City of Calgary 2023 Progress Update
Today, the Executive Committee of Council received an update on The City of Calgary’s progress, how public funds were spent in 2023, how the community is doing and more. The 2023 Progress Update (formally the Performance Report) is designed to provide updates on our progress and challenges during the first year of the 2023-2026 Service Plans and Budgets.
The City’s progress in 2023 was responsive and financially prudent, achieving significant results for Calgarians within its approved budget. The City made advancements in several areas including housing, public safety and transit to enhance the quality of life for Calgarians. Work to advance The City’s Service Plans and Budget will continue to drive achievements in the future.
“In 2023, The City achieved key milestones and undertook initiatives to make life better every day for Calgarians,” said Carla Male, Chief Financial Officer at The City of Calgary. “Throughout the year we continued to make strides to improve Calgarians’ quality of life including advancing actions directed at housing, public safety, transit and more.”
Reporting on our performance is an important way for Administration to supply regular updates to Council and Calgarians on how we are tracking against our service plans and budgets. The information presented in this report is an important input for Council to consider as part of the 2025 and 2026 adjustments to the approved 2023-2026 Service Plans and Budgets.
“We’ve been taking the necessary steps to address the challenges of increased service demand and complexity, population growth and inflation,” said Male. “We’ve actively been working on addressing these challenges, making important advancements on the service plans and budgets while being responsive and financially prudent.”
As part of our 2023-2026 Service Plans and Budgets, we set key performance measures and initiatives to show progress in our work. In 2023, we showed positive progress, with 92.76 per cent of performance measures and 88.11 per cent of initiatives progressing as planned. Highlights from 2023 include:
· Council approved the Home is Here housing strategy 2023-2030, securing key funding for major initiatives in this area.
· We had a record 16,679 housing starts, up 31 per cent since 2021.
· Perception of safety among transit users on CTrain platforms increased from 65 in 2022 to 71 per cent.
· Our total transit ridership reached 90,000 million in 2023, a 21 per cent increase since 2022.
· We maintained free fares for youth 12 and under.
· We extended transit into new communities and industrial areas, totalling over 150 transit routes and delivering 2.5 million service hours.
· We were honored for our exemplary leadership and innovation practices, securing 25 international, national, provincial and local awards.
We continued to deliver the results Calgarians expect from their municipal government. Annual operating variances are common for Canadian municipalities, which budget and manage finances to ensure they don’t run a deficit.
In 2023, we had a positive operating budget variance of $237.7 million. During the 2023 November adjustments process, Council committed $100 million for this variance to high priority investments. There was also a Franchise Fee variance of $200 million, that was put into the Reserve for Future Capital and Lifecycle Maintenance and Upgrade Merged Reserve to fund capital investments per the standard year-end process. During the 2023 November adjustment process, Council committed $165 million of this to fund capital investments.
The remaining $35 million from Franchise Fees variance, the $137.7 million from the Operating Variance, along with the 2023 ENMAX dividend variance will be transferred to the Fiscal Stability Reserve, upon approval, as per the Notice of Motion EC2024-0371, committing those funds to inflationary or market pressures on existing capital projects.
You can view more accomplishments in our 2023 Progress Update Snapshot, or read more about our progress by downloading the report at calgary.ca/ProgressUpdate.
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