Municipalities meeting in Gander this week with provincial leaders

Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador has been hosting their annual convention this week in Gander, and on Saturday will be speaking with all three provincial party leaders.

Craig Pollett, CEO of MNL, says the organization is going to have a big week of elections, including voting in a new president and a new board of directors.

"It's a big year this year," he told CBC's Central Morning Show.

During the annual general meeting Saturday, Liberal Leader Dwight Ball, Progressive Conservative Leader Paul Davis and NDP Leader Earle McCurdy will be in attendance to talk about specific municipal issues.

In the next five to 10 years we've got $1 billionworth of municipal infrastructure to put in place.- Craig Pollett

According to Pollett, one of the biggest issues is how to keep municipalities from relying so heavily on property tax.

"Municipalities get on average 75 per cent of their revenue on property tax and outside of that there's not a lot of tools available to them to raise revenue," he said.

"If property tax wasn't such a big part of our revenue, towns could lower their mil rate and the impact on residents wouldn't be so big."

• Economist Wade Locke says HST hike easiest, fairest way to increase revenue

However, with no other sources of significant revenue, Pollett said municipalities would lose money and be unable to maintain services, including water and sewer and roads.

"We really think that getting access to some income tax and getting access to HST would make a big difference," he said.

"We've done research with the university, with Wade Locke that says a one per cent change in the provincial income tax would bump municipal budgets up at least 20 per cent. It's a minor change a provincial tax that would make a massive impact on smaller municipalities, in particular."

$10B in spending in next10 years

In addition, Pollett said regional governments would be addressed as well as infrastructure, which he said is a "massive issue."

"We've been calling for a while for a strategic plan on infrastructure. We don't have one in this province and we really think that there needs to be a plan that guides all of us," said Pollett.

A large part of that will be figuring out how to address new federal regulations around waste water treatment, coming in 2020.

• Who will pay for cleaning up Canada's raw sewage?

Pollett said figuring out how that applies to municipalities in Newfoundland and Labrador will likely run a cost of $500 million.

In addition, Pollett said there's also about $500 million in drinking water infrastructure across the province that's past its life expectancy and needs to be replaced or repaired.

"It's fair to say that in the next five to 10 years we've got $1 billion worth of municipal infrastructure to put in place and we need to figure out where we're getting that money," he said.

The new board and president will be elected Saturday.