Calgary’s new city council is getting its first look at the proposed budget for 2026. It includes a 1.3 per cent jump for non-residential properties and a 5.4 per cent tax increase for residential properties. Mayor Jeromy Farkas is looking to reduce the residential portion of that proposed increase by at least half. “Working through the briefings, working through our various conversations, we think that’s practical,” he said. “There’s a lot of assumptions that went into setting the initial tax rate that the previous mayor and council did several months ago, so we’re going to be working very hard as a council to be able to lower the tax increase while still leaning in on the public safety and transit improvements.” Farkas says that means spending money on items like water pipes and doing more to improve transit safety. He says he heard clearly from Calgarians through the course of the municipal election campaign of the need to keep life affordable in Calgary. Andre Chabot, councillor for Ward 10, says finding those savings is a tall task. “As it currently stands, there’s nothing really within the budget that would result in a 50 per cent cut, in my opinion,” he said. One way to find savings for homeowners, some councillors suggest, is by revisiting the tax shift between non-residential and residential properties. For several years, the city has been incrementally shifting the tax burden away from the non-residential sector. “It’s not actually the small businesses that are benefiting from the tax shift. It’s mostly the downtown office towers, the REITs and the multinationals that are benefiting from that tax shift,” Chabot said. “So if you’re talking about small businesses, this shift of one per cent is not benefiting them.” Other councillors say there are specific programs that should be considered when looking for savings. “A lot of promises made by a lot of these councillors that were hired was the climate fund, right? I believe that’s honestly a waste of money,” said Landon Johnston, councillor for Ward 14. “Right now, I think we can eliminate a big portion of that, if not all of it, and that would be immediate savings.” The new-look council will debate possible changes to the budget during the week of Nov. 24 and will make a final decision on next year’s budget by the end of the month.
