The weight of capital projects put off in the past few years is finally catching up as several large projects, such as the West Ferris Arena and King’s Landing, require attention. Members of the budget committee heard earlier this week, that according to the capital forecast for 2018 to 2026, the budget will be facing some severe deficits in the coming years, reaching as far as year 2026
Deputy mayor Sheldon Forgette said over the last four years there has been a lot of reshuffling of projects in the 10 year plan.
“It happens when you have really big projects that go over budget and you need to compensate, if council priorities change or if staff determine we can move forward without a certain project,” he said. “We have some big projects coming up, like King’s Landing and the West Ferris Arena.”
However, Counc. Mark King said a project like King’s landing was one he did not agree with.
“The issue is we have nearly $10 million over a three-year period and you listen to the amount of very large projects sitting there,” King said. “Whether or not we’re able to find the money to do that is a major concern and that comes under my department and the priority in my mind right now is West Ferris Arena and getting that in place. We’ve got all these wish lists, but in reality, you have to say what are the most important you need to prioritize, that’s why the arena issue is big for me.”
For King, it was preferable to reinforce the dock to allow refueling trucks to cross instead of moving the dock and making any other major changes to the area.
“I’ve been all through the hearings and looked at the suggested phases and I don’t agree with them,” he said.
In 2017, the city will need to find an additional $404,671 to compensate for planned expenditures in the capital budget. However, as the plan projects later into the years, the city will be as short as $10,716,402. According to Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Margaret Karpenko, this situation is a result of too many large projects being put off in past years and them finally requiring attention simultaneously.
Counc. Tanya Vrebosch said council needed to deal with the projects instead of continuously deferring them because the strain of particular departments could grow to be too much.
“We keep cutting community service projects and eventually the department is going to have a hard time dealing with things,” she said. “We keep deferring projects instead of dealing with them. Sure getting more funds for roads is nice, but we should look into taking care of some of these projects.”
While it was discussed that budget surpluses would be going to road resurfacing projects,
The plan will be brought to committee on November 7 with a supplemental report from staff, while the capital budget is expected to be brought forth to council no Nov. 14, giving plenty of time for tenders in 2017 for projects.
“It’s a complicated process,” 10 year plan is a plan and can be changed and shuffled around. We have historically low interest rates and it’s time to take advantage to that and higher levels of government wanting to invest in infrastructure.”
