Swift Current to receive capital project funding from provincial programs
By Matthew Liebenberg mliebenberg@prairiepost.com
The City of Swift Current will receive over $5.7 million in funding for capital projects from two provincial programs in 2020.
The City will qualify for an allocation of $3,348,442 in municipal revenue sharing (MRS) funds and $2,386,467 from the new municipal economic enhancement program (MEEP).
Local authorities have been receiving MRS funds annually from the provincial government since 2007-08.
These funds are usually paid in installments throughout the year, but the funding for 2020-21 will be fast-tracked as part of the provincial government’s COVID-19 pandemic response.
Local authorities will therefore receive their full allocation of MRS funds in a single payment during June. MEEP is a new initiative by the provincial government to provide funding to municipalities for shovelready infrastructure projects to support economic recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mitch Minken, the City of Swift Current’s general manager of infrastructure and operations, responded to the allocation of these funds during a media video conference after a regular council meeting, May 19.
“If you look at the announcements they made, there’s a lot of categories of opportunity with that money,” he said about the MEEP funding. “We’re going to have to make sure we’re real strategic in how we spend that money and make sure we put it to good use.”
The MRS funding comes with no conditions and each local authority can decide how to spend the funding on programs and services. The City of Swift Current has been using these funds for various projects in its annual capital program.
The MEEP funding can be used for eligible projects that comply with the requirements of the program. There are 14 different broad infrastructure project categories under this program.
A municipality must submit a signed funding agreement, a project plan, and a council resolution in support of eligible projects.
“We know what that amount is and we know what projects qualify, but there’s been no opportunity to make application or anything at this point,” he said.
“It’s early days and there’s talk about possible changes to the federal municipal programs that might impact us as well. So right now, we’re just taking stock of all our projects and making sure we know which ones will likely be eligible and trying to prioritize them so that we would be ready to make some applications if those opportunities come up here.”
All MEEP funding must be used by March 31, 2022 and Minken felt it will give the City sufficient time to get ready.
“I would say that gives us a little time to make sure we’re picking the right projects and maybe they would be the ones that would be executed in 2021,” he said.
In early April the City completed a review of the $22.7 million in capital projects in the 2020 municipal budget to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on those plans. It decided to defer several projects to later in the year or to 2021, and to only focus on higher priority projects that can be realistically completed during the pandemic situation.
According to Minken the City will continue to proceed with current capital projects based on the outcome of that review.
“At this time, we’re in the same position we were when we announced it,” he said. “We haven’t made any revisions to move anything back in or anything like that. We’re in the same position we were before. I think it’s a little too early to tell if anything is going to change. There’s lots of funding programs that will be becoming available, but we don’t know when and how we’ll fit into those funding programs. So right now, it is what we stated in our revision. So maybe later on there will be an opportunity to review it, but it’s hard to tell at this point.”
Work on several construction projects from the 2020 capital budget has already started. The initial phase of the work to reconfigure the Central Avenue North and Battleford Trail intersection started on May 11. The downtown sidewalk rehabilitation project, including the revitalization of the Frank Rempel Centennial Plaza, is in full swing. The construction work along a section of 11th Avenue NW, which will include the reconfiguring of medians and curbing for improved traffic flow at the intersection with the TransCanada Highway and the installation of traffic lights, is scheduled to start on May 26.
“Those are the big projects,” he said. “The rest are just the regular patch, repair and the paving projects that will pick up a little later on.”
He expected more work than usual will be required during this construction season to repair the winter damage to city streets.
“We had a pretty rough winter in terms of damage to the streets,” he noted. “So we’re looking at something that’s at least 50 per cent more than usual, maybe as much as double the usual type of repair work that we’re doing. We’re just continuing to evaluate it right now as to where we are, and what our options are. We may be looking at doing a little bit larger repair work than just patching, because in some places we’re patching on top of patching.”
The impact of the additional road repair work on the City’s capital budget will still have to be reviewed, and it might be necessary to transfer some funds from other budget items. Minken said construction crews are able to continue with work while adhering to physical distancing measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection.
“Some of the changes that have come in the guidelines has helped us out quite a bit,” he mentioned. “So these days the normal routine is a daily check-in, like a lot of places, to see if you have any symptoms and if you’re symptom free then that allows for a little more close proximity work if you have to. I mean, it’s always recommended to maintain that physical distance, but it allows to work a little closer. So that’s made it a lot simpler.”
Rehabilitation of water treatment plant roof: Councillors approved the agreement for the rehabilitation of a section of the water treatment plant roof during the May 19 council meeting.
The water treatment plant was built in 1936 and there have been several additions to the original building.
“The section of the roofs that need repair is flat tar and gravel style, on one of the oldest sections of the water treatment plant building,” Minken said. “These have had numerous patches applied over the years and need to be replaced rather than patched.”
Four roofing companies submitted bids for the work, but two were unable to provide a quote for the complete tear down and replacement of the roof section. Only two bids for this project were therefore considered. Council approved the lowest bid of $108,650 (PST included, GST excluded) from Southland Roofing Inc. of Regina. This bid is less than the amount of $125,000 originally included in the 2020 capital budget for this project.