Canmore Forgot to Bill Two Major Festivals for Years. The Town Won't Seek Back Payment.

The Town of Canmore will not seek retroactive payment after discovering it failed to consistently bill two of its largest community festivals for field rental fees for years because of an administrative error, with council approving a one-time transition discount as the Town corrects the mistake going forward.

Council unanimously voted June 30 to give the Canmore Folk Music Festival and Canmore Highland Games a one-time 50 percent reduction on their 2026 facility rental fees, reducing this year's bills to $1,690 and $1,725, respectively. Councillors also approved delaying payment until Dec. 31, 2027 after Mayor Sean Krausert said the organizations had likely already finalized their budgets before learning they would be charged the previously unbilled fees.

The decision follows an internal review that found the Town had not consistently implemented a 2018 council direction to phase in facility rental fees for several community events. While organizers continued paying event-related costs such as permits, waste services and other municipal support, rental fees for outdoor facilities were not consistently charged.

Town administration told council the organizations had paid no facility booking costs for the previous eight years.

"For facility booking costs they paid zero in the prior eight years," staff said.

Town of Canmore communications adviser Margo Petroff confirmed the Town is not seeking retroactive payment for the previously unbilled field rental fees.

"We are not retroactively looking to recover fees, but will correct our approach moving forward," Petroff said in a statement following the meeting.

Petroff said pandemic restrictions and annual reviews of facility rental rates and support service fees make it difficult to accurately calculate the value of the uncollected fees. Using current rental rates for illustration, she said the phased-in fees would have started at about $340 in 2019 before gradually increasing to the estimated discounted facility booking fee of about $3,400 in 2027 under the Community Event and Film Policy.

She said the estimates reflect a 2018 council motion, passed after council approved a new Community Event Policy, directing administration to phase in fee increases for several events by 10% annually over five years.

Supervisor of Arts and Culture Jeanie Macpherson said the one-time discount was intended to give the organizations more time to adapt as the Town brought facility rental fees back in line with council policy.

Under the Community Event and Film Policy, the festivals normally qualify for a 50% discount on facility rental fees, leaving them with bills of about $3,380 for the Folk Festival and $3,450 for the Highland Games. Council's one-time reduction cuts those already-discounted fees in half for 2026.

Council also discussed whether the organizations should receive a full waiver after the previously unbilled fees came to light during their budget cycle. Mayor Sean Krausert asked administration to clarify correspondence from the Folk Festival suggesting organizers believed they would receive a 100% waiver.

Macpherson said a full waiver had been explored but never promised.

"So a 50% waiver was explored with Canmore Folk Festival and it was not promised," she said.

Coun. Jen Marran questioned why the Town was not considering a full waiver, citing the timing of the newly applied fees and the festivals' importance to the community.

Sally Caudill, the Town's chief administrative officer, said permanently exempting the festivals from field rental fees would be inconsistent with council policy and create inequities with other nonprofit organizations that also pay facility rental fees.

"If we gave these two groups an exception because they bring tourism in, it would have a disproportional advantage to them for other groups that do things that are more for permanent residents," she said, adding any permanent exemption would require council to amend the policy.

Krausert proposed delaying payment until the end of 2027, saying the organizations had likely already established their budgets before learning they would be charged the 2026 facility rental fees.

Marran supported the amendment, saying she had considered proposing a full waiver of the 2026 fee because of the timing but concluded extending the payment deadline was a better compromise.

"This seems like a reasonable compromise to me," she said.

Before the final vote, Krausert said the issue should be viewed as correcting a longstanding administrative error rather than imposing a new fee.

"While it can be seen as a budget increase, in fact it's no longer getting benefit of an erroneous... facility rental," he said. "Taking a staged approach and giving more time I think is reasonable."