Thursday, September 29, 2022
MERIDIANSOURCE.CA
VOLUME 5 I ISSUE 14
Aalbers joins call for city funding GEOFF LEE
WRITER
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Geoff Lee Meridian Source Ally Chertez, student recruitment officer with the University of Saskatchewan, talks with Grade 11 and 12 students at Lloydminster Comprehensive High School about post secondary education options during the school’s College Day on Monday. A total of 17 recruiters showed up at the gym.
Students ponder career paths GEOFF LEE
WRITER
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What do you want to be when you grow up and where do you want to learn how to do it? Those burning questions are a little easier to answer this week for some undecided students at Lloydminster Comprehensive High School during College Day on Monday. A total of 17 postsecondary institutions were represented at
the school to direct and recruit grades 11 and 12 students to the right career paths and postsecondary education options. “We put on College Day so we can introduce students to some possibilities for their future,” said teacher and counsellor, Kaylin Britton. “We try to bring in colleges and universities as well as trades and apprenticeships,
RCMP, Canadian Forces and art schools to try to get them interested in their future and what programs are available to them.” The timing was perfect, given Grade 12 students start to apply to colleges and universities in October. “ This gives t hem a great opportunity to ask questions to our institutions to finalize their application plans,” said
Britton. She says Grade 11 students need to start t hinking abou t t he ir future programs too and be ready to sign up for certain programs for Grade 12 starting in December. College Day was just what the doctor ordered so to speak, for Grade 11 math and science whiz Emry Marchand. She wants to go into CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers is one of many mid-size city mayors who are seeking a bigger piece of revenue pie from the Alberta government. The Province plans to cut funding to municipalities by 25 per cent when its new Local Government Fiscal Framework (LGFF) rolls out in 2024 to replace the Municipal Sustainability Initiative. “It certainly makes a huge impact and that’s a concern we’re raising as a municipality as well as our mid-size city majors that this is something we can’t live with,” said Aalbers in a phone call from the Alberta Municipalities Convention in Calgary. “Infrastructure, especially in our community continues to be a challenge.” Aalbers added his voice to other mid-size city mayors who were at the convention Sept.
21-23 to support a resolution to expand the funding pot for the LGFF and increase funding directly tied to revenue growth. “If the revenue of the Province grows by 10 percent, we hope they would raise the allocation to municipalities by 10 percent,” explained Aalbers. “We are just asking them to share in some of that benefited growth that we expect to see in the province and we’re hearing about.” Mid-sized municipalities are reliant on other orders of government for long-term, and stable infrastructure funding to support the completion of capital projects and improvements.
Historically, the provincial government has provided this through the Municipal Sustainability Initiative and made a decision to reduce the pot in the LGFF during hard economic times. CONTINUED ON PAGE 5