Regina mayor glad to see status quo municipal funding from provincial budget

Sandra Masters was pleased to see a stable and steady budget come from the provincial government on Tuesday.

Regina’s mayor said she was glad to see the level of revenue-sharing between the province and municipalities remained where it was at — $275 million.

“I’m pleased they’re not going to contract the economy further. That would be problematic for the City of Regina,” Masters said.

She said the provincial budget will allow the city to complete everything it set out to do from its own budget passed last month.

The provincial budget is forecasting a $2.6-billion deficit, but there were increases to health care and education spending.

“Given the amount of spending that’s happened at the provincial and federal level, it’s not surprising but I think we should always be concerned about deficit budgets long-term,” Masters said.

“I think in the short term to have any sort of austerity budget would have been a mistake given we are looking for economic recovery, not pulling back or contracting the economy further.”

While she’s not sure how it will manifest itself, Masters was happy to see an increase in funding for mental health and addictions.

“We need more beds in order to tackle some of that problem and then we have to work at all levels to collaborate a little bit better in terms of getting to the root causes of some of those addiction issues,” Masters said.

Masters said the Municipal Economic Enhancement Program wasn’t available this year but pointed out there was still money from last year’s program that needed to be used for the Wascana Pool project and infrastructure improvements.