After being hit with a sizable decrease in revenue sharing from the provincial government last year, Swift Current's mayor is hoping a re-negotiation period will lead to a more predictive formula.

A re-jigging of the formula was eluded to by the new Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe this past week at the 113th Annual SUMA Convention, as he stated the formula is no longer sustainable.

According to Swift Current Mayor Denis Perrault, the negotiation time has always been in the works to be looked at this year.

"That's what he (Moe) will be working on with SUMA and some of the mayors," he said. "I won't be in that club, however, the city mayors do get together often and we will have a chance to see drafts and to ask questions. Truthfully what I'm looking for is something predictive, so that we know what we're getting year-to-year, because it really helps with planning and budgeting."

Currently, the revenue sharing formula sees one percent of the PST given back to municipalities. But in a years time (from 2016 to 2017) Swift Current saw a decrease of $173,000 or 1.24 percent which ended up getting covered by the cities taxpayers in last years budget.

That was the most important topic to Perrault during the four-day assembly, but he was still interested in a few others that stood out to him.

"Rural policing, resources in the north, and zebra muscles in some of the lakes," he said. "Those are some of the things that don't have a direct impact on the City of Swift Current, but we, of course, support our municipalities across the province. Where it's an issue for them, that's what's nice about SUMA is it can be raised in a broader setting."

Another thing that caught the first-term mayors attention was the number of provincial politicians at the event.

"I actually saw more MLA's in general than I've seen normally," Perrault stated. "I don't know if there were more walking around both from government and opposition and all were really engaging."

He also noted he was able to speak with MLA's that are surrounding us in Wood River MLA David Marit and Cypress Hills MLA Doug Steele.