City of Calgary posts $238M budget surplus for 2023

In a world filled with deficits, the City of Calgary has posted a budget surplus for the 2023 fiscal year.

A corporate planning and financial services report presented at city council's executive committee meeting on Tuesday said the surplus came in at nearly $238 million.

That's down slightly from the 2022 budget surplus, which was $258.7 million.

According to the report, the surplus is a result of "higher-than-expected investment income and supplementary revenue, lower corporate expenditures and a favourable variance across several tax-supported services."

The report says that $100 million of the surplus has already been committed by council toward one-time investments in "community priorities" across the city.

As for the rest of the surplus $137.7 million council is expected to make a decision soon that would allocate it toward off-setting the inflationary costs accumulating on capital projects.

One of the areas where the city benefited from higher-than-forecasted revenue was local access fees due to high electricity prices.

Rebates not an option

Councillor Sonya Sharp said a surplus is better than a deficit, but that she isn't happy with the size of the number.

"It's disappointing to see that amount of surplus being brought forward after we see our taxes get increased 8.6 per cent," said Sharp.

"So what frustrates me is the fact that we aren't budgeting properly."

She said she wouldn't be surprised if Calgarians asked for rebates on their taxes after seeing the reported budget surplus.

"Unfortunately, administration and the CFO say you can't do that because you'll create a bow wave effect. But what we have to start doing is budgeting accordingly to the services Calgarians are asking for instead of putting investment packages forward for things that we probably don't need right now."

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said city council has asked administration to be clear when reporting variances in projected budgets.

When combined with last year's declared surplus, it means the city has racked up nearly half a billion dollars more than budgeted over the last two years.