The culvert replacement at Battleford Road ended up costing the City of North Battleford much more than expected.
Work was approved in August to replace the rapidly-failing culverts underneath Battleford Road at the railway tracks.
Initially, it was the city manager who had authority to approve the tender up to a value of $150,000 under the city’s Purchasing Policy, with CIMA Canada Inc. sole-sourced as prime contractor.
Unfortunately, it “came out as a significantly more expensive project than anticipated,” said City Manager Randy Patrick. The final cost came to $251,006, or $101,006 above what was initially allocated.
The issue, Patrick said, was that the project “wasn’t tendered out the way it should have been because of the rush.”
Patrick said the way they would have liked it done is for it to have it come back to council with an explanation that ‘this is way over budget, and you need to know about it.’
“But because it had to be done in a week, that was not done. And I apologize to council, that should not happen, and we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen in the future.”
Because the project had gone over the initial $150,000, administration had to get council’s approval of the payment to CIMA Canada Inc. to complete the project at $251,006 (GST not included), as well as to reallocate additional money to cover the overage of $101,006. That resolution carried at council Monday.
