St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron said she wasn’t surprised by the province’s budget, which dropped on Thursday.
“I call it ‘hold-the-line’ budget … We didn't get increases in any of our funding, but we didn't see decreases,” she said.
Budget 2022 saw a decrease in municipal spending by the province from the $1.7 billion set aside in Budget 2021 to a projected $980 million in Budget 2022.
The decrease was, however, anticipated.
“We knew this was coming,” said Heron, adding this was reinforced in a telephone town hall after the budget's release with Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver, who said, "You guys knew you were getting this haircut."
“And he's right … So, not surprised, but not happy about it,” said Heron.
The decrease in funding was due to the anticipated cut to the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI), which covers repairs for basic infrastructure, from the $1.2 billion forecasted for the fiscal year ending in March of 2022, to the $485 million set aside for 2022-23.
The cut means St. Albert will get around $7.4 million in MSI funding, compared to the around $14 million the city has received in previous years.
"St. Albert will not allow — I know my residents pretty well — they're not going to allow potholes,” said Heron, adding if St. Albert wants to maintain and service good infrastructure, the city must raise taxes, something Premier Jason Kenney has told them not to do.
“Yet they download costs to us, and they download responsibility to us and so we are forced to raise taxes. It's a no-win situation,” said Heron.
The MSI is being phased out by the province to be replaced by the Local Government Fiscal Framework, beginning in 2024-25, which Heron said is fairer as it adds a growth factor into the equation.
“It's already a bit better because it does grow and it's predictable,” she said.
Heron said she would have liked to see additional funding for Family and Community Support Services, which goes towards preventative programming in the community.
“It's not a budget that I can cheer for, but it's not a budget that I can really criticize,” she said.
Heron said she recognizes the province was trying to table a balanced budget and that they had gone into a lot of debt and had to cut things.
“But at the same time, I feel that there's a lot of problems that have arisen because of the pandemic and a lot of the solutions are going to be found at the municipal level,” she said.
Heron said communities are growing and growth needs more funding.
“If you don't have enough funding for infrastructure … then things start to crumble — how do you attract new businesses to our province?"
As for whether or not Heron saw anything in the budget that really benefited St. Albert, she couldn’t name anything specific.
“We've got a reduction in infrastructure money. We didn't see an increase in FCSS. I'm still hoping to see some improvements in ambulance response. But there was nothing in the budget for that.
“I just feel like, with the economy really rebounding as it is, there needs to be a way to share that,” she said.
Dave Burkhart, spokesperson for Big Lake Environment Support Society (BLESS), was also disappointed with Budget 2022.
“We were hoping to see at least some movement towards building an environmental learning centre for the park. It's been a long time coming [since the] province made a commitment back in 2010,” he said.
The province has allocated $75 million in operating expenses for Alberta Parks for 2022-23. Budget documents state the money is to address increased recreational activity on Crown lands and to keep parks accessible and sustainable.
There was nothing in the budget to address the long-promised education centre for St. Albert's Lois Hole Centennial Park.
Burkhart said Lois Hole Centennial Park is one of the larger Alberta Parks in the area and it serves around a million people living within a half-hour drive to the park.
“We think it's underserved … We have very little infrastructure in place to serve those million people,” he said.
