CIt would have been an interesting place to be this past few days as the Saskatchewan Urban Municipality Association held its 110th Convention in Saskatoon.
The Convention has always been a place where urban municipalities can bend the ear of the provincial government to lobby for programs they deem as important.
In recent years there has been one over-riding call from representatives of urban municipalities, one which they share with their rural counterparts, and that is a need for more funding to deal with infrastructure renewal.
The problem of infrastructure is ultimately one of inattention. Asphalt, sidewalks, sewer and water lines grew older and older, years turning to decades, and no level of government made any real effort to formulate a plan to replace them. It was like there was a false hope the structures would last forever, or a belief the issue would be dealt with by someone else.
Talk to anyone at SUMA and you would be able to hear stories of how municipalities are nearing crunch time, whereby decades old infrastructure could fall apart in a cascade of potholes, cement cracks and pipe breaks.
There is no way a City such as Yorkton could cover the costs associated with such an event on its own. With a population of 20,000 and far fewer than that paying municipal taxes the city will be hard pressed to meet costs even if projects are cost shared with the other levels of government.
An example of the costs being faced was brought into focus at the most recent meeting of Yorkton Council. Jan. 26.
Broadway Street in Yorkton requires a major upgrade, and the City of Yorkton is hoping the Building Canada Fund will be a source of funding.
The most recent cost estimates provided by Integrated Engineering is $52.5 million. The City’s share of the project will be $18.5 million. The City share is a major cost for Yorkton.
However, SUMA is not likely to steer the Saskatchewan government toward more funding this year no matter how relevant and large the need.
In fact, this year will be remembered as the one SUMA lobbied just to have the Wall government hold the line in terms of past funding levels.
As fiscally responsible as the Saskatchewan Party may suggest it has been, in terms of estimating revenues they have generally been overly optimistic. In the past they were too optimistic in terms of revenues from potash, and now oil revenues are going to be off to the point maintaining even an illusion of a balanced budget is going to be difficult without some tax hikes, or program cuts.
SUMA has to fear the latter.
In a Leader-Post article in early January Premier Brad Wall stated the formula for transfers to municipalities could be changed as the province faces a tighter budget in light of falling oil prices.
The story reported since 2007, revenue shared with municipalities has been based on PST revenue to the province.
“In a budget that is very tight - with revenues flat if not decreasing - we have to look at all the options,” Wall said in the article. “That would include looking at the spirit and the principle of sharing own-source revenues with municipalities like we had intended and, perhaps, sitting down with municipalities to try to find what that adjustment might be.”
The provincial government is expected to distribute $257 million to municipalities for the 2014-15 fiscal year.
A change to the formula might help the province maintain its balanced budget, but will shift the burden to municipalities which could have to boost taxes to offset expected revenues.
And that will be the story of this year’s SUMA convention, working with the province to maintain revenue sharing.
