It appears that most communities in this area, including Beiseker, have spent between $8,000 and $20,000 moving snow so far, this winter! This is a big hit on the budgets of small municipalities like ours.
I've had our Village Administrator check out to see if we could apply for emergency or disaster funding from the province. I realize that our expenditures for snow removal pale by comparison to the flood damage in many Alberta municipalities, last spring. However, these expenses come at us totally unexpected, and have stretched our snow budgets to the breaking point.
But the answer from the province was a flat "no."
I see no choice for all the small municipalities to either cut other services or raise taxes (or maybe both) to accommodate these huge increases in snow removal budgets.
I believe that the province should be helping its municipalities cope with these "snow emergencies," as much as possible. The premier's travel expenses and the bureaucrats' salaries show me that they have (or maybe had) the money!
