City of Calgary sitting with $221 million surplus

The City of Calgary has a surplus of $221 million as of June 30 thanks to higher investment income and lower-than-expected expenditures.

The mayor and councillors learned of the surplus during a financial update at a committee meeting Tuesday, where city administration projected that surplus will go down to $175 million by the end of the year.

Calgarians CityNews spoke to have some ideas on how to spend it.

“They can definitely use it towards the beautification of parks and definitely some more infrastructure,” one person said.

“Honestly, Calgary Transit, it’s a shame that we don’t have a better downtown,” another added.

One Calgarian says the money should go towards updating infrastructure to keep up with the population book.

“Based on the growth of Calgary, we need to develop the city, we’ve expanded quickly and there’s a lot of parts of it that need to grow with it,” they said.

The financial update comes as Calgary continues to repeatedly see surpluses year after year.

“A nicer gesture would be next year just not raise taxes,” said Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean.

Another councillor says in the grand scheme of things, the surplus isn’t that much to allow for major changes.

“From an overall $5 billion budget, $175 million is not a huge variance,” said Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot.

Provincial legislation requires municipalities to prepare balanced budgets, which means they are not allowed to budget for deficits or surpluses.

If surpluses do occur, the money can be used on unexpected costs or sent to the city’s rainy-day fund.

“We need to be much better at setting a budget that is realistic so when we get these kinds of updates it allows us to see whether or not we are in fact getting better or if we are being too cautious or too conservative,” said Mayor Jyoti Gondek.