According to the math, Kamloops is getting short-changed on the federal Gas Tax Fund
LETTER — A renewed more flexible Federal Gas Tax Fund has been announced and Kamloops will receive $3.49 million for the 2014-2015 period (McLeod, 2014). The City of Kamloops is getting more than the 2013 allocation of $3.1 million. That is good news but are we getting a fair share of the funds based on our population size?
Let’s do some simple calculations.
The federal government is planning to distribute $22 billion over 10 years to municipalities across Canada (Rothenburger, 2014). According to the Infrastructure Canada website (http://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/plan/gtf-fte-eng.html) the allocation to British Columbia over the first five years (2014-2019), based on 2011 population census data, is $1.317 billion out of $10.4 billion. This allocation makes sense given that British Columbia’s population was 4.4 million and Canada’s was 34.34 million in 2011. The allocation to each province is based on size of the population. Ontario and Quebec will get more as they have higher populations.
The province will get approximately $253.3 million in 2014-2015. This is slightly more than what the province got last year from the federal government ($250.7 million). Each province then distributes this amount to their municipalities.
Kamloops population represents about 1.95 percent of the total population in B.C. using the 2011 Census data (86,000 out of 4.4 million people). Hence, we should be getting 1.95 percent of $253.3 million which amounts to approximately $4.9 million.
What do we get instead? We get $1.45 million dollars less than what we should get based on our population size. Furthermore, we pay much more federal gasoline taxes than $4.9 million (Tsigaris, 2014).
Why the shortfalls? Why are we not getting our fair share? Is it happening in other districts of the province?
References:
McLeod, Cathy, 2014, “MP McLeod Announces Gas Tax Funding Figures for Kamloops – Thompson – Cariboo,” Press Release, http://www.cathymcleod.ca/?page_id=36
Rothenburger, Mel, 2014, “New federal gas tax deal with province done.” https://armchairmayor.ca/2014/05/22/new-federal-gas-tax-deal-with-province-done/
Tsigaris, Peter, 2014, “Kamloops should put three cents per litre municipal tax on gasoline and tax diesel too,” https://armchairmayor.ca/2014/04/06/kamloops-should-put-three-cents-per-litre-municipal-tax-on-gasoline-and-tax-diesel-too/
PETER TSIGARIS
Kamloops
ArmchairMayor.ca 
A portion of all gas tax funds go into a collective pool for large projects. Applications can and have been made to access a share of these funds.
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Thanks Tim.
Now we know that the city can ask for more funds than what we are getting. More than the $3.49 million announced. We deserve to get about $5 million per year given our populatiion size and we can use the extra funds for the new art centre or a new sport facilities (such as an indoor soccer field) or another large project that has value to us as a community.
After all we give to the federal and provincial government a lot more in gasoline tax than $5 million.
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The shortfall I am finding probably has to do with the allocation consisting of two funds.
The community work funds (CWF) which accounts for 75% of the total amount a municipality is eligible to access. Hence 75% of $4.9 million I calculated would bring it to $3.7 million which is close enough to the $3.49 million announced.
There is also a strategic priorities fund (SPF) that makes up the remaining 25% of the total amount the municipality can access.
Hence, I suspect the $3.49 million allocated to Kamloops is from the CWF.
But the city could get additional funds from SPF to make up the shortfall if it applies for the SPF funds and gets approved. This will make up most of the shortfall. I think…
It is in the Canada – Union of British Columbia Municipalities agreement.
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