Gas Tax Fund top up will be felt across the Southwest

A one time infusion of cash has been delivered to municipalities across the Southwest through a top up of the federal Gas Tax Fund.

In the federal budget announced earlier this year, Saskatchewan was allocated a $61.9 million top-up payment in order to assist municipalities with infrastructure project. The dollars are in addition to the twice a year federal Gas Tax Fund payments made to municipalities on an allocation basis.

The dollars are directed towards infrastructure priorities like roads, wastewater and recreation, but each municipality makes their own decisions on how this funding is utilized. According to an Infrastructure Canada press release issued on August 26, the Village of Bracken is using their Gas Tax Fund dollars to develop an asset management plan to assist council in making sound decisions about how to prioritize future infrastructure spending.

City of Swift Current CAO Tim Marcus said City Council has not formally decided where best to utilize this one time $985,991 top up to the Gas Tax Fund.

“Council hasn’t decided exactly what we’re going to do with the funds, but they’ll either be earmarked for some capital improvements or to fund capital or operations. It’s really to be determined yet,” Marcus said following the August 26 Swift Current City Council meeting.

“Most of the year’s that I’ve been at the City we haven’t had that luxury. It was announced a couple of months ago and we just haven’t decided where we’ll put them yet.”

As the money arrived after the adoption of the 2019 municipal budget, Swift Current will be deliberating where best to target the funds in the 2020 budget.

“It’ll probably get earmarked for capital in the next year,” Marcus explained.

Canada wide, Budget 2019 included a $2.2 billion top-up for federal Gas Tax Fund payments.

The Federal Government has 18 different project categories were the dollars can be utilized. Municipalities can direct the funds to priority projects, just them to fund major infrastructure expenditures, bank them

Community

Swift Current Maple Creek Shaunavon Gull Lake Leader Herbert Ponteix Eastend

Kyle

Lafleche Cabri Frontier Waldeck Morse Tompkins for later use, or event pool the funding with other communities for shared infrastructure projects.

Allocation 2019-2020

$979,636 $122,956 $101,126 $61,714 $50,917 $50,504 $33,217 $29,677 $26,491 $22,538 $23,010 $21,948 $16,343 $14,278 $8,968

Budget 2019

top-up

$985,991 $138,394 $111,682 $62,900 $52,216 $48,272 $38,478 $33,517 $27,793 $25,822 $25,376 $22,324 $18,889 $15,264 $10,812