The total City of Kimberley budget for 2015 is $27,544,877, with $3.9 million of that being other grant money, and $9,367,675 from property taxes.
There is $6,117,779 ear-marked for General Fund capital projects in the budget for 2015, including $3,029,509 for the Mark Creek Flume project. However, the flume going ahead this year is still not written in stone.
At last week’s Mayor’s Lunch, Don McCormick told those present that tenders were out and going ahead with Phase II of the flume was dependent upon those tenders.
“If the tenders match our budget, we go ahead,” the Mayor said.
McCormick said the overall plan hasn’t changed but the expert hired to create the design have gone back over the project based on the budget.
“They’ve done a complete review to make sure it’s as cost effective as possible,” he said. “But if the tenders come in over budget, we’re not going to do it. We’ll send the grant money back. We’re not going ahead with something over budget just because we have the grant money.
“Having said that, we need to finish the project. But it can’t be at any cost.”
McCormick also promised that a post-mortem on the first phase of the project was coming.
“Stay tuned for that,” he said. “It will tell us what we learned on why it got so out of hand.”
“With Phase II we waited for the grant money,” said City CAO Scott Sommerville. “I think that was the problem with Phase I.”
“We can’t change what happened with Phase I but we can publish what we’ve found,” McCormick said. “At the end of the day, the flume is a great project and as a community we are proud of it.”