Budget 2022 and Community Prosperity in Alberta: Initial Analysis from CCVO
Budget 2022-23 in Alberta was tabled Thursday, February 24th, 2022. Under the theme of “moving forward”, a fiscal plan was outlined for the next three years (2022-2025) with the focus on economic recovery in Alberta.
Alberta Budget 2022-23 is overall a maintenance budget of the province’s investment in the work of Alberta’s community nonprofits. It is not a budget that supports community recovery or that recognizes investment in community prosperity as an important and necessary element of Alberta’s economic recovery, which CCVO outlined in our 2022 budget submission.
Alberta’s nonprofits are front line workers, storytellers, care providers and massive contributors to the quality of life enjoyed by Albertans and their families in every community. By failing to adequately support community recovery within key community-facing ministries, this budget leaves on the table an opportunity to create a truly thriving Alberta for all.
The budget projects total revenue of approximately $62.6 billion while total expenses, including the COVID-19 Recovery fund, will equal approximately $62,096 billion, leaving a surplus of $511 million. While this budget represents a projected surplus for the first time in a long time, it does not recognize the importance of community recovery or identify the nonprofit sector as a leader in that effort with any major new investments to support community recovery. Rather, the focus is on debt elimination and maintaining status quo, stating “until the debt is eliminated, resources will continue to be used to pay interest costs rather than being directed to delivering the important government programs and services that Albertans rely on”.
The chart below shows the percentage change in the 2021 budgets of key Ministries from the 2022 budget.
Children’s Services will see an increase of 49%, however, this increase is mainly due to the recently signed childcare agreement with the Federal Government. Similarly, Culture and Status of Women will see an increase of 15% mainly due to an increase in capital grant allocation. Indigenous Relations is seeing a decrease of 16% in the Ministry due to an overall reduction in operating budget and a decrease in capital investments.
In general, our first take of the budget tells us that the sector overall can expect status quo, which comes during a time that nonprofits have stepped further into a leadership role during the pandemic in supporting the community – and after successive budgets with cuts.
CCVO is currently working on a detailed analysis of the budget for nonprofits that will be released in the following weeks; you can register here to attend the March 22 walk-through of our analysis and hear a panel discussion about this year’s budget implications for the sector.
For now, we will leave you with the words of our President & CEO, Karen Ball, who says it best in her latest blog post on The Nonprofit Vote,
“Investments that benefit the economy and those that benefit the community are not interchangeable - they are both required to create a prosperous province. Many of our greatest social challenges such as addiction, racism and issues related to mental health cannot be solved by simply “getting Albertans back to work. For Alberta’s economy to recover we must invest in both community recovery and economic recovery. They are interdependent, reinforce each other, and the strength of each relies on both being equally valued.”
Alberta Budget 2022: An In-depth analysis for the nonprofit sector
As noted above, CCVO is currently working on a detailed analysis of the budget for nonprofits that will be released in the following weeks; register here to attend the March 22 walk-through of our analysis and hear a panel discussion about this year’s budget implications for the sector.