By Angela Brown

Local leaders mainly positive on new budget

Apr 10, 2018 | 5:00 PM

Local community leaders appear to have mostly favourable views about the new provincial budget released Tuesday and how it will impact the community.  

The City of North Battleford’s Mayor Ryan Bater was pleased to see the government is reinstating the five per cent royalty surcharge that was collected on the SaskEnergy bills from customers in North Battleford.

“That is good news,” Bater said. “We have been very vocal and I’ve been able to work with my colleagues around the province through the city mayors’ caucus and through SUMA to advocate for the reinstatement of this. I really appreciate that the provincial government listened to us and has taken this direction.”

“It sounds like we are getting our $391,000 back, but they are also eliminating that cap,” he said of the royalty. “So that’s going to hurt us a little bit.”

He added the city expects to see a net increase of about $68,000 as a result. 

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The mayor was disappointed that payments-in-lieu of property taxes from SaskPower are not being reversed.

“That is still not going to be paid by that Crown corporation,” said Bater.

The city will be receiving $2.52 million in municipal revenue sharing for cities in 2018-2019, a decline from $2.70 million in 2017-18.

“We budgeted for that,” Bater said. “We predicted that because the formula for revenue-sharing is based on PST. We knew there was less PST collected during the last base year so this was anticipated.”

The mayor said the province indicated it will be making an investment in Highway 4 North, between North Battleford and Cochin, that he is glad to see. The province is planning to add two sets of passing lanes, which Bater said will increase safety.

Battlefords Chamber of Commerce president Terry Caldwell said after reviewing the new budget he appreciates the sales tax didn’t increase.

“That was a little bit of a relief,” he said.

Caldwell was also pleased to see PST has been removed from insurance premiums.

“That’s going to make a big difference for everybody all around,” Caldwell said.

He said the chamber still needs to go through all the details of the budget to review it further.

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW