Local reaction to last week's provincial budget is generally positive.
Yorkton Mayor James Wilson said the budget was pretty well what he had expected given the circumstances.
"There were no surprises at all. It was a rounded budget that really touches all parts of the province," he said, adding that was anticipated given it was the last budget before this fall's provincial election. "And it finishes off their promises from last election."
Two of the more notable promise finishes were the completion of the province's relief on the education portion of property taxes, and the addition of 0.1 per cent more of sales tax revenue flowing to municipalities, bringing the total to one per cent.
That PST transfer will mean an additional 13 per cent, or just more than $100,000 to Yorkton, said Wilson.
Wilson said the advantage of the PST-related transfer is that "PST never really goes down," but if there are fluctuations up , or down municipalities share it with the province.
"The advantageous position is now we have an understanding if what we will receive," he said, adding that has already allowed the City of Yorkton to pass its 2011 budget last October, which in turn is allowing out-of-season tendering which should mean some savings.
Wilson also likes that there are some additional provincial dollars targeting housing.
"We as a Council have made housing something we are working on We really are trying to work on this. It's a priority for us," he said, adding the municipality can't do it alone. They need the private sector and province involved something he said is happening. " We are working with the province on some pilot projects and working with some private developers on some projects."
Wilson added they would welcome the federal government to come to the table to fund affordable housing.
The budget includes up to $1.5 million in up-front provincial incentives to apartment builders to offset the cost of education property tax on as many as 650 new units per year.
There is also support for Municipal Affordable Home Ownership programs that provide homeowners with grants for home purchases.
The housing dollars also caught the attention of Dolores Harris, president of the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce, since she said her organization has also set housing as a priority interest.
"The key issues that the Yorkton Chamber has been, and will continue to be, concentrating on in 2011 include: the housing shortage; the College expansion; and the airport improvements," she said. "I was particularly interested to see what the provincial budget would have in store as it related to the college and the housing shortage issue.
"While nothing specific on the surface appears to provide direct assistance to the college, the announcement of additional funding of $1.5 million to assist municipalities in their efforts to increase the supply of affordable rental housing in the province is very welcome news.
"With these funds 300 additional rental units are anticipated to be developed. What that will mean for Yorkton and area is too soon to tell."
As always health care was a major expense in the budget, including $250 million more in operating funding for Regional Health Authorities (RHAs).
Suann Laurent, Acting CEO of Sunrise Health Region said the budget is solid for health.
"I think that this year's budget recognizes the government's commitment to healthcare and the health of our residents," she said.
"Our base funding will increase by 6.2 per cent, which equates to just over $10 million. That amount will address the inflationary costs of doing business."
Education is also a major expenditure for the province, including a $36.4 million increase for school operating expenses, and $20.8 million more to Universities to hold tuition increases to three per cent.
Dwayne Reeve, Good Spirit School District Director of Education said some of what is in the budget was anticipated.
"Even before the budget, there has been a significant increase in terms of capital dollars that have been made available to school divisions. That is a welcome sign for us," he said, referring to $3.3 million capital project announcement made a few weeks ago.
On the operational side things are not quite as positive, said Reeve.
"The budget really falls short in terms of the operational dollars that have been provided to us," he said. "We have received roughly a 1.5 per cent increase in our operational budget, and that's below the inflationary amount."
"We are educating many more students than we were educating when the funding formula was frozen, and there's not enough recognition in the new dollars to look at some of the pressure we're seeing from increased enrollment."
Reeve said there are some new special project dollars, but it is unclear how that may be rolled out.
"There are some dollars put forward for English as an Additional Language ... but the Ministry hasn't identified how that's going to be portioned out to the school divisions," he said.
"And also for First Nations/Metis education-there was indication of dollars there, but again we're not certain when or if we'll be getting that money."
"We haven't been given any indication when that will come to us, and that's obviously a concern to us because we hoped that all that information would have been revealed at budget time."
Overall the budget is not a full pass for education.
"It does mean we're going to have to try and scale back on what we're doing and take a look at how we can try and deliver services," said Reeve. "I think for education, they missed the mark in terms of the operational expenses. I know there are many other positive things in the budget, but from an operational standpoint in Good Spirit School Division, it's not going to be status quo. ... We're going to have to face possible cutbacks."
Harris said tax cuts were also good news for the business sector.
"Another welcome piece of news was the announcement of the reduction in property tax and a small business tax decrease from 4.5 per cent to two per cent, projecting to save small businesses an estimated $80 million per year," she said. "Anything to assist in keeping businesses viable and making our province more tax competitive is good news and good for business."
While not of specific advantage to Yorkton, Wilson said the reduction of the province's debt the past four years from $6.8 to $3.5 billion is good news.
"That's a positive just on the interest savings that can be put into other programming," he said.
Budget 2011-12 will pay down debt by another $325 million, bringing Saskatchewan's government general debt level to $3.81 billion, the lowest level since 1987-88.
