Prince George City Council is looking for answers after it was discovered the George Street Parkade is now $9.8-million over budget.
A motion, proposed by Councillor Brian Skakun, was put forward to take a closer look at project costs at tonight’s (Monday) meeting.
City staff will come back to Council with a full breakdown on labour costs, a detailed timeline of events leading up to the report, rules around delegation of authority, and any additional costs.
“I was surprised reading this report, to find out that in July of 2018 the city knew the parkade was going to cost 20 million dollars. I was absolutely flabbergasted,” said Councillor Cori Ramsay during the meeting.
“There was a glaringly obvious elephant in the room. We had a transparency problem. We had a communication problem. I feel the information provided in our reporting was misleading. That’s an understatement.”
The parkade, originally predicted to cost just $12.6-million, is a part of the Park House Condo Development.
Design changes, unexpected dewatering, American steel tariffs and other expenses have raised the parkade project cost to $22.5-million.
“This sucks, that’s the word that comes to mind right away. Frankly, it really ticks me off to see a massive overrun on this project,” exclaimed Councillor Kyle Sampson.
“There is nothing we can do to say, well, we don’t want to pay the $22.5-million bill. Yes, I’m pissed, and yes I wish we could not but there’s nothing we can do to take it back. We need to take the steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
In March of 2018, almost a full year after administration was notified of the new cost, Council was asked to approve the project – still only listed at $12.6-million.
In September of 2019, the project increased again to $22.5-million.
Then in November of 2019, Finance and Audit received a project update showing the parkade was within the budget of $16-million.
This was not recorded as an error, as the previous rules around delegated authority allowed the city manager to approve cumulative budget amendments in a year of up to five per cent of the total operating budget.
“Just because something falls within your authority doesn’t mean we can’t have a conversation about it. No one person should be approving 7.5-million dollars. That is absurd!” said Ramsay.
“The person I would really like to question doesn’t work for the city anymore. I think we are taking the proper steps to move forward.”
Council recently voted to scale back the spending power of the City Manager in November, after the Parkade was brought to the attention of Council in August.
Former City Manager Kathleen Soltis also parted ways with the City in September.
“We have been kept in the dark on so much of this,” said Councillor Skakun.
“When we are kept in the dark, the public is kept in the dark and we find out the same thing at the same time the public does. How the hell are we supposed to do our job of oversight if we cannot get correct and timely information?”
The parkade is not the only project raising eyebrows at City Hall; the fire hall #1 replacement is currently $2-million over cost.
In the end, the motion for a full breakdown of events was carried unanimously and will be discussed at a future meeting.
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