By Thia James

Mayor looks ahead to federal, provincial budgets

Mar 19, 2013 | 6:39 AM

With both the provincial and federal budget announcements coming this week, Prince Albert Mayor Greg Dionne said the city is ready and waiting with projects if it is on the receiving end of infrastructure funding.

The provincial government will table its budget on Wednesday in Regina. In Ottawa, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will table the federal budget.

As for the federal budget, Dionne said Ottawa has hinted it may have to implement another program to get people working – as the global economy has not picked up steam.

“Any infrastructure program, whether it’s from the provincial and federal government that we can participate in, we’ve already got four or five projects, as the government calls them, ‘shovel ready,’ so we’re waiting,” he said.

He said the infrastructure dollars are still needed, even if the global economy were to fare better than it has. “When you talk about infrastructure, that’s why we suggested and we’re going to move forward with the base tax on $4 million for roadwork. And people don’t have an issue with that, as long as they know it’s going to roads. So, I just hope to get some more infrastructure money.”

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City officials are currently looking into ways to fund the full $4 million for the asphalt program, an amount a public works report filed earlier this year said is needed to keep the condition of the city’s roads from deteriorating.

While the infrastructure funds won’t do anything to relieve municipal taxpayers this year, it will help with taxes further down the road, Dionne said.

“Because what we’re going to be able to do is fix things. We’re not fixing things that are in this year’s budget. If we get infrastructure money it’s going to be things we call ‘shovel ready’ for 2014,” the mayor said. “Like we have the major project on Second Avenue, all the pipes then has to be replaced from Second Avenue, 15th to the bridge. So we have that program. We have the million dollars we have to spend on the [Central Avenue] viaduct.”

With new infrastructure money, the city will “knock off” some of the projects on its list in 2014, 2015 and 2016. That’s when Dionne said he wants the tax decreases to show – the levies for the Alfred Jenkins Field House and for Pineview Terrace will end.

“We’ve set a date, when those levies expire in 2014, it’s gone.”

As for the provincial budget announcement, Dionne said he won’t be surprised to see the province’s two biggest cities – Saskatoon and Regina – get most of the pool, since that’s where the bulk of Saskatchewan’s growth is taking place.

“I just hope that they don’t forget there’s 13 other cities in the province,” he said.

“I think for PA it’s going to be pretty stable because there’s pressures on all levels of government. As people seen, we just went through our budget and there’s lot of pressures on us and I think the same with the provincial government,” he said.

On Monday, Prince Albert found out it would receive a larger-than-expected increase in the Municipal Operating Grant (MOG), from it one per cent of the Provincial Sales Tax (PST).

He said his concern about that is “one year, we’re not going to spend as much and instead of getting that grant, it’s going to drop. And that’s my only concern, there’s no guarantee that it’s stable. It could grow again next year if we all feel lucky and make big purchases again and the PST goes up.”

He said he was amazed to hear the city’s share of the MOG increased by 11 per cent to $7.5 million, defying expectations of it going from $6.6 million to $7.4 million. The city ended up receiving $110,000 more than it thought it would get.

“Whenever you can get money, it’s good.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames