Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Spearman reacts to provincial budget

Mayor: “Budget of austerity” to impact Lethbridge going forward

Feb 28, 2020 | 12:29 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – “I think the days of relying exclusively on the province for support are over and we have to work together as a community to make sure that we’re doing all we can to make sure we’re moving forward on projects that create employment and diversify the economy.”

Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman is reacting to Thursday’s provincial budget announcement.

Finance Minister Travis Toews called the budget a “Blueprint for Jobs” that will help to balance Alberta’s pocketbooks by 2022-2023.

Spearman says it was no surprise that this a “budget of austerity”.

“There’s some significant reductions in store for our college and for our university that’ll have some impacts locally. We see the education budget has been frozen, in effect, so school systems will have to absorb growth.”

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Right now, approximately 25 per cent of each residents’ property taxes go towards the education tax which helps to fund K-12 schooling. The province has increased the education tax by four per cent, meaning that property owners will likely end up paying around one per cent more in property taxes.

In general, however, he told media Friday that the budget is not the one he would have liked to see, but “one we can live with.”

One positive is that Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding, which dolls out grants for capital infrastructure projects, has been confirmed for the next two years.

The final report with exact dollars for MSI funds to the City of Lethbridge is expected to come back at the next city council meeting, but Spearman says “what we’re expecting is no material change for what was announced in the budget in October [2019].”

The previous NDP administration announced in March 2019 that they would contribute $100-million in funding to replace the Highway 3 bridge that runs over the Oldman River in Lethbridge.

Although Jason Kenney, prior to being elected as the Premier, had promised to maintain funding for this project, the 2020 budget makes no mention of it.

The capital budget does not specifically highlight any major infrastructure projects in Lethbridge.

At this week’s city council meeting, council put off making decisions on four local capital projects that could potentially be delayed.

Going forward, Spearman says the city will have to take a much harder look at where MSI funding goes and which projects are deemed necessary and which will directly result in more jobs being created.

The budget also does not specifically mention supervised consumption sites or what the future of facilities like the SCS in Lethbridge could hold.

“I think there’s going to be a re-balancing of funding for those with addiction and it’s going to focus more on long-term recovery and care,” says Spearman.

A top priority for the City of Lethbridge going forward is increasing the advocacy they do to the provincial government and building stronger relationships.

“We want to make sure that we’re in Edmonton more and we’re dedicating resources to improving the advocacy skills of our council going forward.”

Reactions from more local officials are expected later in the day Friday and early next week.