After the recent announcement of two new government grants, the RM of La Broquerie will have much more money than they expected this year.

The smaller of the two grants totals $138,500 in unconditional government funding.

Reeve Lewis Weiss admits that this grant is nothing unique to La Broquerie as the provincial government has set aside 10 million dollars to distribute to municipalities throughout Manitoba based on their population.

At face value the grant looks like a great thing, and, while Reeve Lewis Weiss is pleased, he says it is merely a lesser version of funding the government removed just over a year ago.

“We’re very happy to have it reinstated” comments Weiss, “But, we’ve always been accustomed to having it, and then we lost it and now we have it back, so I assume things will just roll along the way they always have.”

Meanwhile, the Liberals just announced that they would double the gas tax going to each municipality. For La Broquerie, this is big news. It means their sum will jump from the expected $320,000 to $640,000.

CAO Anne Burns notes that this sudden funding came as a shock. “We were pleasantly surprised by this,” she states.

Having just received word of these funds, Burns says they have no concrete plans as of yet. However, she indicates that some items in the 2019 financial plan that were expected to span over a couple of years may now have a much shorter timeline thanks to this excess. She adds that some of these new resources may be directed towards trails or recreation infrastructure, but reiterates that council will need to discuss the matter first.

Weiss expects the RM will use at least some this money to maintain and build up roadways. Though he stresses the funding is unconditional and may be used elsewhere if need be.