The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has released their Manitoba Municipal Spending Watch report.  Manitoba Director Elliot Sims says it looks at municipal spending growth and compares it to the regional benchmark of spending and population growth.  He says in Flin Flon spending growth was sustainable, it actually decreased by 8 percent while the population growth only decreased by 2 percent which means Flin Flon residents are getting a value for services, in fact because of the work of their municipality residents actually saved 4.7 million dollars over five years.  He says the reason that their ranking was low is that like many northern communities the cost of government is far higher than what is seen in the lower parts of Manitoba.

Sims adds Flin Flon residents paid the most for their local government’s operations in 2012 at 21 hundred dollars a person compared to 499 in the rural municipality of La Broquerie which was the lowest.

There’s more at their website www.cfib.ca/mbmunicipal.