By Matt Kelly

Battlefords mayors react to budget, elimination of River Valley funding

Jun 2, 2016 | 7:27 AM

The 2016-17 provincial budget is a mixed bag for the mayors of North Battleford and Battleford. Money is still coming to the communities in the form of municipal revenue sharing, but funding for the river valley has been eliminated.

The city of North Battleford will receive $3.03 million in revenue sharing, an increase of $60,000 from last year. The figure is based on one percentage point of provincial sales tax revenue. This trend continued across the river in the town of Battleford and Mayor Derek Mahon said it’s a boon for the town and other municipalities.

“That money has been in place for a number of years and it’s something that municipalities across Saskatchewan have been counting for a number of years,” Mahon said. “That program is actually the envy of a lot of other provinces, not all provinces operate this way. We’re glad to see that money still flows and it helps out in a number of different ways.”

The disappointing news for both mayors was the announcement provincial funding for the Battlefords’ River Valley has being eliminated.

A five year agreement was signed between the provincial government, the City of North Battleford and the Town of Battleford. The government would contribute funding every year while the city and town would combine to match the dollar amount on a per capita basis for a total of $160,000 to $180,000. After the provincial budget however, this dollar amount is considerably less.

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“I’m sure the city and town will continue to contribute the same amount of dollars, but now we’ve got half the dollars available to us to enhance the opportunities in these areas.” North Battleford Mayor Ian Hamilton said.

The city, the town and the Battlefords River Valley Committee will take a look at the previous agreement as well as what they had hoped to accomplish in the future and what services and programs are being paid for now.

“I’m very concerned about that because we’ve been working very diligently at new projects and encouraging people to take advantage of our river valley and the beautiful vistas and opportunity that exist in a river valley and that’s going to hurt; that’s going to hurt a lot,” Hamilton said.

mkelly@jpbg.ca