Photo: Shaun Penner / EverythingGP staff

By Shaun Penner

AUMA Resolution

City council endorses resolution to advocate for regional service centre funding

Jul 3, 2021 | 7:00 AM

Grande Prairie City Council is forwarding a resolution to the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, in hopes they will advocate to the province to create a dedicated funding stream for municipalities that act as regional service centres.

The motion was unanimously passed during Monday’s council meeting. Mayor Jackie Clayton says council supported the motion as the Swan City is one of the many other communities in Alberta that acts as a regional hub.

“In essence, (the request) is to support regional centres, where typically things such as churches, non-profits and social housing projects exist, and these facilities, they don’t generate property tax (revenue),” said Clayton. “There are still massive expenses that the ratepayers of regional hubs, such as the City of Grande Prairie, pay for.”

Clayton says while the city is happy to act as a regional hub for many services, there is plenty of municipal services and infrastructure tax-exempt properties benefit from.

“So, snow removal and fire services, storm drainage and infrastructure upgrades and improvements,” said Clayton.” We’re happy to provide these, however, in a regional hub model, these expenses are a burden on the local taxpayers.”

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Clayton notes that the resolution is more loosely defined, as she acknowledged municipalities smaller than Grande Prairie also serve as regional services centres.

Intergovernmental Affairs Coordinator for the city Rory Tarant told council during Monday’s meeting that in the past, larger centres like Grande Prairie did receive one-time funding through the Alberta Community Partnership Grant. He added that the hope would be for Grande Prairie to be able to receive around $1 million per year through this type of funding.

While council unanimously approved the motion to send the resolution to AUMA, some councillors were pessimistic any such funding would ever come to fruition.

But Councillor Chris Thiessen says he is happy to ask AUMA to advocate for it.

“I also say if you don’t swing at the ball, you’ll never hit a home run,” he said to council Monday.

During that meeting, council also endorsed the AUMA Property Assessment Averaging Resolution submission, which will look to advocate for amendments to the Municipal Government Act that would give municipalities optional tools, such as assessment averaging, to address the impacts of major shifts to annual property assessments to reduce hardship for property owners who would otherwise face a large tax increase.