next week is basically Christmas. So technically they have to have it done by the end of the calendar year, but obviously, you know, over Christmas, they're gonna be working on the zoning bylaw. They won't have time. Um, yeah.

Mack:
Yes, apparently.

Stephanie:
If you wanna sign up to talk to, uh, council, I always recommend people have their voice heard. Either, uh, annoy your councillor a little bit or you can sign up. We'll put the link in the show notes. Request to Speak, and then choose the 2027–2030 budget meeting as your, like, little topic. You can also submit a written submission. And some tips for, you know, writing or speaking is keep it specific. Explain the service you use, the effect on your life and the change you want council to make. And most importantly, stay tuned to speaking municipality, Taproot and all of our products to hear more about the budget.

Mack:
As you mentioned already, lots of other things we want to dig into, try to understand better. If you're curious about something, if you've got a question, you're like, "I really wanna — just want to know, how did they fund that, or why did they fund that, or why didn't they fund that?" or whatever, uh, send it to us. You can reach out to —

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
Us directly or send it to hello@taprootedmonton.ca. Uh, we'd love to hear your curiosity and we'll do our best to uh, find the answers to those questions and help people understand it better in the weeks ahead.

Stephanie:
Yeah, please do. Like I really would love to answer questions about, like, about this because it's dense and it's confusing, but my joy in life comes from turning all of that stuff into useful information.

Mack:
Well, thank you for doing that for us today, Stephanie. And good luck reading the rest of the budget documents.

Stephanie:
I know, right?

Mack:
I wonder if anyone on administration has read every page of the budget. It's a honking big document.

Stephanie:
Nope. Probably not.

Mack:
OK, we did it, Stephanie. Budget overview episode done.

Stephanie:
Goodness, I hope that it's useful. This better be our most viewed or listened to episode of all time or else I'm quitting. Yeah. Uh —

Mack:
We just had a municipal election last year, so that seems unlikely. But you never know. You never know. Maybe our, maybe our audience loves the budget. I hope you do, because we'll be back next week with more on the budget, as well as other things that council has been up to. Until then, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.