Budget 2024

This survey is now closed. Please check back soon to view the "What We Heard" report.

Our Current Situation

The Town of Morinville offers a variety of services for residents, which include everything from garbage collection and snow removal, to fitness programs and community events. Morinville also provides financial support to to the Morinville Community Library and Musée Morinville Museum.

The Town is also responsible for maintaining, repairing, and replacing physical capital assets such as roads, buildings, land, water and other utility systems, and other infrastructure, along with assets such as vehicles, equipment, and computer hardware. Right now, the Town holds around $142 million in capital assets. These assets cannot be sold or otherwise converted into financial assets.

To fund the management of existing capital assets in full, the Town would have to invest around $8 million per year. In recent years, however, the Town has only been able to invest less than half of that, mainly due to resource constraints. If asset management is not fully funded, that means infrastructure-related costs could increase over time, and that those costs could be passed along to future generations. Unmanaged infrastructure also increases the risk of unforeseen repairs or replacements that are needed immediately, instead of proactive maintenance taking place in a more sustainable manner.

If we were to fund the full $8 million needed for infrastructure maintenance, that would mean increasing the budget, which would increase the local tax rate, as well.

Currently, the Town of Morinville spends less per person than other comparable municipalities, while also collecting less revenue than those municipal comparators. If the Town were to increase per-capita revenue to match the average rate collected by others in our situation, it would result in an additional $5 million raised annually, which could help in addressing infrastructure concerns.

Additionally, inflation in 2022 averaged 7.2%. The high rate of inflation impacts the Town the same as it affects you as individuals — everything is around 7% more expensive than it used to be. That means that just to maintain current service levels, we would have to pay 7% more than we did last year. Taxes, then, would have to increase at the same rate.

If we were to maintain our current services levels, and increase our investment in capital asset management, taxes would have to rise by more than the rate of inflation.

The combination of community needs and increased costs means the Town budget has to be developed responsibly, with a significant amount of thought and consideration to balance what meets your needs as residents now, and what will best serve the community for years to come. As such, we are very interested in hearing your thoughts and input on this important process!

Your opinion matters. Thank you for being engaged.