It was somewhat disappointing, but it is new money.
That was RM of Portage la Prairie Acting Reeve Roy Tufford's reaction to the premier's Association of Manitoba Municipalities announcement of municipal funding.
"The announcement was that the province was going to be putting forward $62 million over the next five years to go without any strings attached to municipalities on a per capita basis. But if you do the math on that, it turns out to be a really small number, when you think about it, over five years. What the population of Manitoba is, the bulk of that money is going to be going to Winnipeg because they have so much of the population. In the big scheme of things for the RM of Portage, it's a very small number."
He adds it's new money, and not from what they've taken away from their regular municipal allotment.
"But at the same time, they actually stopped funding some of the things about Green Team and some of the money that we can get to help hire part-time staff in the summer, when our workload is heavy."
Tufford adds recognition was given from most of the speakers to outgoing President Kam Blight, noting his contribution to the AMM and to the National Municipalities over the last number of years.
"He received a lot of accolades today and he was well-deserving of those. We have some people running for positions. There's lots of vice presidents campaigning and we have a couple of candidates for the President of the organization coming up when we vote on Wednesday. It's an interesting convention, for sure."