MOOSE JAW, Sask. – Rural municipal leaders are upset that extra funding for infrastructure projects announced in the last Saskatchewan budget is not available to all municipalities.
Only $5 million from the $30-million-a-year Centenary Fund was set aside for these kinds of projects. Another $5 million was allocated for transportation, including rural roads, and environmental cleanup.
Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities president Sinclair Harrison told a district meeting here last week the province chose to distribute the money without a general call for proposals.
“The provincial government has chosen to take our $5 million and allocated it to their pet projects that have been sitting on the shelf,” he told about 140 reeves, councilors and administrators.
Municipal affairs minister Clay Serby said the projects had to be identified as high priorities by both the municipalities and the province.
He said priority was given to projects with an environmental or public safety focus. He said his department used the criteria established for the provincial-municipal infrastructure program, founded last year, to distribute the new money.
