The issue of increasing the revenue sharing grants from the province, or finding an alternate source of revenue such as through the fuel tax, will be the top issue at the upcoming convention for the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA).

The 98th annual convention will be held in Saskatoon from Sunday, Feb. 2 to Wednesday, Feb. 5.

The first resolution in a list of 22 resolutions to come up for discussion deals with the contentious issue of increasing the revenues given to urban municipalities by the provincial government.

The resolution was already formally endorsed by Weyburn's city council, as the city mayors took the resolution's proposal to a meeting with government officials prior to the convention.

The main thrust of the resolution is to propose using one cent of the fuel tax for urban municipalities, who want an increase of $15 million in provincial funding, or to add one cent to the fuel tax for that purpose.

Following a meeting on Monday by council to go over the resolutions, Mayor Don Schlosser said this issue will definitely be the most important for Weyburn, and for most urban municipalities at the convention.

Some of the other issues to come up include funding of infrastructure, recycling and waste reduction, ethanol production, helping fund firefighting and police, and items dealing with property assessment.

Some resolutions will be supported in principle by Weyburn's council, such as one calling for funding of essential infrastructure in small communities, but the city would like to see other municipalities also receive more funding.

The resolution deals with the upgrades that many communities will need to make in order to meet higher standards for providing safe water supplies.

"We feel we need more funding just as much as a smaller community. Funding is just as tough for us," said the mayor.

A couple of recycling-related resolutions will not be supported by Weyburn, including one asking for SARCAN to receive a greater share of the charges and deposits collected on recyclable containers, and one saying that 10 per cent of environmental handling charges and deposits should be returned to the communities where they were collected.

Mayor Schlosser said council doesn't feel that SARCAN necessarily needs the extra funds; the resolution states that about $9 million is returned to SARCAN from deposits, and the remaining $7 million goes into the province's general revenues.

As to the second resolution, council feels if these funds are to be returned to municipalities, they should be returned to all municipalities, not just those that collected the deposits. If the funds went to all municipalities, it might help with such initiatives as regional landfills or expansion of recycling programs.

Council did agree with a resolution that says ethanol plants should have no direct investment dollars from the government, although the government could provide loans to help companies set up new ethanol plants.

Weyburn also doesn't support a resolution that calls for the province to create a fund to help small communities cover firefighting costs. As Mayor Schlosser explained, larger municipalities need to sign mutual aid agreements with smaller communities and RMs, and thus have firefighting costs covered. Without the agreements, the city would have liability issues to deal with.