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Mayor Terry Yemen and CAO Ray Romanetz at Drumheller Town Council.
It appears the Town’s estimates for its Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) Grants were in line with its estimates used for budgeting.
MSI is one of the major funds from the province for municipalities. It is comprised of capital funding, the Basic Municipal Transpiration Grant (BMTG) and operating funding.
Mayor Terry Yemen received a letter dated April 7 from then Minister of Municipal Affairs Ken Hughes outlining what the town would be receiving.
According to the letter, the MSI capital component is $1,496,922, about $60,000 more than the town budgeted for in its 2014 Capital Budget.
The town was expecting $480,000 in is BMTG funding and learned it would be receiving $481,740.
On the operations side however, the town saw a decrease from the figure it budged for of $126,200, and will be receiving $69, 176.
This year’s total MSI funding is$ 2,047,837.
In his letter, Hughes explains what MSI funding is based on and how the allocation may change each year.
“Changes in allocation amounts are mainly due to the shifts in each municipality’s proportion of population, education tax requisition, and/or kilometres of local roads compared to the provincial total, combined with a reduction in the MSI Operating budget,” it states.
One major change all municipalities will see in the future is the elimination of the operations funding from MSI.
This will continue to decrease to $15 million province-wide in 2015, and then eliminated in 2016.
The funds from the operating will be realigned to encourage collaboration with other municipalities with the Alberta Community Partnership Program.
Hughes did say he is hoping to lessen the impact to municipalities for this major change.
“While we continue to realign MSI Operating funding to encourage transformational change, $25 million in additional capital funding will be provided in 2014 to lessen the impact of the phased elimination of the MSI Operating program,” states his letter.
Since the letter from the Ministry was drafted, Hughes announced he has resigned from cabinet and would be running for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party.
