Mayor Marcel Roy was glad to hear that funding was provided by the government in the provincial budget for the new elementary school, but he has concerns about other aspects of the budget.
“I’m very happy about the school, that’s really progressive, so we’re going ahead with our plans for the field house. That looks very positive and is very exciting,” said Mayor Roy.
The Southeast Cornerstone School Division received $12.2 million in the budget for a new elementary school in Weyburn, and the City is planning to piggyback with the general contractor to build their new recreation and culture centre onto the school, which will be built on the site of the former Weyburn Junior High. The junior high will likely be demolished in September, after the tender for construction has been awarded for the project.
He attended a pre-budget briefing for mayors at the Legislature on budget day, and said with the funds committed to municipalities, the City will be able to proceed with their projects this year, including the new street lights for downtown.
“We have to see how they’re going to deal with infrastructure,” he added.
MLA Dustin Duncan said that Weyburn will be getting about $1.9 million in revenue sharing, which is roughly the same as last year.
One of the aspects of the budget that will impact the city is with the Crown grants-in-lieu, which was cut from their funding last year.
“We will get some of it back, but not all of it. All they could say about revenue sharing is they’re not going to go any lower than what we got last year,” said Mayor Roy.
With the grants-in-lieu, there will be municipal surcharge of five per cent for SaskEnergy, which will go to the municipality. The grants-in-lieu, which is also paid by SaskPower, is for real-estate assets (such as office buildings), but it will exclude generation, transmission and distribution facilities, as well as pipelines and land.
In regard to the Weyburn Court House, MLA Duncan said in a session with the Chamber of Commerce there are no plans whatsoever to sell the property. The rumours came out of the SUMA convention, he said, where the minister made the suggestion to city and town councils that if there are any government-owned buildings in their communities that are being under-utilized, the municipality could apply to use those properties.
Duncan noted that most of these are office buildings or other facilities, and do not include the Court House in Weyburn.
“It was a challenge to RMs, towns and cities that if they have a better use for a building, they could suggest that to the government. We don’t have a list of buildings that we’re selling or anything,” he said, adding this also does not include the Auburn Pepper Building in Weyburn, which houses a number of government offices at the mall.
Mayor Roy pointed out there is still a concern in regard to the Court House, in that Justice is cutting down the few days they are already holding provincial court from four days a month down to two days a month, and only one day a month for trials.
“This is going to put extreme pressure on the city’s police budget … and this now becomes a greater inconvenience to the people of Weyburn. They’re not seeing the value of having the court open here,” said the mayor.
The City is supporting the local lawyers association in lobbying to improve this, “but I don’t know to what avail,” said Mayor Roy.
