Current and Previous Budgets

City services impact your life every day. Each time you visit a recreation centre, have your garbage or recycling picked up, drink clean water from the tap, ride Medicine Hat Transit or have emergency services rush to your aid – you are using a City of Medicine Hat service.

That’s why the City’s budget is so important – it’s about setting our collective goals and building a great city. It determines the level of service provided to Medicine Hat residents and guides decisions on what City infrastructure will be purchased, built and repaired. As the City is limited by the amount of resources available, the Budget helps determine which projects and services have the highest priority and greatest impact on the community while advancing Council's priorities.

City staff puts forward a proposed budget for deliberation and consideration by City Council. The approval of the budget directly impacts the City’s services, programs and infrastructure.

2025-2026 City Budget and Financial Plan

On December 16, 2024, City Council adopted the 2025 and 2026 Operating and Capital budgets as amended, including funding sources and financial reserve transfers from Capital and Medicine Hat Endowment, as described in Section 3.1 and 3.2 of Attachment 1 for:

  1. Municipal
  2. Rate-based Utilities
  3. Energy Production
  4. Land Development and Real Estate

The 2025-2026 was presented in full to City Council on Monday, December 2, 2024, reflected in the materials below. 

Note, however, that the recommendation was passed with one amendment to remove project DI2025-029 Food Waste Compost Facility. This project included $1.5M of Growth Capital (funded through reserve) in 2025 and $8.0M of growth capital in 2026 (funded $5.040M through debt and $2.960M through reserve). The removal of this project from the budget did not have an impact on tax or utility rates. 

This project was referred to Development and Infrastructure Committee and the Intermunicipal Committee for further review of potential regional partnerships.

Disclaimer to reader:
The documents above have not yet been updated to reflect the amended change but will be updated in Q1 of 2025. Please be aware of the above amendment to the food waste compost facility when reading figures regarding debt issuance, reserve, or growth capital in the materials above.

To see how the 2025-2026 budget was developed, view the project page on Shape Your City.