Ward 11 Alderman Brian Pincott | City of Calgary Office of the Aldermen

Those who have read my previous posts will know that I was against sending the budget back to administration for further work. I am glad Council decided in the end to do our job and craft the final budget.

The budget process is about finding ways to balance citizen demand for protective services, street cleaning, parks maintenance, better transit service, effective waste management and a host of other areas with what can be afforded.

At the end of 50 hours of deliberation, I believe that we, as a Council, have achieved that with this budget. We significantly reduced the proposed tax increase for 2009 down to 5.3% from the 9.6% we were looking at when we began on Monday morning.

The intricacies of municipal budgeting are probably not something that many people are very familiar with, and is a topic that gets simplified to an extreme in the media. One major area of confusion is between operating and capital spending and what items in the budget affect the property tax rate.

Over the last week I often heard about reducing the proposed property tax increase by cutting finding for the pedestrian bridges across the Bow River. The money for these bridges comes from the Provincial MSI Funding, which is specifically for capital infrastructure projects, and has no direct effect on the property tax rate. However, the benefits from this project are numerous: they will encourage the absorption of new population growth into the core, maximizing existing infrastructure; they will decrease the need for additional roads on the periphery; they will help housing affordability by making owning a car a choice and not a necessity; they will enhance community vibrancy and safety by having more people on the streets - all of which has a net positive effect on the property tax rate. Any time a single piece of municipal infrastructure can multi-task with so many benefits, it is a cost effective and efficient expenditure.

A second example of an item whose inclusion in the budget does not directly affect the property tax rate increase - but does have a positive impact in reducing future potential increases is the City investment in a fitness facility at the Municipal Building. Again, this is an investment that has no direct impact on the property tax rate. However, this expenditure in the now, will see a return on this investment that will positively impact the tax rate. Investing in employee well-being has been seen repeatedly the private sector as a cost-effective approach to increase employee retention and productivity while reducing sick leave; each of these 'soft' benefits lowers operating costs - which do rely on the property tax base.

I am confident that we have a budget and business plan to move forward with building our city in a more affordable and sustainable way. I am confident that Council has examined the budget in detail and found the cuts and efficiencies that reduced the proposed tax increase by 4.3%. I will continue in my role as Alderman and in particular via my seat on the Audit Committee to work to maximize delivery of service to Calgarian's in a cost effective manner.