When Saskatchewan Finance Minister Ken Krawetz spoke to the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce luncheon recently there was an interesting tidbit that he dropped right at the end of his presentation on the provincial budget.
Yorkton Mayor Bob Maloney had taken the opportunity to thank the province for maintaining the revenue sharing formula which sees one per cent of the provincial sales tax flow to municipal governments in the way of grants.
Krawetz had said changes to the revenue sharing formula with municipalities had been discussed as a way to deal with the shortfall in finances the government faced due to a loss in oil revenues. Dropping the formula to three-quarters of one per cent was considered.
“But right near the very end we said we’re not going to do that,” said Krawetz.
And then in response to Maloney’s statement Krawetz said even with the sharing formula maintained, there was an onus on municipalities to look for efficiencies in terms of spending the grant, and by inference, operating overall municipal budgets.
It was a statement which on its surface may have sounded benign enough, but it does lead to the question, does the provincial government look at municipalities as being inefficient at this point?
Certainly, municipal governments operate within the confines of balanced budgets, and have for years, since by provincial legislation they cannot deficit finance on annual operations.
At the same time they face dual pressures these days.
The first is a huge infrastructure deficit.
If the province doubts the need, they are invited to drive around Yorkton this spring. The near constant jar of bouncing into, and out of, potholes in the pavement of street after street should be proof enough much work is needed.
And Yorkton is not unique in that need.
But the costs to address the aging infrastructure is massive. Locally, a complete redo of Broadway Street is estimated at some $50 million, which is a huge cost for even a vibrant city like Yorkton.
On the other hand Krawetz was eager to take much of the credit for his government in terms of Saskatchewan’s population hitting 1,132,640.
But with each new family arriving, with each business start-up that might lead too, communities grow, and new subdivisions put another strain on municipal coffers.
So maybe the Minister's hinted at efficiencies are amalgamations. We have seen health regions go down that road and school divisions too.
In Manitoba they are currently moving through the process of new municipal entities encompassing rural and small urbans coming together.
Can this be far off for Saskatchewan?
And should it be sooner than later?
It’s hard to envision why one Council and administrative staff could not manage the business of the rural municipalities of Orkney and Wallace, and the City, especially if a rural voice was ensured by rural only wards for Council.
Across the province there are dozens of joinings which would seem so logical that it makes one wonder why they have not occurred naturally.
But, maybe a push is needed from above to create some efficiencies within the system. That would leave the ball in the Saskatchewan Party court. Time will tell if they have the courage to hit it.
