Wascana Centre Authority asking for more funding

The Wascana Centre Authority is asking for more money from the City of Regina next year.

“We’re just asking basically for a status quo increase so it’s really to address the effects of inflation and allow for adequate core services at the appropriate level. The dollar value of that is an increase of $84,000 on the operating side,” explained Bernadette McIntyre, CEO for Wascana Centre Authority (WCA).

If the increase is approved by council, it would bring the total funding from the city to $2.1 million on the operating side with an additional $600,000 in capital funding. WCA gets 30 per cent of its funding from the city with 55 per cent coming from the government of Saskatchewan and 15 per cent from the University of Regina. McIntyre says the total request for increased funding amounts to $270,000 on the operating side with a request for $149,000 from the province and $37,000 from the U of R.

McIntyre says the top critical infrastructure needs for Wascana Park include:  

• upgrades to the irrigation system which is 60 years old
• putting in more efficient lighting
• improving parking lots.

She says the plan is to work on these projects over the next few years.

“Our trails are highly used, we made several improvements to them this year. We want to continue that and we have some matching grants that we can use,” she said.

Renovations to public washrooms are also a priority for WCA.

WCA is still in the process of renewing a master plan to replace the old one from 1913. The last of three public consultations is planned for December. McIntyre said the most-common request coming out the first two public meetings is to add more washrooms.