A delegation from the City of Swift Current attended this year's Saskatchewan Municipalities Association convention.

SUMA, is an advocacy group that gives Urban Municipalities, Cities, Towns, Villages, Resort Villages and Northern Municipalities a collective voice with the provincial government.

At the convention, local MLA and Premier Brad Wall announced that the provincial government has projected a deficient of $1.25 billion. Wall also stated that the government does not want this to be an open-ended situation and
that everything is on the table, including cutting expenses and increase revenues to get the deficit under control.

Mayor Denis Perrault came back with a solid understanding the deficient will have an effect on the local budget.

"We knew we were going to see a reduced revenue so we had already budgeted for that as far as our revenue sharing formula," he said. "As far as anything else (impacting the city), no, not at this time, but we will be seeing some that will affect us moving forward."

He also added the city will know more in the coming months.

"We will get a better handle on that (city budget shortly)," he told Swift Current Online. "I believe the provincial budget is coming in mid-March, is kind of what they were eluding to, so we will see what comes."

The province has a revenue sharing formula with the city which is used to divide PST revenue. With Saskatchewan's economy slowing the city is looking at a reduction.

"We know that the PST is a little lower this year. They collected less because the economy was down," Perrault said. "That translates right to us as a community as we have a revenue sharing formula set with the province, that
we know that will probably mean $173,000 less."

City Council will roll out the 2017 budget on Monday at the regular council meeting. To see the city budget look to Swift Current Online Tuesday for more details.