Westlock County is backing away from providing
$309,000 in funds for the Aquatic Centre for
the time being until county council can meet with
town council to discuss figures and a future jointuse
agreement for the facility.
“The intermunicipal agreement covering the
contribution expired on December 31, 2014. For
the past several years the county continued,
even in the absence of a funding agreement, to
contribute to the town for the aquatic facility.
The county is not in a fiscal position to continue
this contribution as in past years,” stated a
letter from Westlock County reeve Lou Hall to
Westlock mayor Ralph Leriger, dated Aug. 24,
2018.
Town council accepted the letter from Hall as
information at its Sept. 10 meeting and there
were no further discussions on the topic besides
Coun. Clem Fagnan pointing out the town would
have to come up with additional monies to fill the
funding gap.
“It kind of sets our budget back at this time of
the year, so we have to start planning for another
$300,000 for the rest of the year,” said Fagnan.
Hall said later that she had a lengthy discussion
about the decision with Leriger and clarified
the county would indeed contribute its share of
the funds, but not until the two councils could
discuss how the figure was arrived upon and
why it has increased. The last figure on the expired
agreement put the county’s contribution
at $283,000.
Leriger explained that the funding formula was
designed to increase the municipalities’ contributions
over the course of the agreement.
“We need to talk about this. We’re responsible
to the ratepayers for the money that we spend
and I think the ICFs (intermunicipal collaboration
frameworks) will iron out a lot of it,” said
Hall. “It’s not that it’s not coming, it’s just being
held,” she said.
The province has mandated municipalities
complete ICFs with their neighbours by
April 2020 to better guide them in establishing
agreements on funding
for shared services like the
Aquatic Centre and the library,
among others.
Municipalities are required
to have collaboration
frameworks that specify
what and how services are
funded. These services include
transportation, water
and wastewater, solid
waste, emergency services,
recreation, and any others that benefit residents
in more than one of the municipalities that
are parties to the framework.
“We haven’t had an agreement in place for
three years and we’ve been paying in good faith.
However, with this new council, we’re going
through everything with
a fine-toothed comb and
we need the agreement,
so we have a joint committee
meeting with town
and county on Sept. 24 and
that’s on the agenda,” said
Hall.
Hall also pointed out
that it is a significant
amount of money and reiterated
that no agreement
exists between the two municipalities at this
point.
Mayor Leriger said his initial reaction to the
letter was disappointment.
“We were disappointed to receive that letter.
We believe strongly that the regional services
and amenities provided in this area play a huge
role in the quality of life for our residents and
play a role in the attraction and retention of employees
for attracting commerce and industry,”
he said.
However, after meeting with reeve Hall, Leriger
said he may have misinterpreted the county’s intentions.
He said he recognizes that there is a different
council and different administration than
there was when the agreement was signed and
that the current officials are not the ones who
didn’t want to renegotiate the agreement when
it expired.
“We welcome further discussion and hope
that by providing information around user
statistics, how those agreements were inked
and how the funding models were arrived
at, we hope the county will reconsider,” said
Leriger.
