By Teena Monteleone

Area leaders anticipate effects of tight provincial budget

Mar 22, 2017 | 6:00 AM

Prince Albert Police Chief Troy Cooper says he does not anticipate direct cuts to policing in Wednesday’s provincial budget.

Cooper said 19 government-funded officers are on a term contract and he expects they’ll continue through the next budget cycle. But he is concerned about municipal revenue sharing.

“Our concerns are that there will be less money shared with the city because, of course, 80 per cent of our budget comes from the city and that will put pressure on us as we prepare for next year,” Cooper said.

That pressure could be increased if police partners like SGI, mental health and addictions services see major reductions in funding

“If there are cuts to programs outside of policing that affect the root causes of crime, we are going to feel the impact,” Cooper added.

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Meanwhile, the Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Prince Albert is preparing to make some tough decisions. Paul Rybka said RMs have been cautioned by the province over the last six months to hold off on spending or make decisions to spend wisely.

“If we have less money coming in, we have two choices,” Rybka said. “We can raise our taxes…which we try not to do. Or, we have to cut projects like road building in the R.M. and hold off on the purchase of capital assets like graders,” he said.

Rybka said the majority of government funding goes into infrastructure in the R.M. to help rebuild roads and upkeep gravelling.

“Our roads have suffered terribly after five wet years. We had 40 to 50 roads under water and we’re building up low spots but that is a tremendous cost to us,” Rybka explained.

The R.M. has used funding from the Provincial Disaster Assistance program to help rebuild roads in the past. The program sometimes covers more than half of the cost.

“If we lose that it could really hurt us because we’d have to pay for it all ourselves and it would hurt the amount of work we could do in a year,” Rybka said.

“We’ll have to wait and see what is in the budget.  Then we’ll know where we stand.”

The provincial budget will be live streamed on paNOW.com starting at 2:15pm.

If you’re having trouble seeing the video above, click here.

teena.monteleone@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @TeenaMonteleone