Some municipal road and bridge projects in Saskatchewan could be on hold after last week’s budget showed about half as much money available this year compared to last.
Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president David Marit said RMs were hoping the Strategic Municipal Infrastructure funding would remain stable after last year’s major injection of an extra $20 million under the Municipal Roads for the Economy Program.
However, finance officials said that was one-time funding and the budgeted amount is down to $23.5 million this year from about $43 million last year.
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SARM said nearly $60 million was spent last year on roads to service resource areas and expand the rural primary weight corridor.
“We still see a significant increase from the ’07-’08 budget of about 15 percent,” Marit said. “It’ll probably mean some belt tightening by some of our members.”
Highways and infrastructure minister Jim Reiter said last year’s funding was an anomaly. There was money available to put into strategic infrastructure.
“I don’t consider it a lack of funding,” he said of the reduction. “Last year was an extraordinary amount of funding.”
Reiter said he knows there is still an infrastructure deficit, particularly regarding bridges that have surpassed their life expectancies.
Marit said the government’s revenues may improve as the year progresses and more money will be found.
“Our members are ready to put their money where their mouth is, too,” he said.
The overall highways budget shows about $17 million less for surface preservation.
It allocates $86 million for 470 kilometres of work on rural highways and $36 million on bridges and culverts. Another $76 million is earmarked to start or complete 600 km of provincial highway restructuring.
