Kevin Hanson – Division 1
Springbank Trails and Pathways Association
STAPA has been actively engaged with Rocky View County for the past year, meeting with Administration, myself, and Councillor Don Kochan. They’ve presented to our Public Participation Committee to inform Council about their mission. Recently, they informed Council about the opportunity to coordinate with Alberta Trail Net and the SR-1 project to work towards a Cochrane-to-Bragg Creek segment of the TransCanada Trail.
Don and I submitted a motion for Council to direct Administration to develop a Memorandum of Understanding with the Springbank Trails and Pathways Association outlining roles, expectations, and areas of cooperation. We hope to receive Council’s approval on April 28th.
2026 Spring Budget Finalization Completed
The April 14 Council meeting focused on finalizing the 2026 budget and setting the 2026 tax rate increase. In earlier workshops, and again publicly at this meeting, we heard that Rocky View is working toward a single, fulsome budget approval before the start of the fiscal year, which runs from January to December.
That would be a change from the current two-step process. At present, Council approves a “Base Budget” in December.
A final round of adjustments follows in the spring, after Rocky View has confirmed the applicable tax assessments and before the budget must be submitted to the Province.
Historically, the two-step process was used because it gave Rocky View more confidence in estimating how much “live growth” would be in place for tax calculations. This is more complicated than it sounds. When the commercial and industrial assessment base is growing quickly, tax estimates depend on whether buildings are completed and occupied on schedule. Budgeting therefore depends on whether developers deliver product to market when expected, and whether those spaces are sold or leased when Rocky View expects them to be.
The same dynamic exists on the residential side, although usually with less uncertainty than in the commercial and industrial sectors.
In the past, Rocky View has taken a very conservative approach to estimating additions to the assessment base, or “live growth.” Administration and Council have built the budget and calculated the tax rate using that same conservative assumption. The reasoning was straightforward: it is better to finish the year with a surplus than a deficit.
However, during a period of sustained growth, that approach tends to generate larger surpluses over time. Those surpluses typically end up in one of two places. They can be added to the tax stabilization reserve for future uncertainty mitigation, or they can be used immediately to subsidize the following year’s tax rate increase. The second option is naturally easier politically. As a result, Rocky View has held tax rate increases exceptionally low, or at zero, through the four years since the COVID-19 disruption gave way to a boom. Those low tax increase decisions happened even while high inflation was pushing up actual costs. There is a limit to how long those pressures can be deferred, because under-investment in lifecycle asset management eventually catches up in the form of higher future costs and fewer good options.
Moving to a one-pass budget approval process will require several things to be in place:
- Multi-year capital planning, with cash flow reporting across project delivery timelines
- Multi-year operating budgets that can maintain or adjust service levels as needed
- Better assessment growth estimates, along with a stronger understanding of economic risk
- A multi-year tax rate strategy aligned with capital and operating goals
With those pieces in place, each year’s budget would no longer start from scratch. Instead, it would become an adjustment to an established trajectory. Rocky View is continuing to work toward that model in 2026.
Multi-Year Capital Budget Still a Work in Progress
Council is still workshopping with Administration to better understand the trade-offs involved in Rocky View’s mid- and long-term capital needs. These include Fire, Recreation, existing asset management, and new infrastructure commitments. That work depends in part on the Fire and Recreation Master Plans, as well as other strategic reports expected later this year.
As I have noted before, Rocky View is at an inflection point. These are complex decisions, and Council will need to work through them as we move into budgeting for 2027 later this year. The hope is that next time we can do that through a single, once-through approval process rather than a second round of spring adjustments.
So long story short, the overall net tax increase required to support the approved 2026 operating and capital budget was decided by Council at 4.16%.
Contact: KRHanson@RockyView.ca or call 403.463.1166.
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