Things don't always go exactly as planned for the City of Edmonton — sometimes for the better.
For example, the city reported an operating budget surplus of $40.2 million in 2020, according to a preliminary report presented to council on March 15.
As this chart shows, revenues still took a dive last year, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but so did expenses — which ended up being much lower than was predicted in the adjusted budget council approved in spring 2020.
This bucks the trend of the previous two years. Year-end operating revenues turned out to be far lower than originally budgeted, and expenses were only slightly lower, resulting in a deficit of $52.1 million in 2019, and $29.1 million in 2018, according to the city's annual financial reports.
The reports for both those years credit "lower than budgeted net income from Epcor," as the primary reason for the deficit. The 2019 report goes into more detail, saying this was due to higher income tax expenses, and low water consumption thanks to relatively low temperatures and high precipitation. Both reports also credit fewer than expected land sales as a reason for the deficits.
Before that, the city had a surplus for three years in a row.
Epcor appears to have widely varying effects on the City of Edmonton's finances. In 2015, revenues were $198.1 million over budget, and the 2015 annual report credits unusually high income from the utilities company, as well as high investment earnings, as the two main reasons for the difference.