The Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association says it is grateful for the Government’s continued commitment to Municipal Revenue Sharing and this year’s record investment of $392.4 million, an increase of $30.7 million from last year’s budget.

In a news release, SUMA President Randy Goulden says,”Municipalities provide over 60 per cent of public infrastructure in Canada and many of the services we rely on-from water and waste treatment to ice rinks and recreation centres. The costs for delivering these services continue to go up while municipalities have limited options for municipal revenue streams.”

And SUMA says they were hoping to see a more equitable distribution of funding for municipalities in the provincial budget.

The organization explains that the issue is clearly highlighted with this year’s announcement regarding the changes to the set capital portion of the Communities in Transition fund – bringing the fund up to $1.5 million, to be taken off Municipal Revnue Sharing so while cities and northern municipalities will be providing a combined 55.3 per cent of the funding, despite never making use of the program, rural municipalities,will be required to provide only 28.5 per cent of funding. SUMA also notes RMs are the only entity to see direct benefits outside of strategic iniatives.

SUMA also points to what it describes as a disparity in potash tax sharing – rural municipalities currently receive 90 per cent of the levies, with the urbans splitting the remaining 10 per cent.

The Association notes that the recreational and cultural facilities in the urban centres are also accessed by surrounding RMs as well as smaller communities so they are calling on the Government to require recreational infrastructure funding agreements between urban and rural municipalities.

SUMA says it is glad to see the amount of funding urban municipalities must contribute to building new healthcare facilities being reduced from 20 per cent to 10 per cent but wants the province to take on the responsibility of collecting contributions from surrounding municipalities, a responsibility which currently falls on the urban centre where the health facility resides.