Calgary mayor sees red over budget

Calgary may consider legal action against the province over cuts to infrastructure funding in Tuesday's Alberta budget, said the city's mayor.

Mayor Dave Bronconnier accused Premier Ed Stelmach of breaking agreements with municipalities over infrastructure funding. The city was expecting more than $400-million from the province under the Municipal Sustainability Initiative but that appears to have been chopped to $250-million, he said.

Bronconnier would not speculate on how this might affect major projects like the West LRT. But he said the city has already signed construction contracts on the basis of getting that money from the province — so the cuts could put the city in legal hot water with some construction companies.

"You cannot go and sign a contract and then have that party go and move forward with pre-approval, pre-approval for major infrastructure projects ... that has signficant financial consequences for Calgarians," said Bronconnier who said he wants an immediate meeting with Premier Ed Stelmach to clarify things.

Bronconnier says if the dispute can't be ironed out the city may have to take legal action against the province for breaking its contract with the city.

Meantime, the head of the Calgary Board of Education said she's generally pleased with the budget, although it did not include funds to fix crumbling schools. Pat Cochrane said she's pleased with the $631-million earmarked for construction of new schools. But there's a backlog of older schools which need repair.

"We know from the budget announcement that there's no new infrastructure money coming into the Calgary board," she said. "The infrastructure projects that have been approved in the past ... the new schools are going forward. And of course we're delighted with that. [But] there's no new money coming in for our modernization issues and we do have quite a large backlog."