Council Committee hears further details on 2027 Operating Budget, deliberations set for June 10-11
Creating sustainable long-term cost reductions, finding efficiencies to mitigate pressures while maintaining service levels, and keeping any potential tax rate increases to reflect inflation will be City Council’s goals next month when debating the City’s next Operating Budget.
Darrell Mathews, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer, presented a 2027 Operating Budget Workshop to City Council’s Community Issues Committee meeting Thursday. During the past several months, City Administration has been working on the development of the 2027 Operating Budget. The draft budget document includes:
- An Operating Budget overview and the base budget
- An update on the estimated budget pressures
- A review of the proposed budget reduction initiatives
“City Council will have a lot of key decisions to make during our budget deliberations in June,” says Mayor Blaine Hyggen. “We know that any potential changes could have an impact on our residents, so it is important we consider all of these angles to continue to meet the needs of our growing community.”
The City’s Operating Budget includes ongoing operating costs for services or programs such as police, fire, electric, parks operations, public transit, water and wastewater, road maintenance, snow removal, libraries, arenas and swimming pools.
Service level changes, external decisions from other levels of government, inflationary increases, and funding allocation to community groups, will also be considered on June 10-11 when Council members will meet as CIC to deliberate the 2027 Operating Budget. The deliberations will be open and the public can participate in relation to items on CIC agendas. The CIC will send a referral and recommendations to City Council for approval in July.
“The purpose today was to walk through the structure of this draft budget and provide Council with the information needed before the June deliberations,” says Mathews, who also provided a 2027 Operating Budget update to CIC on April 30. “The goal was to build understanding, answer questions, and support Council’s review of the draft 2027 Operating Budget materials.”
The City of Lethbridge practices multi-year budgeting. The current four-year 2023-2026 Operating Budget was approved at the end of 2022. In May 2024, City Council approved changes to the Capital and Operating Budget process by staggering the two budget deliberations by one year. Due to this process change, the 2023-2026 Operating Budget will need to be extended by one more year to include a “stub year” for 2027.
The next full four-year Operating Budget deliberations, for 2028-2031, are anticipated to take place in late 2027.
The 2027-2030 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) budget deliberations and approval will take place at the end of 2026. Read more on Wednesday’s CIC CIP update here.