It's his first Capital Budget after being hired as Moose Jaw's new City Manager and Matt Noble has learned very quickly that we need to find more money if our city is going to meet the demands of its residents.

Right now, there's $121 million in planned spending for things like roads, sewers, water lines and other infrastructure over the next five years, but it's not enough.  Department heads are telling councillors that their budgets are not sustainable and infrastructure is failing faster than they can replace it.

"What we're looking at is sustainability." said Noble. "We want to engage the province, yes we want to engage the federal government and there are areas where we can obtain resources from but we also need to engage our citizens who stand to benefit the most out of all of this."

Noble and his staff at City Hall are looking for new funding programs from all levels of government and even the private sector to try and address the need.  Programs like fire fighting funding through insurance companies, funding that had previously gone unnoticed.

Just this week, the city entered into a contract with Fire Marque to provide assistance in accessing that funding.  Many residential and commercial insurance policies have a subsection that allows a fire department to request funds from the insurance company if there has been a fire at the policy holder's property.  It's funding that comes at no extra cost to the policy holder, because they're already paying for it but a city needs to request the payment before any cheques are sent out.

Another avenue being looked at is a provincial road repair program for urban highways.  Moose Jaw has several roads that connect a highway on one side of the city to the other. Noble says there is a funding program available but our city has never taken part because of some concerns over wording in the contract that would have to be signed.

For example, Noble says the province could help to keep Main Street in good driving condition but the city would have to help with repairs to the Highway 2 Overpass each time it gets hit by a semi, something Noble isn't too thrilled with. Meetings between the province and City Hall are being planned with one of those sit downs happening this week.