With the deadline to spend it having expired, the city may have to return $5.4 million in unused Safe Restart transit funding to the provincial government.
Mayor Cam Guthrie hopes that isn't the case and has sent a letter to the province pointing to pandemic-related delays as the cause of delays.
“We are going through so many unknowns, so many phases, so many shutdowns and the continuation of this pandemic has gone on way longer than anyone expected,” he explained. “To put funding in place for municipalities with strict timelines on them is unfair.
“We need flexibility to be able to use this funding for the desired purpose.”
Guthrie sent a letter to Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney April 27 asking for the March 31 spending deadline to be extended to allow municipalities more time to use the funds as intended.
In the letter, Guthrie explains much of the money wasn’t spent ahead of the deadline because of supply issues associated with the pandemic, leading to expenses that came in after the spending deadline.
There has been no response to his letter, Guthrie said late Friday afternoon.
He’s calling on the provincial government to be "flexible" with funding programs.
“It’s the time frames and the criteria and the guidelines that are too stringent and conflict with the realities of dealing with a pandemic,” he said. “It really is imperative for the province to be able to give flexibility to municipalities, while still maintaining that accountability on where the money is being spent, and not have to be bogging ourselves down with … red tape of using that funding.”
In addition, city projections indicate the next phase of Safe Restart transit funding will come up about $1.8 million short of what’s needed.
