The province’s decision to download policing costs onto rural municipalities means less funding is available for “wish list” infrastructure projects throughout Rocky View County (RVC).
During a regular meeting Dec. 10, Transportation Services manager Steven Hulsman provided a briefing to council on five unfunded infrastructure requests identified during a special council meeting Nov. 4. The briefing included preliminary cost estimates – the combined price tag of the projects would be around $970,000.
“These initiatives, specifically, were brought up as part of the budget negotiation, and they came from councillor requests for things in their divisions,” said CAO Al Hoggan.
Coun. Jerry Gautreau said he had problems with the initiatives, especially in light of the municipality shouldering an unanticipated cost for policing based on Alberta Government’s recently-announced new funding model.
“This is a wish list,” he said. “I think, with a $826,000 unexpected budget item for policing – we’re looking at a million dollars for a wish list that I don’t really see very much benefit here. I’m sorry.”
According to Hoggan, the government’s announcement means the County will be responsible for $826,000 of additional police funding as of April 1, 2020. That will ramp up, he added, to $3 million over the course of four years.
“It is surprising that, essentially at the beginning of December, when budgets are, for the most part, complete for most municipalities – or about to be complete – that they would hit [small municipalities]…with big hits on budgets,” Hoggan said.
Acknowledging that RVC’s budget hit was significant, Hoggan suggested that for some other small towns and villages, it may be “a fatal blow to that municipal sustainability.”
Gautreau moved to refuse consideration of the unfunded initiatives, casting the only vote in favour. Council then voted unanimously to direct administration to prepare a list of unfunded items, including the five council initiatives, to be considered during budget finalization in April 2020.
“We’re not funding anything today,” Coun. Kim McKylor said. “We’re just getting some more information. We’ll have more information in the spring.”
Coun. Kevin Hanson was absent from the meeting.
