EAST CENTRAL — Municipalities will receive their share of the PST sooner than usual to help with cash flow issues brought on by the pandemic.
On May 7, the Government of Saskatchewan announced it would give communities the full amount in June instead of having payments spread out throughout the year.
According to the press release, Saskatchewan cities will receive $133.2 million on a per capita basis with $45.1 million going to towns, villages and resort villages. Rural municipalities will have $79.26 million divided amongst them and northern communities will see $20.6 million.
With COVID-19 causing challenges for local cities and towns, local mayors are grateful at the prospects of receiving all their funding in one lump sum.
Melfort Mayor Rick Lang said the city keeps around $2 million set aside for operation spending but since they are deferring property tax payments for Melfort residents until September, the $1.3 million they will be receiving from municipal revenue will alleviate some tax flow issues.
Lang said property tax usually starts coming in around June and talking to other city mayors, they are all having the same issue.
“If the province hadn't done that, there would be a lot of a lot deeper challenges for each community in Saskatchewan.”
Humboldt Mayor Rob Muench was also happy to hear about the changes to revenue sharing.
“That's going to help us if we have to do some things like postpone people's taxes and utilities, we'll have some money in the bank to help cover off some of that,” Muench said.
Nipawin Mayor Rennie Harper said they have already made some investments into their community this year so having municipal revenue funds quicker will go towards offsetting those costs.
“They're good news, not just for towns, but for the province overall. People often have called municipalities the engines of the economics in the province. So, these kinds of things are good.”
Tisdale Mayor Al Jellicoe said this will not make much of a difference to his town since getting the payment at one time will not change their budget. All money received from Municipal Revenue Sharing is put into general revenue.
