Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association met last week in Regina.

The main topic of discussion was to do with finances.

"People don't realize but cities only exist at the whim of the provinces and the federal government. City taxes only pay approximately 40% of our take here so we rely on the government for 60%. There are going to be new grants available from the federal government and the provincial government and hopefully, we will be eligible for those," explained Marcel Roy, Mayor of Weyburn.

"The last time we had grants come out there were 400 applications and they only pick out so many."

"We were very fortunate we got our reservoir grant, we were very fortunate to get our new water meters grant, so we are going to work hard, our staff at city hall is going to work hard to ask for more grants to keep improving the city here in Weyburn."

Mayor Roy also said that due to provincial budget cuts, Weyburn will receive $1.2 million less this year and Moose Jaw, $4.5 million down.

SUMA discussed how to work around these cuts to the cities.

"In the afternoon, we had his Honorable Minister of Urban Affairs, Larry Doke, came and spoke to us."

Mayor Roy added that SUMA were able to ask questions to the minister and received some answers.

"He has just been placed in there as an interim minister and possibly long-term, he is catching up to speed."

Doke agreed to meet with a SUMA delegation to discuss the finances further.