The Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) will be asking for a meeting with Alberta’s minister of finance to voice concerns with a recommendation made in the recently-released Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finances, says association president Al Kemmere.
The Blue Ribbon Panel, chaired by Janice MacKinnon, was formed by the UCP government to examine the province’s finances and make recommendations.
Also a Mountain View County councillor, Kemmere says he is concerned with the panel's recommendation 15, which calls on the provincial government to examine its legislative framework for capital funding to municipalities.
The goals of that examination would be the following (quoted from report):
• Align funding to provincial goals and priorities and fiscal capacity, while further considering funding formulas that require municipalities to share more in the costs of major projects.
• Adjusting its allocation formulas for grants to municipalities in line with the policy of bringing Alberta’s provincial and municipal per capita capital stock in line with the comparator provinces.
• Establishing accountability mechanisms and performance measures to monitor the delivery of municipal programs and services and value for money spent, so citizens have the ability to constructively evaluate their local government and their use of tax dollars.
• Making better use of federal infrastructure funding, through investing in the Canada Infrastructure Program, as a means of more effectively managing the costs of the capital plan.
Kemmere says rural municipalities need clarification and other information from the province regarding the recommendation.
“It is definitely a concern and a lot of it is a surprise,” said Kemmere. “They have gone to the public with this without hearing the municipal side. That will be our job now to sit down with the provincial government and point some of the things that didn’t come through in the report.
“There is the fact that we can’t run deficit budgets and we’ve been increasing service levels. The province has similar challenges and they just create a deficit. Those are the sorts of things we need to work through to try and update them.
“I’m alarmed by some of the recommendations in here, but at the same time it’s not saying the government is going to take every recommendation as it is. They are just recommendations."
Asked when he hopes to meet with the finance minister to voice the RMA’s concerns, he replied, “As we can get in front of him. We will be putting in the request to meet face to face because there are aspects of this that we need to talk about before hard and fast decisions are made.
“We will try to work with the province to make sure they understand the impacts of the recommendations.”
Rural municipalities are already facing numerous challenges, he said.
“Whether it’s a new police funding, or whether it’s the reduction in assessment from oil and gas, or now with the reduction in grants, it’s going to be hard times for municipalities if we can’t get our perspective to the table,” he said.
The RMA represents 69 rural municipalities, including Mountain View and Red Deer counties.
Jason Nixon is the UCP MLA for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre and Alberta’s minister of environment and parks.
The Kenney government plans to use the findings of the Blue Ribbon Panel in preparing the 2019 provincial budget, but also plans to consult with other stakeholders, including the RMA, he said.
“The MacKinnon panel has done its work and provided its input, but we also recognize that we have to have input from stakeholders across the province,” Nixon said. “The budget is not done yet and the MacKinnon panel is not doing the budget; that’s the government of Alberta led, of course, by the finance minister.
“Without a doubt, organizations such as RMA, AUMA (Alberta Urban Municipalities Association) have a role to play in the upcoming budget deliberations. We want to consult with Albertans to come up with the best budget possible in the fall.”
The previous NDP government “left Alberta’s finances in a tough spot” and “created a real economic problem,” he said.
Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills UCP MLA Nathan Cooper did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Travis Toews is Alberta’s minister of finance.
“Our government was elected to balance the budget and what we have learned from this report furthers our commitment to making that happen and getting Alberta back on track,” said Toews.
Panel chair MacKinnon said, “Alberta has a spending problem and the government needs to act quickly and decisively to reduce spending. The province needs to go beyond merely cutting spending to transform the way programs and services are delivered.”
Shannon Phillips is the finance critic for the NDP official Opposition.
“Bottom line, this is going to hurt Albertans,” said Phillips. “We are hearing reports of 45 students crammed into a single Grade 5 classroom. Is that what Albertans should expect as the norm going forward? What are we supposed to tell our kids when we drop them off at school?”
Sandra Zocor is the executive director of the Friends of Medicare advocacy group.
“With the release of the much awaited panel report, we heard what we can expect from this government, and it confirmed that Albertans will be faced with four years of unwarranted austerity budgets and imposed legislative changes,” said Azocar.
The complete Blue Ribbon Panel report is available on the province’s website.
