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Originally Posted by Cowboy89
Between the provincial and federal budgets what's the net effect for funding for the city?
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Still trying to sort out that picture. The Provincial budget didn't really bring much change to grants, they continue to trickle to the cities (MSI and Green TRIP) slower than originally thought. The most interesting thing is what the Province did with the Education Property Tax, which leaves lot of "tax room" the City will take if it sticks with its policy to do so. Previous tax room was taken to create the Community Investment Fund, which is financing much of the 4 new regional rec centres and the new Central Library. Doing it this time would potentially mean a fairly substantial amount for capital projects (like Transit). The City could use it as its matching portion for the new Building Canada progam, or P3 for new infrastructure. Building Canada would require some provincial participation as well.
The Mayor is meeting with the Premier on Friday - she's begun to muse about opening up the conversation about revenue solutions for municipal infrastructure as part of the whole Charter discussions. The Federal stuff is great, but the capital infrastructure funding solutions for cities mostly lies with its fiscal arrangements with the Province.