Red Deer County mayor Jim Wood says he is generally pleased with the 2013 provincial budget, and in particular with the fact that there won't be a cut to the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) program.
Rural municipalities such as Red Deer and Mountain View counties have in the past made use of MSI funding to pay for road infrastructure.
“This is very important and we are very pleased that that MSI has remained intact,” Wood told the Gazette. “I think that was very wise of our provincial government. That helps us make the correct investment that we do need into our municipality. We are very appreciative of that MSI funding.”
The budget includes $2.5 billion in MSI funding for the province. The county finances road infrastructure projects with MSI funds.
“It's helping us to be able to look after the roads that are necessary for our region. We've got a lot of demands on our roads and it helps us to keep our infrastructure and to tackle projects that we wouldn't be able to do without their help.”
There are numerous ongoing road upgrade and construction projects in the county that the MSI will help, he said.
The budget also includes $503 million over the next three years for 50 new schools and 70 modernizations with an expected total cost of over $2 billion.
Wood said he is glad to see money being spent upgrading schools and building new ones. “I do believe that education is key to our prosperity,” he said. “It is extremely important that we have good education and good institutions in our region. We need to have a well-educated workforce.
“I think it extremely important that we have good schools, and that we do it within our means if possible.”
The budget also includes the elimination of a portion of the Alberta Farm Fuel Benefit Program.
The tax exemption portion of the benefit, which allows farmers to buy gasoline and diesel marked with dye exempt from the nine cent per litre provincial tax, remains in place.
However the Alberta Farm Fuel Distribution Allowance, which further reduced the cost of fuel used by farmers by six cents per litre, has been eliminated.
“As a farmer, I was very disappointed. A lot of industries can pass on their expenses, but farmers cannot. I do the best on my farm to limit the amount of fuel we use by good farming practices. It is especially disappointing to lose it for what is being burned in the fields, in growing crops.
“They said there was no tax increase, but that is definitely a tax increase.”
He said farmers across the county will “have an extra burden to carry” because of the fuel allowance cut.
Wood said he is disappointed that the new budget saw the local bridge program, which had been used to support rural bridge construction in the past, cut to zero funding.
“We have a lot of bridges, especially in the western portion of our municipality, that are aging and we've already identified that by starting a bridge reserve fund, knowing that we are going to have to tackle these over time,” he said.
“We had that program in place with the provincial government to help share the costs of those bridges. I'm hoping that they reconsider their decision on that funding loss, because it is extremely important that we have good bridges. We need to take a long-term look at that.”
Asked if he is concerned that the province is borrowing money to finance its 2013 budget goals, Wood said: “There are times when we all borrow money to buy a house, and so I can see when there are times when it is a long-term infrastructure item it might make sense to borrow money and if the need is now.
“I don't want to see the prosperity of our province to go down because the roads are deteriorated to the point where you can't drive on them.
“However, I don't agree with borrowing money to do day-to-day operations. They had some tough decisions to make.”
Mountain View County reeve Patricia McKean said she is pleased that the budget 2013 maintained MSI funding to municipalities and that the budget also puts upgrades to the Highway 2 and Highway 27 intersection back on the priority list.
She also said she hopes some of the money for new schools makes its way into the Chinook's Edge School Division, which has more than 40 schools in Mountain View and Red Deer counties.
