Election overspend detailed in city financials report
By MEDICINE HAT NEWS on April 9, 2026.
City financial details have been released for 2025.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
A meeting of the audit committee Wednesday provided updates on the city’s financial position, including 2025 revenues, expenses and capital projects carried over to the new year.
According to financial statements, last year’s municipal election exceeded its $400,000 budget by $48,000.
City staff say the majority of that over spend is attributable to wages for additional staff required to hand-count ballots after provincial legislative changes prohibited the use of electronic tabulators.
Election spending in 2025 exceeded the cost of the previous election by $118,000.
However, Medicine Hat budgeted notably less than other mid-sized Alberta municipalities in 2025. Lethbridge and Wood Buffalo both budgeted $600,000 for their elections, while Red Deer put aside an impressive $1.5 million for this year’s trip to the polls.
City staff said the municipal election report, commissioned after the 2025 election results took 48 hours to trickle in, is slated for presentation before council at the Apr. 20 meeting.
Wednesday’s committee meeting also gave councillors insight into the city’s financial position.
City revenue increased by $28 million in 2025 while expenses dropped by $8 million, leaving the city with $40 million in surplus at the end of last year. The previous year wrapped with a $2-million deficit.
Staff say higher revenues were a result of investment earnings, but were offset by lower electric commodity prices.
Both gas prices and power prices came out significantly lower than the city projected in budget estimates for 2025.
The average price of power in 2025 was $44 per megawatt hour, less than the $53/Mwh projected. Gas came out to an average of $1.43 per gigajoule, compared to an estimate of $2.50/GJ.
However, staff say since the energy division now purchases most of the gas used in electricity production, lower fuel costs essentially compensated for lower gas revenues.
At the end of 2025, the city’s investment portfolio was valued at $841 million, up $87 million from the year prior.
Debt also grew by $56 million to a total of $419 million, leaving the city’s net capital assets at $1.5 billion, $64 million better than last year.
The meeting also included an overview of projects that were approved but not completed within the year, meaning the city carries over the funding allocated for that project to the following year.
The city is carrying forward about $276 million in capital projects from prior years
Major carryovers include about $20.6 million to upgrade the city’s fleet. Staff say long lead times to make upgrades to larger equipment like fire trucks and transit buses led to the carry over.
Electric distribution is also carrying forward around $31.9 million in capital projects. A large portion of that sum is related to substation replacements and upgrades. Electric generation is carrying over about $40.1 million, mainly related to the overhaul on generating units.
The largest carryover is in the gas production business unit, where $95.2 million has been pushed to 2026 to deal with gas well abandonment and land reclamation.
Staff say it could take up to seven to 10 years to complete that work.
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