Edmontonians are divided on where their tax dollars should be going in the upcoming four-year budget, recent city-wide feedback suggests.
A new report, released Thursday, showed schism after schism on whether people wanted to cut or increase spending in transit, policing, bike lanes and infill.
In April and May, the city conducted in-person sessions and online surveys with nearly 12,000 participants about priorities for the upcoming budget, which will lay the foundation for the city’s finances from the start of 2027 to the end of 2030.
The engagement had people answer specific closed-ended questions and also provide open feedback, with more than 460,000 words being submitted, enough to fill a 1,000-page report.
The survey also included input from sessions held with “interest holders” groups like non-profits, businesses, community organizations and institutions.
The nearly 50-page report said there were “complex tensions” that emerged, which the city administration and council must “navigate with care.”
Polarized on policing
The report said the topic of police spending had “some of the most polarized responses.”
While residents ranked the area third among service areas in the survey, it was also one of the most common places where residents were OK with cutting costs. The Edmonton Police Service currently gets the most funding of any single branch in the city’s operating budget.
Thirteen per cent of businesses responding to the survey believed in more spending for the police. At the same time, other interest groups cited safety concerns, but also a need for services and alternatives to police that deal with the root causes of crime.
Ages opposed on transit
When it came to public transit, people older than 35 were more likely to call for decreases in spending, and for services to be funded by user fees rather than taxes.
Younger people, under 35, were less likely to want cuts in transit spending. Along with renters, people with disabilities, and 2SLGBTQA+ people, young people were also less likely to want user fees covering most transit expenses.
Across all engagement, both cutting and increasing transit spending placed high. Interest holders that mentioned transit often supported more spending, with some saying it was crucial for getting residents to services and businesses.
The heated topic of bike lanes didn’t get any relief from the budget survey, as the report said results showed deep divisions.
However, the results suggest the majority of Edmontonians didn’t place cycling paths as a top or bottom priority. Instead, the report said there were two opposed minorities, either for or against more spending on bike infrastructure.
Sprawl versus infill
Despite Edmonton growing rapidly, by around 200,000 people in just five years, there were conflicting results on where those new people should live.
The report said both urban sprawl and infill housing were among the top areas people wanted the city to spend less on. Among open-ended responses, three per cent of residents were concerned about infill, while six per cent of businesses responding were worried about the impacts of urban sprawl.
“This tension suggests competing visions about the type of city Edmonton should be, and the type of neighbourhoods participants want to live in,” the report said.
Support for affordable housing and efforts at helping homelessness were both strong.
Common grounds
While many people disagreed on priorities, the report said the root of people’s worries was similar. Most were related to inflation pressures, things that could reduce their quality of life, or make daily life more expensive.
Frustration with affordability, safety, vibrancy and how neighbourhoods were changing were all common. The city said it painted a picture “where quality of life is threatened by several pressures at once.”
Common and high-ranking themes were that people wanted the city to priortize maintenance and completing projects before starting new ones. Road quality was another clear priority for people.
Out of 15 service categories, the No. 1 item for survey participants was winter roads and pathways. At the same time, road maintenance was the most consistently prioritized service area across both digital and in-person engagements.
But people weren’t likely to ask for more or new roads — the running theme was to keep existing ones in good shape.
One of the most common themes, the survey said, was that people want the city to “get back to basics.”
People were in favour of the city focusing on what was referred to as “core services.” The report said that point was emphasized across all the engagement, and the sentiment was frequently raised in open-ended responses.
However, people had different views of what a core service actually is. Some said roads and bridges, while others said firefighting and police. For some people, they stressed libraries, rec centres and social services in “various combinations.”
Among qualitative measures, the most common theme across all methods was fiscal responsibility.
Higher taxes versus user fees
The city report said that a “reality of municipal finances,” one it described as the choice between higher taxes or lower services, was rejected by participants.
It described that respondents expected the city to be able to deliver the same or better services within the existing budget, despite factors like inflation and other rising costs.
“This was one of the defining dynamics of the engagement overall,” the report said.
However, an online budget engagement tool that simulates the city’s finances provided more context. When people were asked to balance the budget under constraints, many chose modest tax increases over higher service cuts.
The report said this suggested people could accept difficult trade-offs when faced with limitations.
At the same time, there is an appetite for hiking user fees instead of taxes. Across the entire process, there was a “general tolerance” for funding city programs and facilities mostly through user fees, instead of relying on the tax levy.
People were most open to increasing costs for permits and parking. At least half of the survey participants thought licences, fees, parking, attractions, recreation centres, facility passes and transit fares should be mostly or entirely funded by user fees.
There was also strong support for increasing fines, and for a tiered fee system to help low-income people, similar to what the city already has in place.
City council is set to review and discuss the engagement results at a Sept. 8 meeting. Following that, a proposed budget should be ready this fall and will be finished in December.
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