Last week's provincial budget did not bring any bad news for Innisfail but it didn't produce any big smiles from the town either.
But the 2014 provincial budget will mean the town can move forward with its zero per cent tax increase on its own budget for this year.
“It is all staying more or less status quo,” said Mayor Brian Spiller, who was briefed by Municipal Affairs Minister Ken Hughes during a conference call on March 7, a day after the provincial budget was brought down.
“The citizens of Innisfail should be pleased that we should be able to keep the zero per cent tax increase for this year.
“I don't think normally they would have changed something massively for 2014,” he said, noting the province is not demanding more education monies from taxpayers that could have impacted residents' overall municipal tax bills. “They may have changed something for the future on us that would have given us a little bit of time to get ready, but I don't think we would have been adjusting the taxes for this year unless the education tax went up by a large amount.”
During the conference call with Hughes, the mayor said he was especially interested in better understanding the budget's fine print on Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding, transportation grants and the provincial education tax requisition. And while the hoped for provincial funding increases did not materialize, the town will not have to make any dramatic and painful changes to its own fiscal agenda.
“I am pleased. Our grants are staying about the same,” said Spiller.
He said (MSI) funding is being cut by $30,000 for municipal operating expenses but increasing by the same amount for capital expenditures.
“It is pretty well a wash. You rob from Peter to pay Paul so it is all the same and there is not a lot of difference,” said Spiller. “We are always looking for more because our downtown and road projects, as well as our infrastructure projects, go up every year.
“I would have appreciated a little bit more in the grants in regards to the cost of living because it goes up every year,” he added. “That has not been included in the MSI. Hopefully over time it will be.”
As for this year's big municipal capital budget items, like Phase 3 of the Downtown Revitalization Project (DRP) and ongoing water and sewer line replacements, Spiller said MSI grants for those have already been secured.
He said the extra $30,000 in MSI capital funding the town will receive will have little impact on approved projects.
“Over $2.6 million (DRP) that is not going to make a lot of difference,” said Spiller.
As for the $30,000 MSI funding reduction for operational expenses, Spiller said it was anticipated, as the province is moving on a three-year plan, beginning this year, to phase out operating funding.
Over the next three years, Innisfail will ultimately lose $100,000 in MSI operating funding – an amount that equates to about a 1.5 per cent tax increase if the town doesn't find the money elsewhere, said Spiller.
He added the three-year phase out period makes the cut “more liveable” as the town would otherwise have to makes cuts elsewhere in its own budget or increase taxes.
In the meantime, Hughes' briefing to municipalities on March 7 did not include whether the province intends on participating with the federal government's Building Canada Fund, which is a cost-sharing program with the provincial and municipal governments to build local infrastructure.
“The province has not announced any matching money for the Build Canada fund yet,” said Spiller. “We don't have a project that we are ready for right now to spend that money on, but if it's strictly infrastructure we can always speed up some of our water sewer line replacements in the other parts of the town if there was federal and provincial money available.
“But in the meantime we will keep doing it on the schedule that we can afford,” said Spiller.
