The budget put out by the province is a bit of a mixed bag, according to the president of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities.

Ralph Groening first noticed the good -- the funding for infrastructure outside of the provincial capital.

“The ten million dollars for the roads and bridge program is a very important announcement by the province of Manitoba. We are grateful and we’re appreciative about that and municipalities certainly will be pleased about that,” says Groening. “I also noted that we will have an increase of two million dollars in the Manitoba water services water board budget.”

He says there was also a major flaw in the budget.

“We were disappointed in the fact that the municipal operating grants, which had remained stagnant, and had not been adjusted for inflation since 2016, continued to stay at the same levels,” says Groening.

Many municipalities were calling for the municipal operating grant freeze to come to an end, including Mayor of Portage Irvine Ferris.