Calgary's city council is in the middle of budget deliberations and it looks like there won't be any big changes to the tax increase that was agreed to earlier this year.
Council has already decided on a 5.7 percent property tax increase for 2013 which would see the average bill increase by about $80.
The issues of transit and the requirement for more 911 operators are both high on the agenda.
Nenshi has asked for Calgarians for their input into the municipal budget.
“We had extensive citizen engagement and a lot of input from City Council into creating our three year budget through something called Council’s fiscal plan. Our goal for this year was to make sure that Calgary’s economy hadn’t changed very much, that we could still capture the millions of dollars in savings from efficiencies that Council approved the last time.”
He says that moving the current property tax-based system to an income tax-based system is a good idea because it is a better reflection of the economic times.
The city says property tax revenue was higher than projected due in part to an increase in the assessment base.
The total spending proposed on the adjusted operating budgets is approximately $3.0 billion for 2013 and $3.1 billion for 2014.
