Jasper council passed a budget calling for a 4.9 per cent tax increase on Tuesday (Dec. 17) as it waits for the province to officially announce tax relief.
Mayor Richard Ireland said he had pushed to delay approving the budget to give the province more time to formally make a commitment. He also considered supporting an interim budget but worried it might introduce more uncertainty.
“I wish that we had great clarity by now, but I accept what others have said about the indications that we have been given and that’s what we have today,” Ireland said. “And we don’t have more information than we had two weeks ago, but we certainly don’t have less, so at this stage, at some point, we have to move forward.”
Following a wildfire that destroyed nearly a third of the Jasper townsite and resulted in a loss of $300 million in assessed value, the municipality is anticipating $9.3 million in lost revenue between 2025 and 2027.
The municipality has since asked the provincial government to provide financial stabilization funding. Any tax relief for residents would be dependent on such funding.
Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver previously commented in the Legislature that the government wanted to secure land leases from Parks Canada for interim housing before committing any funding to financial stabilization.
NDP critic Kyle Kasawski has criticized the government for “holding the town hostage” by withholding tax relief.
CAO Bill Given noted council could make decisions about potentially reducing services or shifting the tax burden across the tax base when setting the mill rate next year.
“We do have an absence of information, but there isn't an uncertainty about the services that need to be delivered from January to June,” Given said.
He added that administration understood the need to move cautiously, noting there was no significant amount of new capital projects for 2025, the largest project being the affordable housing complex.
“And in recent discussion with the Government of Alberta, we still believe that we can expect to see financial support for municipal operations, although we don’t have that formal announcement,” he said.
Coun. Rico Damota agreed that they should pass the budget and make any changes down the road if required.
“The province told us that they were going to help us out, and we had some conversations, and I was very comfortable at the time in those conversations that we're going to get some relief funding and to the level that we needed in our community,” Damota said.
In addition, the municipality is required to cover 10 per cent of costs under the Disaster Recovery Program. This contribution would be roughly $4.3 million for 2024-25, which is equivalent to a 36.5 per cent increase in 2025 on top of the 4.9 per cent.
Council has been pushing the provincial government to waive its contribution. According to the province, this will only happen if the federal government waives the province’s cost share, which it justified on the grounds that the wildfire began in a national park under federal jurisdiction.
In previous budget deliberations, council kept the tax increase to 4.9 per cent by reconfiguring the credits to the financial stabilization reserve. It also declined to add two full-time operations positions.
