AUMA President Helen Rice says that although the association is happy with the province’s commitment to getting rid of the Premier’s Council, she was slightly disappointed with the budget released Thursday.
Among them was a lack of funding for wastewater management, and not fixing the real issue when it comes to RCMP.
“There’s 40 more police officers, but not addressing the inequities in police funding when we know that every Albertan believes that safety is a huge concern to them.”
Rice says she was hoping to see more provisions to help municipalities like Grande Prairie deal with exponential growth.
“As our province is growing at the rate of the equivalent of a city the size of Red Deer every year, that it’s the cities and towns that are going to bear the weight of this type of growth, and the necessity to make sure they can afford to do this growth properly.”
Rice was pleased with the extra capital funding for the Municipal Sustainability Initiative, but notes the operating funds are still going down.