Budget confusion

Firefighters in Miscouche attend annual community meeting to voice concern

The Rural Municipality of Miscouche presented its 2018 budget Tuesday evening, and many local firefighters showed up to the meeting, concerned about what it could mean for their department.

The fire department was involved in the budgeting process so members were aware of what to expect going into the meeting, which is why they showed up as a group.

What followed was a discussion which some firefighters said afterward left them confused and looking for answers. According to the number presented at the meeting, the community budgeted $96,000 for the operation of the fire department in 2017. The proposed 2018 budget is for $101,500. The difference is that the 2018 budget accounts for 15 months whereas the 2017 budget was for the usual 12 months. The extra months are a one-time adjustment needed to bring all the province’s municipalities under compliance for the new Municipalities Act.

The firefighters argued that the budget as proposed represented an overall decrease in their funding.

“We are disappointed that council has cut the fire services budget by this much this year. Services will be affected. Our call volume has been increasing over the past years which, in turn, increases our operational costs,” said fire chief Jason Woodbury, in a statement. Woodbury was out of the province and could not attend Tuesday’s meeting.

The community council tried to explain its position and that it actually approved every item the fire department asked for except for a small travel allowance, which had been used to send Woodbury to a memorial service out of province for the past few years, and one new computer system, which council asked the department to put on the backburner for the time being.

If there were other, unexpected items, that come up throughout the year, then council and the department could discuss them, as always, council said.

The city of Summerside currently has eight generators in its electrical plant, with three dating back to installation in the 1950s and 1960s.

Gaudet says the maintenance on those three units becomes more difficult each year and that if there is an investment in new electricity generation tools, they could be retired over the next two years.

“Sixty years is quite long enough for a generator to run. We recommend decommissioning the three units and replace them with new generation.

The utility needs to have dispatchable generation that you can turn on with fuel at any time.”

Gaudet and his staff began a public process and put out an RFP asking for renewable and non-renewable options for dispatchable generation.

“There were several responses, but none of the renewable options were seen as dispatchable. We did get a proposal from Kore Energy, a spin-off of Nautican, and have a relationship with GE power sector for combustion turbines.”

Kore is asking for $19.6 million for 16-megawatt dual fuel turbogenerator.

There are six units installed in the world.

“We’ve been negotiating with them on that price for about three months. It started in the $20 million range,” he said adding that the Kore contract includes the turbine, testing and commission, the installation on site when the unit arrives, project support services, shipping, exhaust stack and silencer, air intake, super structure supports and transport.

In addition, it includes the test and commission to determine if it complies with specifications. There is also a two-year warranty.

In order to install the Kore generator in the Summerside energy grid, there would be an additional cost of $2.2 million for electrical grid connections, $680,000 for demolition and reconstruction and $585,500 in project management and engineering.

When it came time for councillors to consider the recommendation, Coun. Tyler DesRoches asked for the recommendation to be brought forward at the next committee of council in order for city staff and councillors to review all of the possible scenarios for cost, amortization cycle and other concerns raised.

“I want to see some of these numbers. This isn’t bananas, this is a lot of money. I’m not one bit comfortable approving this without seeing all the different scenarios. It’s not small change.”