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By Liam Verster

Financial Support for Municipalities

City of Grande Prairie supports FCM’s call for federal funding for municipalities

Apr 30, 2020 | 1:47 PM

The City of Grande Prairie is supporting the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) request for $10-billion in federal funding.

The money, which would be used to make up for lost revenues during the COVID-19 pandemic, would be divided up and distributed to all cities, towns, counties and municipalities across Canada.

The request, which the FCM issued last Thursday, would see money distributed to municipalities based on lost revenues caused by closures and lockdown measures, as well as factors like population and the Gas Tax Fund, which is a federal funding stream that provides local governments money to use for infrastructure projects.

Grande Prairie Mayor Bill Given says if the FCM’s funding request is approved, the city would receive a grant of about $13-million. He says that money would be important to have going forward, not only to mitigate the loss of revenue from the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to help stimulate the economy by investing in capital projects.

“The Federal Gas Tax shared with municipalities has long supported the city’s road rehab and sidewalk and trail rehab programs through the summer. Municipalities are asking the Federal Government to loosen the restrictions on that transfer, to allow us to, one, cover the COVID related costs, but two, do different kinds of projects that would allow us to help stimulate the economy and put people back to work.”

Given says those projects could range from road or bridge construction to facility maintenance. He adds that the city’s capital plan has approximately $38-million dollars worth of projects that are either unfunded or marked ‘for future years,’ which could be started immediately if there was available funding.

Meanwhile, Given says the costs the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns has had on the city so far is getting quite large, and is expected to continue to grow.

“Through the first four weeks of COVID-19 we have seen about a $700,000 net impact to our city’s bottom line when we account for reduced revenue and ongoing expenses.”

“So that is pretty significant, that’s starting to get to the point where we’re talking about a nearly one per cent property tax implication, and that’s through only the first four weeks of the response. As we go through, we expect there will be ongoing costs to the city for a number of months to come, and at the same time we want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to help property owners and businesses by deferring property taxes. So this really puts the municipality in a cash crunch.”

Given says, along with decreasing revenue through property tax deferrals, the city is also seeing a decrease in business licensing, and recreation programming has been completely halted, all of which means the city is seeing reduced revenue. Meanwhile, the city has ongoing maintenance and operational expenses, as well as core services to provide, such as police and fire.

He adds that, with the significant downturn in the price in oil and it’s effects on the provincial economy, it’s important to ask the Federal Government for this funding support.

Given adds that now is the time to build direct relationships between the Federal and Municipal Governments.

“In any normal time, the Provincial Governments tend to play an intermediary role when it comes to the relationships between the Feds and the municipalities. These are unprecedented times, and it calls for an unprecedented rethink of that Federal-Municipal relationship. I, for one, would like to see it be a much more direct relationship, and I think that’s what FCM’s request leads.”

The City of Grande Prairie is one of over 2,000 members of the FCM, but the Federation says all cities, towns and municipalities, even those who are not members, would benefit if this funding were approved.

The FCM sent in the request for funding on Thursday, April 23, but as of yet have not received a response from the Federal Government.