Alberta Municipal Affairs has announced it will hand out $880 million in funding to municipalities in 2015-16 through the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) grant.
The MSI grant, which has been increased by $25 million, is issued to every municipality for capital projects like repairing and building roads and bridges, public transit, water and waste systems, emergency services, regional and community airports and municipal buildings and facilities.
The Town of Westlock will receive $966,000 while Westlock County nets just over $2 million, while the Village of Clyde gets $231,000.
Town of Westlock CAO Dean Krause said MSI is crucial to the municipality.
“We count on it each year going into our budgeting process and the province made a long-term commitment for this, so we know what our annual allocation is,” Krause said. “We base our budget around that MSI capital money coming in.”
Currently the town is uses its windfall to fund repairs the roofs of the fire hall and town office, the Southview road, water and sewer, improvements at the public works yard and to install air conditioning at the Rotary Spirit Centre.
Over the last couple years the town has banked some of its MSI funding to save up for larger projects including the Southview project.
Westlock County also relies on MSI dollars for capital projects including road maintenance, CAO Peter Kelly said.
“The MSI funding is extremely important to the county. With fairly contained tax revenues the (funding) plays an even more important role,” Kelly said. “Especially for new capital initiatives as well as ongoing road maintenance programs.”
Kelly explained the funds are crucial to for maintaining roads.
“Without those funds it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the levels to public expectation,” he said.
While the county put its MSI money to use, reeve Bud Massey said it’s simply not enough.
“The MSI dollars are what I call magical dollars, [the government] expects us to leverage to spend them in several different places,” Massey said. “We could spend all the money we get just in transportation, and yet we have to portion it out.
“There are other grants, but we got the amount we had anticipated, so it will not impact our 2015 budget.”
Municipal Affairs minister Deron Bilous said the grant is a key contribution to municipalities.
“Alberta families and businesses have asked us to ensure strong and stable support for local infrastructure, and that’s what we will deliver,” Bilous said in a release. “Flowing this previously-allocated funding will ensure local governments can move forward on their immediate needs as we identify priorities going forward through budget consultations.”
The future of how MSI funding past 2017 has come into question since the Municipal Affairs announced an impending review. Massey said they’d like to see bridge-funding return as a result of the review.
“We’re still pressuring the government to have the bridge funding replaced. We used to get over $1 million in bridge funding and we lost that a few years ago,” Massey said. “We’re hoping that they would increase it and that they would bring back bridge funding.”
He added that counties like Westlock that don’t have linear assessment revenue from pipelines and powerlines are at a disadvantage — one that would be compounded it they got less MSI cash.
“We’re one of the poorer counties because we have very limited linear assessment,” he said.
A spokesperson from Municipal Affairs indicated there is no intent to take away the funding, however the way it is delivered may be altered after the review, which has to start.
“Steady and reliable investment in infrastructure is a priority for Alberta families and businesses,” said Bilous. “We are committed to working with local governments to understand their perspectives and ensure our programs are responsive to local needs.”
