Even though Premier Brad Wall was reassuring in saying any changes to the current municipal revenue sharing were a “last resort,” that wasn’t enough for municipal leaders at the SUMA convention in Saskatoon this week.
“I would feel a lot better if he outright reassured us this was off the table,” said North Battleford Mayor Ian Hamilton, in response to Wall’s address to the SUMA delegates Monday morning.
Hamilton was among those concerned the province might move away from its commitment to municipalities that municipal revenue sharing would be tied to one per cent of the PST.
Premier Wall did acknowledge that SUMA president Deb Button and the mayors and councils had made known the importance of the deal in place, saying “we take that very seriously.”
Yet Wall, as well as Government Relations Minister Jim Reiter used the same language Tuesday in saying “everything is on the table” in crafting the budget.
Before the convention, Wall had floated the idea of freezing the municipal revenue sharing at last year’s levels, in the wake of the loss of revenues due to the collapse in oil prices.
Hamilton says they were “very disappointed at hearing the premier muse about freezing that at last year’s levels.”
“What we want is for the provincial government to live up to the agreement we currently have,” said Hamilton, “as to what is to be shared from resource revenues.”
“We worked very, very hard at getting a formula that allowed us to plan, a predictable, a determinable, sustainable revenue source from the provincial government. And we’re there.”
Hamilton acknowledged the prospect that North Battleford might have to revisit its already-adopted 2015 budget if the formula is changed by the province.
“We’ve passed our budget, Saskatoon has passed their budget, I think Regina has. If this is frozen to last year’s levels, that will impact all of our budgets. It’s serious to us, and it’s also serious to us that an agreement, an understanding has been breached at the last moment.”
He said letters came out in July of last year “advising us what the distribution would be for 2015-16. And that’s what we’ve used in our budget forecasts.”
SUMA delegates unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday afternoon that urged the government to maintain the current revenue sharing deal. Hamilton expressed his hope it would be maintained as is.
“I’m hopeful it will still come though,” Hamilton said.
Revenue sharing was also an issue for delegates from Battleford.
Mayor Derek Mahon was not at the convention, but Councillor Gordon Yarde was one of four councillors attending. He voiced support for SUMA’s position on the issue.
“SUMA is really trying to keep the government to the promises made in the past year,” said Yarde. “They are doing a good job on our behalf.”
As for what will happen with revenue sharing, the Battleford delegation was of the view they would have to wait and see what happened with the provincial budget. A difference for Battleford was that, unlike some other communities, they had not started their own budget deliberation process yet.
Yarde acknowledged other levels of government were “tightening their belts” and indicated Battleford council will be mindful of that when preparing their budget.
“We are known to be frugal, we look well ahead,” said Yarde. “I don’t see the budget being a problem.”
