Salaries, wages and benefits cost City of Calgary $2B in 2017

The City of Calgary's annual report is a treasure trove of information, all brought together in a single 90-page report.

It's a summation of the city's numbers for the past year and was examined by city council's audit committee on Tuesday.

City manager Jeff Fielding told the committee that he wishes more people, including council, were aware of how much his team has done to control costs during the economic downturn.

• City spending reduced by $325M in recent years, but manager says that may not be enough
• Why Calgary businesses have the lowest property tax rate but not the lowest tax burden

He points out that more than half a billion dollars has been saved and hundreds of positions have been eliminated at the city.

However, there's so much more to learn by taking a dive into this report.

All numbers are for the calendar year 2017.

Salaries, wages and benefits: $2.013 billion

• This is the first time this number has crossed $2 billion for the city. The previous year, it was $1.976 billion.

Full time equivalent jobs at city: 16,715

• That's actually up from 16,643 in 2016.

Transit passenger trips: 101,929,000

• That's down again. In fact, it's the lowest number recorded in the past five years. Transit trips peaked at 110,274,000 in 2014.

Total current debt: $3.15 billion 

• This figure is down from $3.75 billion in 2013.
• City's debt limit: $7.85 billion.

Total cost of capital repairs after 2013 flood: $309 million

• This excludes resiliency measures, such as new berms or improvements at the Glenmore dam.

Fines and penalties: $92 million

• That's five per cent higher than forecast, mainly due to a greater number of tickets being issued by the Calgary Parking Authority.

Spending on Calgary Police Service: $509 million

• 2017 was the first time this figure crossed half a billion dollars. It was up by three per cent because of increased salaries and the addition of new members.

Reserves: $2.044 billion

• This is the first time the amount of money the city has squirrelled away in its numerous reserve accounts has crossed $2 billion.

Total city revenues: $4.811 billion

• The biggest revenue was property tax: $1.871 billion.
• The second biggest revenue was government transfers: $711 million.

2017 surplus: $37,690,000

City manager Jeff Fielding's pay: $340,000 salary + $52,000 benefits

• These figures are the same as they were in the previous year.