The province's Reeves and Council members have shot down the idea of another effort to force amalgamation of rural municipalities.
Delegates at the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities voted almost unanimously against the idea of tasking SARM with reducing the number of RMs. Corey Senft from the RM of Lipton brought up the resolution, arguing that it would result in cost savings and make it easier to fill administration vacancies.
"We would like to see SARM take ahold of this issue and come up with a plan of action for our rural municipalities as we head into the future. We all know it's changing at quite a rate now." Senft also points out that retail co-ops and credit unions across the prairies are amalgamating to save money.
However, the resolution garnered almost no support.
"It's not so long ago that we fought hard to maintain the independence of our democratically elected councils," said Councillor Gary Hoppe from the RM of Greenside. "This resolution asks that SARM act as a persuader to try and convince councils that don't see a benefit that they should. That's not an appropriate role for this body and there's no real impedement to two or three or however many municipalities that choose to amalgamate at the moment. Support services are in place."
"Please," implored Councillor Fay Fairs of the RM of Snipe Lake, "if you with to amalgamate with a neighbouring RM or town or village, be my guest. The tools are in place for you to do that. But I don't think you'll find that it's as cost effective as you seem to think."
"I too am opposed to this because I saw what happened when our health boards and our school boards got amalgamated," insisted Wayne Mastrachuk from the RM of Preeceville. "If we want something to happen here vote it in, but I'm against this."
Senft and the RM of Lipton argue there would be significant cost savings in amalgamation but others insist there's been no evidence of that in the amalgamated health or school boards.
