Rural Alberta municipalities call for more infrastructure funding

A provincial funding formula change has left some rural municipalities saying they need more money for infrastructure upgrades.

This tension is growing following the March 2023 amendment to the Local Government Fiscal Framework Act, which established a framework for providing infrastructure funding to all Alberta municipalities for 2024-2025. 

The funding is replacing the municipal sustainability initiative.

The fiscal framework fund is divided based on population and the value of infrastructure projects in a community. 

The fund starts at $722 million for this year, about $1 billion less than what Alberta Municipalities say its members require. And that means making tough decisions like raising property taxes, delaying much-needed infrastructure projects, or cutting services.  

LISTEN | Rural communities facing tough financial decisions with infrastructure projects 

Kara Westerlund, a Brazeau County councillor, told CBC that rural communities struggle to pursue big infrastructure projects amid inflationary pressures and provincial bureaucracy.

"We're making really tough decisions in our community," said Westerlund, who is also vice-president of Rural Municipalities of Alberta.

"Unlike the province and the federal government, we are not allowed to run deficit budgets. We actually have to balance our budgets. We do have borrowing capacity, but we have some very tight restrictions."

For a project like repairing a 50-year-old culvert, that also means dealing with what Westerlund calls "red tape."

"We've got to jump through some bureaucracy, and some red tape sometimes just repairing the culvert can actually set us back a building season because we have to go in and make sure we get the right approvals from Alberta Environment. And this is on existing infrastructure that's probably in place." 

Glen Ockerman, reeve for the County of St. Paul, said upgrading and replacing a wastewater system, priced at $23 million, is work they cannot undertake without provincial funding. 

"The numbers are just so huge of what it costs to do these projects, we hardly imagine how we can get it done if there isn't provincial dollars."

Consultant Ian McCormack said it ultimately all comes back to "there only being one taxpayer."