The provincial government is providing funding to municipalities to help address the rapidly growing population.
Due to Alberta's population growing, there are more people in the province relying on their municipality to deliver essential services, including roadwork, snow clearing, and transit, and the provincial government is wanting to make sure municipalities are able to support their residents.
If passed, Budget 2025 would see increases to the Grants in Place of Taxes (GIPOT) by over $17 million this year, which will provide municipalities in Alberta with a stable, reliable source of funding, which will help the municipalities to deliver essential services to their residents, which they all depend upon.
"We heard clearly from municipalities that they need more stable funding to deliver local services effectively while avoiding property tax increases. Boosting GIPOT shows how our government is doing its part to help our municipal partners fund the municipal services their residents rely on," explained the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ric McIver, in a media release.
All across Canada, properties belonging to the provincial government are exempt from municipal taxes, and to help account for that lack of taxes, municipalities in Alberta are paid a discretionary grant to cover those taxes.
Those discretionary grants help to provide a more stable and reliable source of revenue that municipalities can rely on while municipal budgets are being developed and allocating funding to municipal services and programs.
With this increase in funding, the GIPOT will be providing more than $55 million, to municipalities, and will cover 75 per cent of the municipal property tax value of the eligible provincial properties this year.
In 2026, there will be another increase to the GIPOT, raising the total funding to over $75 million, and it will cover 100 per cent of the amount that would be paid to the municipality through taxes.
For more information on the Grants in Place of Taxes program, click here.