City poised to borrow another $10 million

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This article was published 20/08/2025 (218 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon City Council is planning to borrow another $10 million for the southwest wastewater project — bringing the total borrowing up to $40 million.

At a public hearing Monday evening, director of finance Troy Tripp said the city needs to borrow the additional funds due to costs becoming more expensive than initially anticipated.

Tripp said approving the new borrowing will allow the city to start getting contracts tendered right away, instead of waiting on potential grant funding.

He noted construction costs have risen across the board.

“It’s definitely something that we’ve been seeing more of even within our own projects, that estimates are falling short or actual awards and tenders are coming in over what previous estimates were,” Tripp said when asked about the situation by Coun. Shaun Cameron (Ward 4).

He said large projects that have been in the works for years, like this one, are more susceptible to cost increases, especially in the later stages.

“Obviously we try and update our estimates each year throughout the budgeting process to reflect the inflationary impacts and other economic drivers,” he said. “But there’s also been things this calendar year that maybe weren’t necessarily anticipated in terms of the world economy.”

Aside from the question from Cameron, no questions were raised by the roughly 15 people who were in and out of the gallery during the meeting. That contrasts with the public hearing in February 2023 when the first $30 million was initially proposed to be borrowed.

Then, the city made an amendment to only borrow $18 million, with the option of borrowing the other $12 million at a later time, which council did, Tripp said in his presentation. At the time, council voted 6-5 in favour of the amendment after lengthy debate, the Sun reported. Council then voted 10-1 to approve the borrowing of the $18 million later that evening.

Council didn’t debate the matter on Monday, with councillors set to come back for second and third reading at a future meeting, which is when approval could take place.

Tripp said Phase 1 of the project has included construction of the 34th Street lift station, sewer and forcemain work, south end lift station upgrades and fibre optics installation. In total, $24,035,000 has been committed to the phase.

That leaves only $5,965,000 for Phase 2 work, which includes construction on the 18th Street lift station and 18th Street forcemain, and more sewer work.

The estimated cost is $15 million to $17 million, leaving about a $10 million shortfall — the amount being borrowed.

The city has applied for funding through the Canadian Housing and Infrastructure Fund (CHIF) for Phase 2, which could cover up to $7.2 million.

“Should that become a reality, that would close that funding gap up to just a little over three and a half million dollars,” Tripp said.

The potential $40-million total would be repaid over a 20-year term at 7.5 per cent interest, so that the city would pay $3,923,688 per year over that time.

Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said even without knowing if grants are coming, the city needs to get moving on the project.

“Reality is we need to get this project started,” Fawcett said. “We don’t want to delay another season. I think our contractors and I think our residents would like to see those commercial developments in there.”

He said the city is also in talks with the province about additional help with funding.

“We’re not waiting until we get final approval of CHIF funding, but we’ll move ahead so we can get this project started.”

If council does approve the borrowing of the extra $10 million, it would bring the city’s total debt up to $173,394,795.

» alambert@brandonsun.com