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Harpauer's response to Bater not what city wanted to hear

The minister of government relations Donna Harpauer has sent a response to Mayor Ryan Bater’s correspondence on the provincial budget.
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The minister of government relations Donna Harpauer has sent a response to Mayor Ryan Bater’s correspondence on the provincial budget.

But if Bater and the rest of council had expected a substantive response from the minister pledging to reverse budget decisions, they were sure to be disappointed.

The city had sent a letter to Premier Brad Wall in an attempt to engage in direct dialogue with the government about its decision to end payments-in-lieu from SaskPower and SaskEnergy. The loss of those payments, as well as other provincial budget cuts, ended up blowing a $1.4 million hole in the city’s own 2017 budget.

As part of their correspondence, the city had proposed a policy alternative of having a one per cent province-wide levy added to power and gas bills, instead of eliminating the payments-in-lieu.

But when Premier Wall responded, it was only to say that the concerns had been forwarded to minister Harpauer.

In her response to the city, dated May 10, Harpauer gave absolutely no indication that the province would reinstate payments-in-lieu at all.   

The only change she acknowledged was the decision to cap the loss of payments-in-lieu at 30 per cent, a decision announced a week after the budget was handed down in the legislature.   

“After discussions with municipal leaders, we felt that it was too much of a burden to put on those municipalities, so we are capping the reduction to ensure that no municipality will see a reduction of more than 30 per cent of their revenue sharing amount.”

Harpauer’s response also did not acknowledge the city’s policy alternative proposal of a one-per cent levy to gas and power bills. Instead, Harpauer pointed to a lack of policy alternatives put forward by the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association.  

“Our immediate response to concerns raised did not exclude SUMA from proposing alternative options and in fact they were asked to do so by the four Cabinet Ministers in a meeting just after Budget Day. To date we have received nothing,” her correspondence stated.

Harpauer also went on to say the payment of the “municipal surcharge” of 10 per cent of the value of the sales of electrical power by SaskPower in North Battleford “will continue unchanged. In 2016, your community received over $1,600,000 in revenue from this surcharge.”

Council voted to receive Harpauer’s correspondence, which did not receive much comment from council Monday night.