SNOW CLEARING: Clearing up the facts on service levels & budget
SNOW CLEARING: Clearing up the facts on service levels & budget
At the Community and Public Services Committee meeting on June 19, 2023, City Administration presented a report on the 2022-23 Snow and Ice Control Winter Season results. This received some recent headlines that I wanted to address.
In this report it states “Edmontonians will experience a decrease in service levels in the 2023-24 winter season from the 2022-23 winter season, as funding levels will reflect funding allocated in Budget 2023-26”.
While this is technically accurate (as Council approved one-time funding on top of the base budget for the 2022-23 season), a 20% increase has been approved for the base-funding over 4 years for snow clearing in the 2023-2026 budgets (see image below). This means that while we see a dip from the one-time funding service-levels experienced in the 2022-23 winter season, we’ll see improvements as service levels increase in alignment with the base budget over the next three winter seasons.
