By Angela Anderson

Mayor Dave Bronconnier has a plan for the future of Calgarians’ property taxes—and it doesn’t include sending nearly half to the province.

On Oct. 24, Bronconnier met with residents at Mountain Park School in Douglasdale for the second of five town hall meetings to present, A Plan for the Future.

He says that the property taxes Calgarians pay should no longer be sent away for the Province to use, but instead kept in the City’s hands to be used as needed.

“The provincial government has annual surpluses in the billions of dollars,” said the mayor. “There is no longer any need for the province to take a share of the property taxes out of Calgary when that money is so badly needed to keep pace with growth here and now.”

Calgary’s infrastructure needs are growing and the province’s grants are decreasing sharply, yet 48% of Calgarians’ property taxes are still being sent to the capital, he told an audience of about 150 people.

He explained the plan as “out-of-the-box thinking, Calgary style,” and described it to require no additional taxes and “stable, long-term funding for city infrastructure and schools.”

Calgary has had a backlog of $5.4 billion worth of needed infrastructure that will be required over the next 10 years for which there is limited funding, the mayor added.

Bronconnier explained that in 2005, the province began administering “catch up grants” to Calgary to address the severe funding shortage that was occurring.

However, that program ends in 2009.

In addition, Bronconnier explained that $2.7 billion is needed for life cycle maintenance, for example, repairing, updating and upgrading the capital assets the city already has.

“If we looked at the city as a corporation, we would have $7.7 billion in funded infrastructure projects, and $5.4 billion in unfunded,” he said.

Bronconnier explained that keeping taxes in Calgary’s hands would help make better use of school-designated land, of which there are currently 123 vacant parcels in the city right now.

“It would provide a dedicated source of funding for schools,” Bronconnier said, adding the City would not “take over” the running of the education system in Calgary, but would “work with the boards to meet their infrastructure needs and ours.”

He also said that the plan would include investing in older schools as well as new ones, instead of abandoning the older, mainly inner city schools to bus kids to the new facilities in the suburbs.

In addition to the 43 new schools and renovations to 10 established schools in the next decade, Bronconnier explained the plan would provide long-term stable funding for much-needed municipal infrastructure, including roads, LRT extensions, recreation facilities, police, fire and EMS stations.

City council approved its priorities for 2006 to 2008 in January 2005, which included a priority to strengthen Calgary’s voice regionally, provincially and nationally, and to influence the decisions that directly impact the community.

Then in November 2005, Premier Ralph Klein challenged Alberta to “think outside the box” to find funding for it’s deteriorating schools.

Over the past three years, council has made submissions to the province advocating for the province to vacate property taxes so municipalities can use the revenue for local purposes.

Working towards that goal, on March 21, 2006, council approved a five-point action plan for building sustainable communities and then in May, council made the decision to take up the residential property tax “space” the province vacated in 2006.

Council then approved the core principles behind the mayor’s A Plan for the Future on Sept. 19.

The next town hall meeting is Nov. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at Dr. E.P. Scarlett High School in the southwest.

The final meeting will be held Nov. 14 at Western Canada High School beginning at 6:30 p.m.

—Angela Anderson is a Calgary Real Estate News reporter.