How many people does it take to run a city? In Calgary, it's about 15,000

The number of employees working for the City of Calgary has swelled over the past few years.

The higher headcount comes with increased demands on services as Calgary is one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Still, all the new positions are raising questions about the overall need and cost.

The city's total number of administration staff has grown by nearly 17 per cent since the end of 2022.

As of Dec. 31, 2022, there were 13,483 people — excluding on-call, student and seasonal employees, as well as police and civic partners — working for the City of Calgary. That number grew to 15,751 people as of Sept. 30, 2024, according to data provided by the city to CBC News. 

After Calgary's 2025 budget was approved last month, which included a 3.6 per cent property tax hike, there has been an increased focus on where the money is being spent.

Fire department, transit and more

When asked what factors contributed to the significant headcount growth over the past few years, a spokesperson for the City of Calgary said there are multiple, but notably 2022 saw staffing levels rise up back to pre-pandemic levels following a decrease during the COVID-19 years. 

Then, 2023 growth was a result of integrating the Calgary Parking Authority into the city, as well as hiring in Calgary Transit and the department of recreation and social programs.

In 2024, growth came primarily from the Calgary Fire Department, Calgary Transit and the department of emergency management and community safety.

The statement did not clarify how many staff members each category accounted for. 

While the city was unable to co-ordinate an interview with CBC News, it did provide a statement.

"Calgary is Canada's fastest-growing city.… Within the next decade, we're anticipating our population to reach two million. This rapid growth has and continues to increase the demand for city services, which also requires additional investments to maintain service levels, including staffing levels," it reads.

"The city's staffing levels continue to be below population growth."

One former city councillor believes the city needs to be more forthcoming with detail about the growth in its ranks.

"There's no one easy answer in terms of how many people should be working at city hall," said Jeromy Farkas, former city councillor for Ward 11.

He noted he number of staff is only one part of understanding the cost to taxpayers. 

While Farkas isn't currently a registered candidate, he says he hasn't ruled out running in next year's municipal election. He lost his bid for the mayor's seat to Jyoti Gondek in the last civic election.

"I don't think Calgarians are looking for perfection from city hall, but they're looking for explanations, they're looking for answers. If the city is going to justify these increases, they have to show their work. They have to demonstrate the results," said Farkas. 

Farkas believes it should be obvious for Calgarians what the nearly 2,300-person increase is delivering, in terms of tangible services like smoother roads or quicker snow removal.

"What are these people actually doing? And are they absolutely necessary?"

"If the truth shows that these positions are absolutely necessary to be able to provide for public safety, to fill the potholes, to pick up the garbage, to clear the streets of snow, I think Calgarians would accept that," he said.

Population boom

Calgary's metro-area population grew by nearly 96,000 people last year, a staggering six per cent increase in the span of only 12 months, according to estimates from Statistics Canada released earlier this year. In 2023, the total population hit 1.68 million people.

Last year's population surge marked the largest year-over-year increase in modern StatsCan records, which date back to 2001.

As of the third-quarter of 2024, the number of full-time city employees and temporary staff per capita is fewer than a decade ago, according to the city's website. 

Lori Williams, associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University, believes this is a good sign, adding "it suggests that the city is being run better or more efficiently than most other cities of its size are."

"There's no question there's been growth [in city employees]. There's legitimate questions to be asked about to what extent that growth is actually necessary," she said.

"Are we getting better services? Do we need that level of services?"

On the other hand, Williams says, there are also various sound reasons behind why an organization's personnel would grow or shrink over time. She says it usually depends on what sort of demands they're dealing with, and the numbers don't always tell the full story.

"In many organizations, people are asked to do more with less for a period of time, and that becomes unsustainable," she said.

"That's not always just a straight 'number of people versus what needs to be done' calculation. It can be quite a bit more complex and nuanced than that."

CBC News also requested data from the city that was sorted by job position. However, the city's human resources department said there were challenges in breaking down the information this way.

"The city has over 2,700 variations of position descriptors.… Some of these position descriptors are nuanced, repeated (based on a variety of reasons) and, in some cases, the title doesn't reflect what the position does in a way that accurately reflects their role within the city," reads part of an email to CBC News. 

"The city's employee count is very dynamic, changing often based on employee movements, including departures, new hires, seasonality and other position changes."

'Unchecked, unmitigated growth'

According to the city's compensation disclosure list, just over 27 per cent of its full-time employees earn $100,000 to $125,000 in actual base salary per year. The next largest portion of full-time employees — 26 per cent — earn $50,000 to $75,000 in base salary annually. 

Some city councillors put a spotlight on the cost of city administration jobs last month during budget discussions, which included a motion to consolidate two senior administrative jobs in order to save taxpayer dollars. 

Ward 13's Dan McLean — one of the councillors who supported the failed motion to combine the city roles of chief administrative officer (CAO) and chief operations officer (COO) — says he believes the general public's trust in the city has eroded. 

"I think we've got our priorities totally mixed up. It seems to me like we're more interested in adding more and more staff," McLean told CBC News. 

"This, to me, is just unchecked, unmitigated growth."

McLean says he can justify some headcount increases in departments where Calgarians most need services, such as public safety or waste management. However, he says there are also many redundant jobs within the city.

"We need government at all levels, especially here, to be running a lot leaner," he said.

The councillor says he's been considering bringing forward a motion to consult an external auditor who would monitor growth within Calgary's operational structure in order to take note of what areas can be run more efficiently.

All that said, Williams says understanding why more people work at city hall now isn't so cut and dried. 

"We often see in political spheres people saying that the key to budgetary issues is simply to find efficiencies, to cut that, to downsize and so forth, and that's not always possible," said Williams.

"There are limits to how much more you can get with fewer dollars or personnel, and sometimes you wind up getting a lot of turnover or burnout."