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Saskatchewan municipalities watched as the province released its budget this week, hoping that their wishlist of funding for programs would be fulfilled.
Ray Orb, the president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, said that there were a lot of good things to take from this year's budget.
That includes a raise to the amount of money they'll be receiving from the province.
"We've seen an increase in the entire pool of revenue sharing of about 13%, so if you recall that's kind of what our economy was like two years ago. RMs are going to soon be finding out how much allocation they'll get for revenue sharing."
A bit more of a mixed topic is SARM's program for roads, which is staying funded, but they won't be getting what was asked for.
"We're pleased with the road program that RMs use, it's called the Rural Integrated Roads program," said Orb, "It's continuing on with $50 million dollars, which is what we had before, in that program last year. We were asking for a little bit more, however, this is a commitment that we can keep moving forward and it's well used."
The healthcare spending figures did draw some positive feedback from Orb.
"There's quite an increase for healthcare spending. Overall, there was a 6.7% increase in the entire budget for healthcare and that's a big increase. We're really pleased about that, some of that will go towards stuff for retention, and they're attracting nurses as well, as some of the other healthcare sectors which is a good thing. outside of that, through other funding, we'll see some new hospitals go up through the province."
The province's decision to use the surplus for debt reduction is also being praised, as lower interest costs can mean less money spent in the future.
"(We're) actually pretty pleased, there's about a billion dollar service which the province is using to pay down debt. That's always a good thing," said Orb, "That lowers the interest costs to operate the government for one thing. So we're pleased about that."