Westlock’s municipal leaders say they’re generally in support of the province’s budget announced March 26 that includes spending cuts and tax hikes.
Highlights of the budget include increased taxes on tobacco, alcohol and gasoline, as well as a more progressive tax regime, and mass layoffs of government positions.
Westlock County reeve Bud Massey said he was appreciative to see no changes to funding for municipal services.
“I’m pleased to see that a lot of services aren’t going to be cut and more importantly that municipal services aren’t going to be cut,” Massey said.
“My greatest concern with that is that when municipal services are cut, people still need the services and it’s just passed down to the municipality and then we pass on the tax, so I’m glad that didn’t happen.”
Town of Westlock mayor Ralph Leriger shared Massey’s thoughts on municipal funding remaining intact.
“I would say that there’s some relief that FCSS funding has not decreased. Having said that I would add that it has also not increased in a great number of years, [as] municipalities of this province have been lobbying for quite some time,” Leriger said.
“I see a positive in that it seems our library will get an increase in funding and that’s really important to small-town libraries, our library, so that’s encouraging,”
Massey said he’s encouraged to see the province move away from a resource-reliant budget.
“I believe that a balance is much better. Natural resources have been very good to Alberta, but we also need to have a balanced economy so that we don’t have the rollercoaster ride we’ve had in the last 50 years,” Massey said.
Leriger echoed Massey’s thoughts, but said even still it’s difficult to avoid the rollercoaster ride.
“The boom and bust economy has been problematic for Alberta for many years. I think any amount of diversification that we can do is important, but we should also know that it is a reality,” Leriger said.
“If you look at Canada as a country and what we produce, we’re very much natural resources-oriented and that’s going to occur, regardless of how hard you try to prevent it.”
As far as the $.04-per-litre increase to the fuel tax is concerned, Massey said he’s not happy, while Leriger would have liked to have seen that revenue go directly back to municipalities.
“Two cents per litre on gas sold within a municipal boundary could very well solve all our municipal funding issues,” Leriger said. “I can see they’ve raised the gas tax, it is not however going to the municipalities, and it could.”
With taxes already going up for county residents, Massey said increased taxes from the provincial budget won’t be good news.
“We are going to be raising taxes as a municipality, so it will be a double whammy,” Massey said. “I think it will have a negative impact … just because taxes go up, doesn’t mean people get more money, they’re actually going to have less money in their pockets.”
At the end of the day, Leriger said he’s relieved to see that most of the increases set out in the budget won’t hit lower-income earners as hard.
“There appears to be some protection for society’s most vulnerable, so I think that’s important,” he said. “Whether it relates to the tiered income tax or the health care increases, they’re relative to income.”
