The city is set to borrow up to $40 million to help pay for the new Wastewater Treatment Facility.
In Monday’s city council meeting, a borrowing bylaw was approved allowing Lloydminster to ask for grant funding that will go towards the $80 million facility. City Councillor Jonathan Torresan says the bylaw allows for 30 years to pay back the loan at an interest rate of 10 per cent, however, that is not necessarily what the city will be asking for.
“When you actually create the bylaw best practice is to ask for the maximum of what you need at the maximum term and then when it comes time to make a loan application after the bylaw is put through it will generally speaking be different than what you applied for.”
Currently, the city has $9 million in grant funding, which is $3 million from the federal government, $3 million from municipal affairs and $3 million from the city. Mayor Gerald Aalbers says they are in the process of applying for more funding.
“We have a grant application to the Government of Saskatchewan, which is also matching from the Government of Canada that application is in and being worked on provincially. I believe it’s gone on to the federal government for their match. From the Government of Alberta, we’re waiting for clarification on grant funding there, which we hope will be matched by the federal government as well.”
December 15 is the earliest borrowing date for the $40 million. Aalbers says the city wants to get the ball rolling on the process because the project itself takes 24 months to complete and they don’t want to miss another construction season.