Lloydminster City Council has approved an additional 1.7 million dollars for the completion of Fire station number one.
Mayor Gerald Aalbers says the extra funding has become necessary as material shortages continue to impact construction in the wake of the COVID pandemic.
“COVID has had drastic effects that no one thought about that the supply chain would all of a sudden be tightened up. So we’re seeing that affect us.”
The breakdown shows that $1,295,000 will come from the Canada Community-Building Fund, $400,000 from the 2021 Capital Budget and a five per cent contingency allowance of $432,000, excluding GST. That moves the final figure to $10,194,506.18.
Aalbers noted that stimulus money provided by the Federal government and provincially has been made available and communities and municipalities are building facilities.
“I would rather be upfront with the taxpayers and say this is what is going on. As it was indicated, this is not going to cost the taxpayers more money. We have found grant money that we can use, which I wish we could put it to another project, but this project needs to be completed.”
The Mayor emphasized that the new firehall is one of those projects that isn’t a want, but a need.
On the issue of local contractors, Aalbers added that a forthcoming report on the project will also show that local sub-trades were involved as much as possible, based on the award of their bids.