HUMBOLDT — At a convention attended by all of Saskatchewan’s cities, towns and villages, the City of Humboldt shared their experience dealing with the Humboldt Broncos crash.
Rob Muench, Humboldt’s mayor, said the two workshops the city led at the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association conference in Saskatoon for Feb. 3 to 6 discussed how the city dealt with the extra demand on staff and the donations of items it received, as well as how the event affected the mental health of the city’s staff.
“We had a good turnout for those and answered questions for people and just described how it affected our municipality and how we've come through the process,” he said.
“We covered a broad range of things when we did the workshop, so it was very well received, had lot of good comments, and people really appreciated what we did.”
The mayor added Humboldt’s council was commended by premier Scott Moe, opposition leader Ryan Meili and Saskatoon mayor Charlie Clark in their speeches for their handling of the tragedy.
The crash wasn’t the only item Humboldt council dealt with at the convention. Muench also had the chance to meet with highways minister Lori Carr.
“I specifically asked her about Highway 5 again and I was told to wait for the budget, so there may be some good news in that regard,” he said.
Also noteworthy to the mayor was the provincial government readjustment of the revenue sharing formula with municipalities. Municipalities will now receive three-quarters of the money generated by one per cent on the PST two years ago, instead of the entire amount. Because the PST was expanded two years ago, that still means municipalities will receive an extra $10 million.
“The percentage is reduced, the amount is the same and you know, it would have been nice to keep that one per cent,” Muench said. “It's better than going the opposite direction. We did see that a few years back and it's nice that we're moving in the right direction.
“I think they did the best they could with a budget that's being brought down and trying to be a balanced budget, but I'm hoping as things start improving in the economy that we see that number go up.”
Muench said cities are also concerned that the expanded PST means they have to pay the tax on construction projects like paving and water main replacement, which is an expense they didn’t have to deal with before.
“That's a considerable amount of money if you think about multi million dollar projects, that does add up,” he said. “That's something that we're still talking to them about. Hopefully at some point they may look at some exemption in the future.”
