The agenda for Weyburn City Council Monday night included a number of RFPs and tenders for various projects included in the 2024 budget. While most of these were quickly covered, with the proposals either coming under or just at the budgeted amounts, one project sparked discussions about whether to go with a reduced scope as recommended by the administration or to go with the fully quoted project. 

The RFP in question was for concrete replacement projects for the year. The budget for 2024 includes $247,000 for the projects. This was divided up into $75,000 for pedestrian ramps and sidewalk repairs, $150,000 for sidewalk replacement as well as curb and gutter installation, and another $22,000 for sidewalk repairs in front of city facilities buildings. 

Administration selected the bid for the project from FH Concrete Supplies & Services. To cover all of the proposed work for the year, which would include 738 square meters of sidewalk panel repairs and replacement as well as 700 meters of curb and gutter installation, and 110 square meters of accessible concrete pedestrian ramps along primary routes, the cost would be $304,676. However, the recommendation before council would see 400 square meters of sidewalk panel replacement taken off the list for the year, and this brought the project to $247,000, the budgeted amount. 

Before the motion was put to a vote, discussions started about whether there was any wiggle room to have the project go ahead at the full cost, with the possibility of the overages covered either by an internal loan or from reserves. This idea was originally floated by Councillor Jeff Richards.

"Normally, going over budget is something that doesn't sit well with me at all," Richards said after the meeting. "But, you know, this was a $300,000 project that we, to get into budget, we cut $57,000 out, but we cut the volume of sidewalks by more than half."

For Richards, the increase of $57,000 to get more than double the amount of sidewalks done made sense. 

Councillor Mel Van Betuw was hesitant to go ahead with the full project, noting the work had been done to get a budget put into place, and that they should do whatever they could to remain under the budget. 

The councillors were divided on the issue at first, with John Corrigan and Mayor Marcel Roy agreeing with Van Betuw, and Councillors Ryan Janke and Laura Morrissette willing to go ahead with the project, with the confidence the extra money could be found without the city being put into a situation where they were in a deficit. Councillor Larry Heggs was unsure, wanting to know where the money would come from before he would say yes. 

"In governmental things, we try to keep an order of things, and not veer off processes, so that we're not kind of just going off all the time," said Mayor Marcel Roy on why he initially voted against including the amendment to the initial motion that would see the project go ahead at the $304,060. "We like to build fairly stable plans, and that's just the only reason. Not that we don't need more sidewalks done. We could do huge amounts, but there's only so much budget, so we're trying to restrain and try to keep everything under budget because there's always things that come up that we may need more money for along the way."

"I'm totally in favour of investing in our infrastructure," said Corrigan. "I mean, I think it's a very important thing to do because we are in, as Councillor Janke had mentioned, an infrastructure deficit. But with that said, we still have to be fiscally responsible too. Some may say, $57,000, you know, in considering our entire budget, isn't a heck of a lot of money, but it's the principle of it, and we set a budget, we should follow it."

Further discussions among the councillors, though, started to sway some of the reasons why the work should be done, including the state of some of the sidewalks that are expected to be replaced this year, as well as the possibility of saving some money in the long run by pushing the extra 400 square meters of sidewalk replacement to next year's budget."

"I'm not an expert in the concrete business, but I'm certain the prices aren't going down, so we might as well do it now while we have crews working," Richards added. 

When the final amended motion was put to the vote, however, the councillors all voted in favour of the project going ahead at the $304,060 price tag. 

"I decided to vote in favour of the amended motion, and support the additional funding into the infrastructure, with the confidence that I believe our departments will find that money within the existing budget, and that it won't have to be taken out of reserves, or an internal loan at some point in time in the future," Corrigan said.