The City of Estevan is joining other communities throughout the province in giving the 2013 budget a passing grade.
Delivered last Wednesday by Finance Minister Ken Krawetz, the budget contained a revenue sharing increase for communities along with other assorted goodies.
Mayor Roy Ludwig said the City was pleased to see the operating grant increase, which provided an additional $250,000 for City operations.
"We were very happy with that and we are getting extra revenues on that side," said Ludwig.
In an interview last week, Ludwig said he was somewhat disappointed the province did not go with a formula that would have provided a larger increase for Saskatchewan cities since they are the areas of growth. Since that interview, Ludwig has learned that the province went halfway on the request from cities as half of the increase was allocated on a per capita basis, which did give the City a slight increase.
"We are happy that we are starting to go down that per capita route," he said. "That was good news."
Prior to the budget Ludwig had said one of the items on his wish list was a long-term sustainable infrastructure program to address the long list of needs in communities throughout the province.
Although the government is continuing to spend heavily on highways, there was little mention of direct infrastructure spending for cities, towns and RMs. Ludwig said he was not disappointed by the news as they are hopeful the province will announce a program that ties in with the massive infrastructure announcement made Thursday by the federal government. That program has allocated $53 billion over 10 years.
"We were hoping for something like a 10-year plan, so when we get into something like a water reservoir we can look at long-term, committed funding to help us through. We understand and we'll see what happens, that the province is looking at some type of a matching program to tie onto that.
"We understand that they will be looking at and will consider some type of matching (money). How they are going to match, I am not sure at this point. We are optimistic that they will do that and that would be great news."
The budget did allocate some funds for affordable housing, which is also a major area of concern in Estevan. Ludwig said it was too early to tell how the funding might be able to help the local situation but added they are continuing to meet with the province to improve the situation.
"We are still hoping and working with a developer to get something in the ground," he said. "We will continue to work on affordable housing and move that forward because that is one of the biggest issues we have in our city."
The Estevan truck bypass was also mentioned in the budget and Ludwig said the City and RM of Estevan are continuing to meet monthly with the province to speed along the start of construction.
Ludwig said he was happy to see the bypass is still a priority project for the province and is hopeful that construction will begin in 2013. However, he added the project is still bogged down in the land acquisition stage as only 50 per cent of landowners along the route have agreed on a sale with the province.
"We will see where the rest of that goes," he said. "I guess one option that would be available to the province would be expropriation. I'm not saying that to scare people, it's just a natural progression if you can't work out an agreement."
