PENHOLD – The town is prepared to pay for policing costs, but it’s the impact of the unknown in the provincial budget that concerns Mayor Mike Yargeau.
Those unknown items include MSI funding details and the annual education tax requisition.
Yargeau pointed to reports online, including an AUMA press release dated Feb. 27, stating a 4.1 per cent increase to the provincial education tax requisition.
“We don’t know yet what that means for us but we do know that essentially our school tax is probably going to go up,” said Yargeau. “That’s more concerning to me than anything. Essentially, that’s a hidden provincial tax that they make municipalities collect.”
Yargeau said he did not have details on MSI funding amounts at the time and could not provide comment.
Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA Devin Dreeshen held a budget town hall meeting at the Innisfail Royal Canadian Legion on Feb. 28, and said MSI funding amounts are expected to remain the same as what was announced in 2019.
“MSI funding remains unchanged from the targets that were set out in the last budget, so it’s a continuation from the previous budget,” said Dreeshen. “That capital funding is at $963 million and it’s yet to be distributed out to all the communities. Those grants still have to be signed off by our municipal affairs minister, Minister Madu, but it’s his expectation that it’ll be out soon.”
Yargeau said the town is prepared for new policing costs.
“We know right off the bat in our 2021 budget that means $60,000 for policing costs and in five years that goes to $180,000. So we already know those figures, we’re prepared come 2021 when we do our budgeting in November and December that we’re going to be budgeting for that cost,” he added. “We have no details as far as what that means for our local detachment, which is out of Innisfail. Actually, our local detachment doesn’t have any firm details either. Nobody on the ground level really knows yet what that’s going to bring,” explained Yargeau.
He noted the announcement by Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer last fall to increase the number of RCMP officers to help fight rural crime.
“We want to see more RCMP officers in our area,” noted Yargeau.
Dreeshen said the policing model will help smaller, rural communities.
“I really think it helps communities like Penhold and others that hadn’t been paying for policing to be able to go to the detachment, to work with the RCMP to actually say we are paying for police, we would expect to have better service from them,” said Dreeshen. “To have that service and response times lowered, I think that helps the communities and overall helps our rural crime problem.”
