City applauds Province’s re-investment into GIPOT

The City of Lethbridge was pleased last week to learn about a specific area of the 2025 Alberta Budget: the restoration of Grants in Place of Taxes (GIPOT). 

Properties belonging to the Government of Alberta are exempt from municipal taxation. To account for this, municipalities are paid a GIPOT on eligible properties within their boundaries. Starting in 2025-26, GIPOT funding will be paid to municipalities at 75 per cent of the property tax amount that would be owed, equal to $55 million. Next year it will increase to 100 per cent.  

From 2018 to 2024, Lethbridge’s GIPOT funding was cut from $1.2 million to $586,000, a reduction of nearly 50 per cent across five years. That decrease resulted in taxation pressure of more than $500,000 annually.  

The restoration of full GIPOT funding will help mitigate tax pressure on future operating budgets and will increase the City’s revenues by approximately $290,000 in 2025 and $585,000 in 2026 based on our 2024 provincial properties, says Darrell Mathews, the City’s Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer. 

“We appreciate that the Government of Alberta has heard the concerns we and other Alberta municipalities have expressed about the need to restore full GIPOT funding,” says Mayor Blaine Hyggen.  

“As I mentioned in my State of the City address earlier this year, Lethbridge has the highest percentage of tax-exempt provincial properties in the province. We are at about 18 per cent, compared to between 10 and 12 per cent for most of the rest of Alberta. Of course, we are proud to have quality schools, post-secondary institutions, and other provincial facilities in our city. They help make Lethbridge a service hub for southern Alberta, and so the GIPOT funding restoration is great news.” 

Mayor Hyggen, as well as Councillors John Middleton-Hope and Jenn Schmidt-Rempel and City Manager Lloyd Brierley, are in Edmonton this week for the Alberta Municipalities (AM) 2025 Spring Municipal Leaders’ Caucus where this and other topics will be further discussed. 

Late last week, Alberta Municipalities' Preliminary Analysis of Budget 2025 was shared via webinar with elected officials and administrators of AM's membership. The restoration of GIPOT funding was lauded. 

“ABmunis and our members made the case that the Province should contribute its fair share to cover the infrastructure and services that municipalities provide to Provincial properties, just like any other property owner,” they highlighted. “We are pleased the Province listened. We applaud the Province for restoring this funding.” 

In 2019-20, the Government of Alberta implemented a policy change whereby funding to municipalities for services to Provincial properties would be cut to 50 per cent of the eligible property tax amount. This had an adverse impact on communities whose property owners were forced to cover the bill, while Albertans in other communities still benefited from Provincial facilities such as hospitals, schools, and courthouses.  

Mayor Hyggen’s previous statement on the rest of 2025 Provincial Budget can be found here.