Prince Albert will face a number of economic challenges over the next few years, Mayor Bill Powalinsky said, and that challenge could get bigger following a $30 million funding request from the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
Powalinsky told community and business leaders at Tuesday’s State of the City address that the SHA has asked the City of Prince Albert for $30 million for the “new regional hospital”. Powalinsky said the SHA made the request “within the last year” and that they’re currently negotiating over what the City will actually contribute.
“I’m glad I was sitting,” Powalinsky said in an interview afterward when asked what his first reaction was to the SHA request.
“The fact is that the SHA has approached us and we’ve thrown out a number,” he added. “We are currently in negotiations … over what period of time we do the funding. What the final number is, how we work with our current municipal organizations, how we work with northern communities, all those things need to be figured out before we commit to a number.”
Powalinsky said they City was told the $30 million contribution would go towards “furniture, equipment, and fixtures.” However, he said council wants more detailed information about what exactly the funding is for.
“(To) take something back to council and take (it) to the public, we need to be certain exactly where the money is going,” he said. “We need to know exactly what the term of repayment is, what kind of term we can put the payments over. We need to know exactly the final number, so there’s a lot of things we need to figure out before we get to that point.”
The Daily Herald sent an interview request to the SHA after Tuesday’s State of the City but did not receive a response by press time.
Jordan McPhail, the NDP MLA for Cumberland, was one of several MLAs in attendance for Powalinsky’s speech. McPhail said asking the City of Prince Albert for $30 million is just one example of how the provincial government has made a habit of downloading costs onto municipalities.
“This is something that we’ve seen time and time again,” McPhail said in an interview after Powalinsky’s speech. “The provincial government will announce a plan, but then ask other people to fund it.”
McPhail said the provincial government needs to be more upfront with municipalities about potential costs so they can plan ahead. He said municipalities like Prince Albert face a number of challenges, and an extra $30 million would go a long way to addressing them.
“They’ve needed this hospital upgrade for a long time,” McPhail said. “It’s downright shameful for the province to then come out and say, ‘we need an additional $30 million when they can put that money into the infrastructure under the ground, into the waste water treatment plants, (or) into economic development.”
The City of Prince Albert faces a major financial hurdle as it moves forward with plans to upgrade its water treatment plant. Powalinsky told those in attendance that planning is 90 per cent complete, with the first phase set to proceed in about 18 months.
Powalinsky said phase one will cost the City around $80 million dollars, and there will likely be added expenses beyond that.
“That’s not the end of it,” he said. “We can’t realistically say at this moment until phase one is done. Is it going to be another $100 million? Will it be $250 million? I’m pretty confident that based on discussions with senior administration, it’s going to be somewhere in there. That’s the current forecast for us to take a look at.”
The City is already tagged with one of the highest debt levels in the province. According to stats Powalinsky presented at Tuesday’s State of the City, no city in Saskatchewan has a higher debt-per-capita ratio.
The City has recently hired a new financial director, George Marshall. Powalinsky said one of Marshall’s first acts will be to take “a deep dive” into making the City’s debt more manageable.
