By Alex McCuaig

MUNICIPAL FUNDING

AUMA president asks for no change in city funding until new year

Aug 15, 2019 | 10:42 AM

Medicine Hat, AB – The president of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) is hoping the province holds the line on spending – at least, for the remainder of the current fiscal year.

This comes in the shadow of the province’s Blue Ribbon Panel report on the state of Alberta’s finances which is expected to be released to the government today.

Brooks Mayor and AUMA president Barry Morishita says with municipal budgets already set for this fiscal year, the association is hoping the provincial government follows through on funding until 2020.

“I think for the fall budget – because it is so late in the year for us fiscally – our hope is that there is going to be very little change for the 2019 budget,” said Morishita. “Our fiscal year ends December 31. A lot of those plans have been undertaken already. A lot of that spending has been allocated and to make adjustments with less than two months to go – or just over two months to go in the year would be very, very difficult.”

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Morishita says while the AUMA members understand the economic situation the province is facing, they’re hoping the government continues the anticipated funding.

“We know the government is faced with some very tough decisions but we are hoping they put in a more forward plan rather than retroactively getting into 2019 which would be difficult for municipalities to handle,” he said.

As for municipal infrastructure funding, Morishita said while the Municipal Sustainability Initiative funding is set to run through 2022, talks for a future funding formula for AUMA members outside of Calgary and Edmonton – who inked a big-city charter deal in 2018 – isn’t off the table.

“We’re cautiously optimistic in the sense that we think the government has committed to us during the (election) campaign and subsequently that there is going to be equitable funding, it’s going to be predicted and legislated for the rest of the communities that didn’t sign on (to the big-city charter) prior to the election,” said Morishita. “We’re being reasonable, we’re being realistic about what the next three years hold. We’re just hoping that we get to work together with the government in terms of what happens over the next three years.”

The provincial government is anticipated to receive it’s report on the state of the provincial finances today, though, it’s not expected to be publicly released until next month.