Medicine Hat Minute: Issue 274

Medicine Hat Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Medicine Hat politics

📅 This Week In Medicine Hat: 📅

• The City's Budget Committee meets tomorrow at 10:00 am, where Administration will lay out the assumptions behind the 2027-2028 budget, including property tax increases of 4.65% in 2027 and 4.40% in 2028. Those totals pair tax rate adjustments of 4.15% and 3.65% with assessable growth of 0.50% and 0.75%, down from the 4.90% total increase built into the current year's budget. Fees and charges would rise 3.0% in each year, and departments are given no allowance for inflation, meaning they must absorb rising costs unless a specific pressure is approved. Even with those increases, the City projects a municipal budget gap of $7.5 million in 2027 and $6.8 million in 2028, a cumulative $14.3 million that Administration says would be funded from reserves, with investment earnings climbing from $10.2 million to $17.0 million to keep the gap from widening further. Administration told Council that holding the rate adjustment to 3.9% and 3.65% would push the two-year gap to $16.6 million, while going to 6.0% in both years would narrow it to $10 million. 
  
  
• Administration will also ask the Committee to back a $328-million capital program for 2027 and 2028, with 73% of the spending scheduled in 2027. Nearly 30% of the program would be financed with long-term debt and another 35.7% drawn from reserves, with grants covering roughly 18%. The single largest request is $60 million for the South Outdoor Aquatics Project, which Administration has flagged as contingent on grant funding and a separate Council approval, days after Council agreed on September 8th to advance the facility's design. Other major items include $30 million for a north employment sector initiative in the City's electric generation business, $12.5 million to expand landfill airspace at a cost recovered through utility rates, and $10.4 million for gas turbine spare parts. A further $98.2 million in capital requests was not recommended and has been excluded, among them a $50 million spare turbine and a $27.4 million food waste composting facility.  
  
  
• Fleet leases, parks staffing, and a sharp drop in fine revenue are the largest pressures on Medicine Hat's next municipal budget, according to the same package. Administration lists $6.7 million in new ongoing municipal cost pressures and revenue losses for 2027 and a further $1.7 million for 2028, partly offset by $6.3 million in inflation and operational savings across the two years. On the revenue side, the City expects to collect $750,000 less in fines and $451,604 less from scheduled air services at the airport, which together account for more than half of a $2.3 million shortfall. On the spending side, fleet lease payments add $1,365,470 in 2027 and another $848,600 in 2028, while Parks and Recreation accounts for roughly $1.4 million, including $148,105 for encampment, vandalism, and homeless clean-up. Administration is also seeking $173,000 for security at the transit terminal washrooms and $100,000 for legal fees on access to information requests. Requests Administration is not recommending include a $200,000 municipal census in 2028, a $500,000 demolition of the Heights Pool, and two new police positions, a disclosure clerk and a communications coordinator.
  
  
• Medicine Hat City Council voted unanimously on September 8th to make Joseph Hutter the City's permanent City Manager, ending an eight-month interim appointment. Hutter joined the City in September 2024 as Managing Director of Public Services, holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Calgary, and was previously Chief Administrative Officer for the Town of Nobleford. He formally takes the role on September 15th. Hutter had been filling in since Council terminated former City Manager Ann Mitchell, who was appointed in 2023 and was at the centre of a public dispute with Mayor Linnsie Clark. Councillor Stuart Young, who chairs the Governance Committee, said Council deliberately took its time with the recruitment and did not want to rush a process it had eight months to observe. Clark said the interim period gave Council confidence that Hutter has both the credentials and the relationship-building skills the City needs to rebuild trust with residents.
  
  
• City staff have presented Council's Development and Infrastructure Committee with a draft two-year pilot project that would let Medicine Hat residents keep between two and four hens in their backyards. The rules would bar roosters, prohibit the sale of eggs or meat and the slaughter of birds, set minimum care standards, and require an annual licence plus notice to and approval from neighbours. Costs vary sharply by option: the most expensive would charge taxpayers $470,000 upfront for a dedicated holding facility and more than $210,000 a year to run it, while the cheapest would use existing City resources at about $5,000 upfront and $70,000 annually. A City survey of 767 residents conducted from May 19th to June 26th split almost evenly, with 379 in favour and 374 opposed, but 55% said they opposed spending municipal tax dollars on such a program against 18% who supported it. Council directed staff to design the pilot on a 5-3 vote in April, and the issue has been before councillors on and off since 2015. Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Airdrie, Grande Prairie, and St. Albert already allow backyard hens, while Lethbridge, Cochrane, Fort Saskatchewan, and Lloydminster do not. 

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

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