Medicine Hat city council on Monday pushed back voting on the 2025-26 budget. Eli J. Ridder/CHAT News

By Eli J. Ridder

CITY HALL

Medicine Hat city council pushes back budget decision over ‘unanswered questions’

Dec 3, 2024 | 5:09 PM

Medicine Hat city council finally got the chance to debate the next two-year municipal budget in an open meeting on Monday and, after some concerns were raised over the tax rate increase, a waste management facility and other items, officials ended up pushing back a decision for now.

“There’s some unanswered questions,” Coun. Andy McGrogan told reporters after four-and-a-half hours of presentations and deliberations.

McGrogan said he wanted to know more about a proposed $9-million food waste compost facility and what the possibilities were to bring the cost down.

“Are we spending $2 million to bring a line in, or is there wells that are available out there at maybe $100,000? Because it changes a $9-million project down to a $7-million project, and that’s important,” he said.

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“I don’t think we should pass a budget with lingering questions like that.”

How council determines which community organizations get money was identified as one of the hold ups after HALO Air Ambulance asked for $250,000 a year for the next six.

“We can’t just add it onto the budget tonight,” said McGrogan.

“We had a presentation, but we also had a presentation from the women’s shelter saying they wanted money. We’ve had several conversations with the Stampede Board about what they want,” he added.

“So we should actually be doing it in a uniform manner. It should be the same.”

The budget proposed by staff includes a 5.6 per cent property tax increase in both 2025 and in 2026 to raise approximately $5 million more in tax revenue per year.

Those increases are largely related to inflation, decreasing energy profits and making up cash lost to frozen increases in 2020 and 2021.

With seven public meetings and well over 24 hours spent on budget deliberations since April, council has gone through what city officials say is the most transparent process ever.

However, the majority of those meetings were made up of staff presentations with some opportunity for questions.

Coun. Shila Sharps said she would like to see the process changed for the future to an approach that creates more room for public council deliberation.

“There’s maybe a hybrid version of this,” Sharps said, that would include presentations mixed in with debate.

Many of the questions council had about specific budget items didn’t come forward until Monday because it was only then councillors and the mayor were able to start going back-and-forth on concerns they had.

Council is required under Alberta law to approve a balanced budget by the new year.

Its only remaining scheduled regular council meeting is on Dec. 16, when council will aim to pass the budget.

Sharps is confident council can get it done in time.

“I am confident we’ll get there. We might not have a unanimous vote, but we shouldn’t, that’s not how we determine success, unanimous vote,” Sharps said.

“I would hope that Hatters would rather us debate and make sure that we’re being accountable for every dollar,” she added.

“I want to make sure that everything is on the floor. We’re talking about it. This is taxpayer dollars. Like, it’s significant.”