The provincial government provides additional funding every year to municipalities through a revenue-sharing grant arrangement, but those municipalities must first meet certain criteria to attain that money.
There are six criteria that municipalities must fulfill to receive the money. Those criteria include providing an audited financial statement, providing a waterworks report, ensuring that the reporting of education property taxes is in good standing, having a council procedures bylaw in place, ensuring an employee code of conduct exists, and providing public disclosure statements from all members of city council.
The City of Moose Jaw has met those requirements, which means the director of financial services can sign the eligibility declaration and submit the documents to the province. In turn, the province will provide the City of Moose Jaw with $6.7 million in municipal revenue sharing funding this year.
Funding is based on the value of 0.75 of one percentage point of the provincial sales tax from the second preceding year, which means the province will provide the revenue using 2019 figures.
Council confirmed that the city meets the eligibility requirements during the Jan. 25 regular meeting and voted unanimously to authorize the director of financial services to sign the proper documents and send them to the provincial government.
“This is important. From our perspective as a council, we are adhering to the provincial guidelines … ,” said Mayor Fraser Tolmie. “There have been municipalities that haven’t been keeping up with these standards that are required. So the province, in the last two years, has made sure municipalities are submitting this.
“I think it’s important for us — especially when we’re looking at over $6 million in revenue sharing — that it’s important to our budget and it’s important to the citizens of Moose Jaw. It’s their tax money coming back to them into our community. We want to ensure we are following the due diligence and following the guidelines.”
Based on the requirements, council had to confirm that the municipality met all six criteria before Jan. 31.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Feb. 1.
