NORTH BATTLEFORD — In this case, the costs really are through the roof.
At the North Battleford city council meeting Tuesday, councillors got the bad news that the four bids for the Access Communications Centre roof replacement have come back over budget.
Clark Roofing (1964) Ltd. of Saskatoon came in the lowest with a bid of $124,372.98 once taxes are included. That was lower than the other three bidders by roughly $25,000.
When costs for the consultant RMIS Engineering are added, the total cost was $136,257.70, which is over budget by $66,257.70.
This is just the latest in a long line of projects that have been coming in over budget, due to inflation and supply chain issues that have impacted projects over the last couple of years.
“It’s a tough year for sure, and this inflation is really biting now,” said Mayor David Gillan.
“It’s really coming home to roost, because obviously we have to delay, defer, cancel projects now, to do some projects, so it’s definitely challenging times we are in right now.”
The roof replacement project was originally budgeted at $70,000. It would cover the roofing over the kitchen and concession area which is seeing active leaks.
Fleet and Maintenance Manager Seton Winterholt noted even the consultant had acknowledged that what they had projected for costs was substantially lower than what the costs are looking at. Part of the issue was that the firms are not able to place bids until they are able to secure material.
“With materials being scarce and shipping being very sporadic, it’s impacting pricing in just about every sector.”
He later told Gillan that roofing was one of the industries hardest hit by the supply chain issues, with a lot of the product being commodity based.
The situation with the roof was described as “critical,” however. If they did not move forward with the project North West Hockey Development may not be able to operate the concession next season. The completion date for this project is by Oct. 31 of this year.
The finance department has identified available funds from the gas tax allocation, and that will cover the shortfall.
Council members expressed concerns about the rising costs of projects. Councillor Kent Lindgren also noted the impact of the PST, saying as costs for projects rise, so does the PST.
“I don’t remember the last project that’s came to us that was under budget,” he said, adding “we are contributing more and paying more than we are getting back in municipal revenue-sharing, especially these last few years.”
The indication from Director of Finance Brent Nadon is that they were watching the costs situation closely. Every time they find one that goes up, said Nadon, they either eliminate something or look at delaying something.
For this project, Nadon told council they already had over $2 million in gas tax money for the Sobeys intersection project. With the recent agreement with the province for that project, they will not need as much gas tax funding for that as anticipated. The result is there is no impact on the 2022 budget for the roof project.
In the end, council did vote in favour of awarding the roof replacement to Clark Roofing for $124,372.98, with the budget overages to be covered by available gas tax funds.
