Municipal spending Watch, How is the Crowsnest Pass Doing?

How responsible is your community financially? Can your community maintain the present level of spending?
The arguments always presented for communities to increase taxes are that population growth and the resulting demands, in addition to inflation are taking away the spending power of the tax dollars collected.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business just released a study that shows how Alberta and its individual municipalities are doing in this area. Under the title of "Alberta Municipal Spending Watch" its a very interesting report and certainly goes a long way to showing that population and inflation are only part of the additional spending.
For example Alberta as a province from 2000-2006 saw a combined population and inflation increase of 33.8%, during that same time frame municipal spending increased by 55.6%.
Our community the Crowsnest Pass saw a combined population and inflation increase of 17.1%, during that 2000-2006 time frame our spending increased by 46.2%.
Obviously if your population isn't growing neither will your tax base which means that the burden on the individual tax payer becomes ever greater.
The report is available on the Federations web site, check out and see how your community is doing.