The Provincial government's new Local Growth and Sustainability Grant aims to help municipalities grow their infrastructure.
On October 22, Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ric McIver, announced that with this new grant, they are providing $20 million a year for three years to municipalities to help them update their infrastructure as needed.
Okotoks mayor, Tanya Thorn, says that while it's great the province is providing this funding, she feels it's not quite enough.
"I think, as you heard Minister McIver state, there's just not enough money," Mayor Thorn explained. "I think it's $20 million a year over the next three years. I think there's 26 communities that are in the mid-size cities category."
Thorn adds that with the amount the Provincial government is providing and with the number of communities there are, each community will get less than $1 million per year, which will only make a tiny dent in the costs some municipalities will have to spend to upgrade their infrastructure to match population growth.
"In an Okotoks context, over the next ten years, our capital plan for items that relate to growth, water, wastewater, transportation, recreation centre, fire, we've got about $20 million needed over the next ten years," Thorn says. "That's our capital budget relating to all of those pieces. So, when you put that into context, we are only one community of 26. $20 million is really not a significant amount of money."
On top of that, Thorn isn't a fan of the way these kinds of grants are distributed.
With it being application based, Thorn says it causes the municipalities to compete for the funding and gives someone the authority to be the decision maker on which municipality has the most important projects.
"The reality of the matter is every municipality has important projects for their municipality that are important for them, in terms of the next steps they might have to take. That is always a challenge for me, but that doesn't just sit with this funding program, there's a bunch of them that are in that regard."
While this grant will cover up to 50 per cent of the cost of the project, Mayor Thorn says this is typical for a lot of grant programs but does tie into the bigger picture around the infrastructure deficit that exists in Alberta.
"Currently, I think the last number I saw was around $30 billion. It's a really big number and the funding formula for municipalities in general. The primary revenue source that we have as municipalities is property taxes. It's not, in my opinion, the best system for funding and I think that we are seeing more and more of the pressures that are happening. We need to have a very different conversation on how municipal infrastructure should be funded and what is the most effective use for the one taxpayer in the province of Alberta. And I'm not convinced its property taxes," Thorn says.
She feels everyone needs to sit down at all levels of government, including the federal government, and discuss a better way to fund these types of projects.
Thorn explains that municipalities provide between 60 and 70 per cent of the infrastructure that residents use daily, but when it comes to the revenue to cover those costs, municipalities are only getting 10 cents out of every dollar spent in funding for these projects.
She adds this creates challenges when the province is seeing the growth it currently is seeing, as well as the current infrastructure deficit there is in the province.
"At the end of the day, I do appreciate the Government of Alberta and Minister McIver's recognizing that the growth that's coming to the province is having an impact on some of our communities that are trying to manage that growth and be in the position to create the economic opportunities that the province is striving for and be in a position that we can accept people into our communities and still create that same welcoming, inclusive, and complete community Alberta is known for."
