CBS council reallocates savings from previous public works
By Craig Westcott
With so many projects coming in under the budget prior to Covid, CBS council found itself in the enviable position earlier this month of reallocating the savings from those years to other public works projects.
The first batch of extra funding came from work on a Monument Road lift station, the watermain on Daniels Road in Seal Cove, and Phase 3 of the Seal Cove water and sewer installation. All three projects were partially funded through federal gas tax allocations. The Topsail project was budgeted at $250,000 but actually cost $206, 980, while the Daniels Road work was budgeted at $1.008 million, but cost $861,458. The Town saved some $285,241 on the water and sewer installations in Seal Cove, which were budgeted at $2,697,702.
“These funds will be reallocated to ongoing capital projects,” said then Deputy Mayor Andrea Gosse during the previous council’s last meeting of the term ahead of the October 2 election.
Gosse didn’t specify which projects will get the money.
“This is a bit of housecleaning from projects that were done in 2017 and 2018, and the reports I believe are necessary for the federal government to close out those projects,” said Mayor Darrin Bent.
The next batch of savings came from more recent funding, in this case, street upgrades covered by a Multi-Year Capital Works Funding Agreement for the years 2020 – 2023 that were cost-shared by the Town and the Province.
Following the completion of that work, The Town found itself with some $239,531 in unspent provincial government money. It is asking the Province for permission to reallocate the money to the current Multi-Year Capital Works agreement to be used to cover any cost overruns on current projects.
“We’re going to spend it on this year’s roads that we’re doing now,” Bent said. “So it’s good, we had all three of them come in under budget and this one here is coming in under budget, and that’s a good sign when it comes to the tendering process for us here, for sure.”