Province acts on AUMA’s call for future MSI allocation estimates to be published

As AUMA has worked on the design of a new infrastructure funding framework, we have consistently advocated for the importance of predictability of future infrastructure funding so that municipalities can reasonably plan for their financial future.

Historically, municipalities have been challenged to estimate their future allocation under the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) because of the province’s history in changing the MSI funding pool amount and the complexity of the MSI allocation formula.

Since there are two years of MSI remaining, we requested that Municipal Affairs release the future estimated MSI allocations so that municipalities could have a reasonable understanding of their infrastructure funding. We are pleased to announce that Municipal Affairs has acted on our request and has published the estimated MSI allocations for 2020 and 2021.

This is a new process that gives municipalities greater understanding of their future funding to be able to plan for the next two years. We appreciate the province’s efforts to provide this information, as it will help municipalities to prepare their 2020 operating and capital plans.

Note

The estimates are based on MSI program budget targets as presented in Budget 2019 and were calculated using the 2019 statistics for population, education tax requisitions, and road length. As such, municipalities can expect that their actual allocation will differ from the future estimates, as the allocations will be recalculated in the respective program year using the most recent statistics for population, education tax requisitions, and road length.

If you have questions, please contact our advocacy [at] auma.ca (Advocacy team).