Coquitlam has now released its 2024 Annual Report and 2025 – 2029 Financial Plan Public Book—two key documents that carefully consider past performance, current realities and future priorities to give a clear picture of the City's financial outlook.
COQUITLAM, B.C., June 2, 2025 – Coquitlam has now released its 2024 Annual Report and 2025 – 2029 Financial Plan Public Book—two key documents that carefully consider past performance, current realities and future priorities to give a clear picture of the City’s financial outlook.
Published annually in the first half of the year, these reports reflect Coquitlam’s balanced, forward-looking approach to financial planning. They showcase the City’s commitment to transparency, accountability and stability, and help ensure residents have a better understanding of how public funds are managed and strategic decisions are made.
A Balanced Approach to City Finances
Financial planning in a municipal landscape can, in some ways, be compared to household budgeting—the City plans ahead to cover daily costs while saving for future projects. A few key points are important to understand the City’s financial statements and budgeting context:
- It’s the law to have a balanced budget: Unlike other orders of government, in B.C., the Local Government Act requires municipalities to create a balanced budget, with no deficits, and a five-year financial plan each year. The five-year plan ensures long-term planning based on community needs and Council priorities.
- The City’s budget includes two key components, operating and capital:
- The operating budget covers day-to-day services like fire and policing, road maintenance and clearing, garbage and green waste collection, and recreation programs. This is largely funded by reliable funds like property taxes.
- The capital budget funds one-time costs for new infrastructure and asset replacements like new parks, community centres, roads and utilities. These are largely funded by reserves (savings), development revenues, grants and more.
- The City is in good financial shape: Investments are growing, debt remains low, and savings (reserves) have been set aside to support infrastructure and assets. These all help to maintain financial stability in the future, ensuring the City can build amenities like community centres, parks, libraries and roads while also replacing those that reach the end of their service life.
- Most of the City’s savings are already committed: Most reserve funding is set aside for major upcoming capital projects, such as the Northeast Community Centre, Burke Mountain Athletic Park and the Pipeline Road Upgrade Project.
- Reserves protect against sudden tax hikes: Operating reserves help protect the City from large one-time tax increases when unexpected expenses come up, such as extreme weather events.
- Taxes cover day-to-day services, not just big projects: Tax dollars collected by the City help to fund ongoing operations—like police, fire, road maintenance, parks, libraries and garbage collection.
- Not all taxes collected go to Coquitlam: Approximately 40% of your tax bill is collected on behalf of other orders of government like the Province and Metro Vancouver.
- Some funds are legally restricted: Many of the City’s reserve funds, like Development Cost Charges, can only be used for specific capital projects—not general operating costs.
Easy Access to Financial Information
Looking Back: Read the 2024 Annual Report at coquitlam.ca/AnnualReport. To share your thoughts about the report, email clerks@coquitlam.ca by noon on June 23, 2025. These comments will be shared with Council for consideration before the report is formally adopted that evening. To provide input in person, visit coquitlam.ca/PublicNotices for details.
Looking Ahead: Read the 2025 – 2029 Financial Plan Public Book at coquitlam.ca/FinancialPlan. Residents can also see an overview of the City’s budgets, spending and upcoming projects through clickable maps, charts and graphs in OpenBook, a data visualization tool. Visit coquitlam.OpenBook.questica.com to explore.
Award Winning Reports
The City’s commitment to transparent and accessible financial reporting has earned national recognition. For more than 20 years, Coquitlam has received the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award and Canadian Award for Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association. These awards highlight how the City’s financial documents meet high standards for clarity, accuracy and usefulness—ensuring tax dollars are managed responsibility and reflect community priorities.
Media contact
Gorana Cabral
Director Finance
604-927-3931
FinancialPlanning@coquitlam.ca
We acknowledge with gratitude and respect that the name Coquitlam was derived from the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ (HUN-kuh-MEE-num) word kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (kwee-KWET-lum) meaning “Red Fish Up the River”. The City is honoured to be located on the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm traditional and ancestral lands, including those parts that were historically shared with the q̓ic̓əy̓ (kat-zee), and other Coast Salish Peoples.