BIG ON CHEERS

Mayor Gerald Aalbers says nothing jumped out at him in the Feb. 28 budget, but he was hoping for more capital funding to maintain the infrastructure of roads and things like that.

“We will continue to work with what we are given and wait for next year and hope for a little bit more next year,” he said.

Aalbers thinks the big winners in the budget are health-care ($965 million operating increase) and education ($1.8 billion increase) with a role for the city to play on the health front.

“We’ll try to ensure as we do from my chair and people do in the community, working with the health advisory council, to bring the needs of our community to the forefront and working with Alberta,” he said.

The mayor is also waiting for the Saskatchewan budget this month with the local task of attracting healthcare dollars from both provinces in Lloydminster.

“The city is constantly advocating for all residents in the city on that front,” said Aalbers.

The city will benefit from about a $150,000 increase this year in Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) operating funds from the Alberta budget.

“It’s the small amount versus the large capital grants for projects such as roads, sewers and things like that,” he explained.

Next year, the province will replace MSI with a new Local Government Fiscal Framework and bump up capital funding for all municipalities from $485 million this year to $767 million next year, with funding indexed to provincial revenue.

“That restores us to where we were in the past. It’s always appreciated when we get a base level of funding,” said Albers.

He says those MSI funds go toward repairs of roads and major projects you see capital works done throughout the city.

“It could be roads, water and sewer and improvements to rec - reation and cultural facilities etc. The list is long and endless,” he explained.

The mayor is also pleased the budget notes Alberta will continue to cut regulatory red tape that acts as inter-provincial trade barriers.

“We’ll continue to try and help bring that forward as a city to both governments and working with the respective ministers and committees,” said Aalbers.

The City will also look for opportunities to apply for some of the $1.2 billion in grants over the next three years for any eligible wastewater treatment plant projects, etc.

“It’s not jumping out at us right at this moment, but it might be something as we move forward; we’ll certainly be looking at applying for those grants where we fit,” said Aalbers.

The budget also includes $355 million over three years for municipal roads, bridges and wastewater infrastructure.

“The administer teams that work in roads in engineering will be looking at those opportunities from the government grant applications for sure,” said Aalbers.

There are a couple of repaving projects in the Lloydminster region in the 2023 budget including a 10-kilometre section of Highway 16 from the City of Lloydminster to eight kilometres west of Hwy. 893.

A 14 km section of Hwy. 16 from 3 km west of Kitscoty to 9 km east of Hwy. 89 is also up for repaving.