City Councillor Scott Elliott, the Chair of the Financial Sustainability and Audit Committee, noted at this week’s Council meeting that there were a few outstanding items that have increased the cost…
“The salt and sand building, which were approved by the City Manager, fencing and other security and IT issues, have increased the cost for this project. Further there will be some shelving desks etc that have to be added.”
Elliott also talked about how Council planned to pay for these additional costs…
“The 20-21 capital budget has 350 thousand dollars in it to address these costs, and this will be funded from the Public Works Relocation Reserve and savings found from the interest savings because of the timing of the Public Works project. In addition, any carryforward from the original 13 million dollar budget will be added to this capital budget once the amount is known at the end of the year.”
Mayor Bob Simpson defended the overages, saying that put into context of the overall project, they were minuscule.
“If you actually look at that project through the lens of COVID, of price escalation on all supplies, it doesn’t matter what it is, and then the issues that we had on adjusting the front end of that project because it started right at the height of early COVID, the actual overage on that 13 million dollar project will be minuscule, and we’ll do a full report on that piece.”
The original cost of this project was $10,975,000.
It went up to 12.7 million in January, although Council budgeted for 13 million at that time, which is where the project now basically is.
Taxpayers approved the borrowing of up to 8 1/2 million dollars in a referendum back in 2018.
Council is paying for the rest of the bill with reserves.
Construction is underway and the project is nearing completion.
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