MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - The recently released 2025 Alberta budget has both good and bad news for Mountain View County, says reeve Angela Aalbers.
Released on Feb. 27, the budget includes $17.2 million to increase grants to municipalities in lieu of property taxes on government-owned property to 75 per cent, up from the current 50 per cent.
As well, there is $820 million this year and $2.5 billion over three years in Local Government Fiscal Framework (LGFF) capital funding to help fund local infrastructure priorities.
Reeve Aalbers told the Albertan the county is pleased to see the LGFF funding is set to increase by 13 per cent in the budget, which will result in an increase of $338,000 to the county.
“This number remains unchanged from previous provincial forecasts,” she said. “This is good news, however, we are already expecting a decrease in next year's LGFF, as the funding formula includes a provincial revenue index factor that ties the funding level to provincial revenue from three years prior.”
Meanwhile, county officials are awaiting information on Sustainable Transportation and Infrastructure Grant (STIP) submissions for the Sundre airport lighting system as well as the joint road project with Didsbury, Mountain View Regional Waste Commission and Altagas for an upgrade to 23rd street north of the Highway 582 intersection in Didsbury, she noted.
“We are disappointed that there is no increase to the STIP grant in the 2025 provincial budget as this is key funding for road infrastructure,” she said.
The budget’s significant increase to the Alberta School Foundation Fund, or education tax, is impactful for county residents, she said, noting that the county will again see a large increase in the education tax that is collected by the county on behalf of the province.
In 2024, the education tax collected by the county was $14,075,550 and this is anticipated to increase to $16,006,856, a 14 per cent increase, in 2025, she said.
“The 2025 tax impact to the average household based on the education tax alone is expected to be $228.80,” she said, “This coupled with a six per cent increase to the Mountain View Seniors' Housing requisition – money collected by the county on behalf of MVSH – as well as anticipated increases to the provincial policing costs put a great deal of pressure on council to balance to total tax burden on rate payers, while still collecting sufficient tax revenues to deliver core services, as the taxes the county collects on behalf of the province and MVSH are imposed on the county,” she said.
In 2024, 64 per cent of taxes collected were for municipal purposes and 36 per cent were collected for requisitions and the province – $31,437,848 collected for municipal use, $15,276277 for the province, including education tax and policing and $2,081,671 for MVSH.
“In 2025, the split between taxes collected for municipal use will reduce to 61.9 per cent highlighting that tax increases to our rate payers is being driven by non-municipal sources,” she said.
Meanwhile, a “major concern for Mountain View County” will be the decisions resulting from the ongoing Provincial Police Funding Model (PFM) review, she said.
“We have already been forewarned by the province that there is a current shortfall of police funding of more than $30 million, which we expect will be allocated to municipalities following completion of the police funding model review,” she said.
“These financial impacts are being forecasted for the county’s 2026 budget.”
