County capital projects impacted by large MSI capital cuts

A dramatic cut by the Province in the amount of Municipal Sustainability Funding for capital projects is going to have a big impact on the upcoming Lamont County budget.

“Essentially the cut in funding is in the capital spending area,” said Interim Chief Financial Officer Rodney Boyko. “The operating portion of MSI isn’t affected.”

“When we look at the funding from those grants, we’re going to have to look at all our projects and as a council look at which ones we’re going to do.”

“It’s a significant hit,” stated Boyko. “And I can see we’re going to have less capital projects going forward because of that.”

In 2021, Lamont County received $2,241,675. in capital MSI funding.”

In a letter, received by the County for the Nov. 9 council meeting, from Municipal Affairs stated the $1.196 billion MSI capital budget for the entire province in 2021, would be cut by $722 million to $485 million across the province in 2022 and 2023.

“For both 2022 and 2023 every municipality and Metis Settlement is estimated to receive 40.6 percent of what they received in 2021,” stated the letter over the signature of Municipal Affairs Minister Rick McIver. “The reduced budget will impact every local government equally.”

Boyko stated there were many grants such as gas tax grants that the county would apply for.

“First we have to see what projects we have out there which might be eligible for specific grants.

“We’ll see a reduction in funding, but we’ll apply for as much as we can,” he said.

“We’ll see what’s out there. The best way to do that is to see what projects we have that might fit into other specific grants and then bring that forward to council and apply for them individually as we go.”

The MSI Capital grant is an allocation grant. The money is provided to the municipality and Municipal Affairs doesn’t have any specific rules for its use except it be used for capital projects, added Boyko.

He said the cuts would hit the hard projects like roads and drainage, but the final say would be up to council.

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John Mather
Staff Reporter