In order to maintain their competitive edge and to make the city less reliant on property taxes, the City of Lacombe is planning to raise the 2019 franchise fees for ATCO and FortisAlberta, the companies who have exclusive rights to provide us with electricity and natural gas.

The franchise fee is what the company pays to have the exclusivity on our city, and to also use our utility corridors and roadways.

Chief Administrative Officer Matthew Goudy says Lacombe has traditionally charged less than comparable municipalities, and he said they should raise the fee to match the comparators median rates.

He says additional revenue from the increase can be used in whatever way council desires.

“This council has seen fit to make commitments to keeping tax increases in line with the Consumer Price Index, and so I would anticipate that would be one of their primary commitments is to make sure they are able to continue to meet those CPI tax increases.”

Goudy says not taking advantage of the franchise fees to raise revenues like other municipalities do, makes Lacombe more reliant on property taxes than other places.

“Right now the city is one of the lowest in the province in terms of comparing against other similar municipalities, and I think that’s where council said ‘Well you know if we want remain competitive and meet our commitments on other items, to be responsible for that, we do need to take advantage of the tools that are available to us’.”

Currently, the rate for ATCO is 22% of the total delivery fees charges within the City, which they want to raise by only point one percent.

FortisAlberta's current rate is 6.20%, which the City plans to more than double to the median rate of 12.75%.

The predicated additional revenue would be around $480,000.

The last time changes were made to these rates was 2004.

The proposed franchise fee will increase average households power and has bill by an estimated $6.75/month.

You can check out the full report from the August 13th, 2018 city council agenda on the City of Lacombe’s website by clicking here: 2019 Franchise Fee Rates (Gas and Power), on page 82.