By Juliet Kadzviti

City spends big on new road equipment

Apr 26, 2016 | 6:49 AM

Prince Albert will soon have new road equipment, but more than one councillor objected to the over half-million dollars approved for procurement at the regular council meeting, Monday.

Purchases include a new sanitation truck for over $350,000 plus taxes, a wheel loader for roughly $186,000 plus taxes, and a used compact grader for just over $63,000 purchased with money from the 2015 budget surplus.

Used for gravel road maintenance and snow removal in back lanes, a second-hand compact grader was the only item not in the current budget. This made the purchase a bone of contention for councillors at the meeting.

Coun. Lee Atkinson said it was “remarkable” that funds left over from 2015 seemed to be sitting around in various city departments for use.

“There’s all this extra money lying around in various departments, perhaps we didn’t need a tax increase as high as we did because there seems to be a lot of money floating around,” he said.

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Coun. Don Cody said the extra funds should be saved instead, calling money spent on equipment in the city “astronomical.”

Coun. Martin Ring said getting new equipment was necessary to meet the needs of residents in the city. He added people have expectations of services, including regrading back lanes.

Mayor Greg Dionne told city staff the purchase of a compact grader should have simply been mentioned at budget time.

“This is a budget item, this is not an after budget discussion and that’s the point I’m trying to make. Four and a half months ago we should have been having this discussion, now we’re using surplus funds…it should have been in the budget.”

jkadzviti@panow.com

Twitter: @julietkadzviti