City Looks At Multi-Year Capital Budgets

Saint John’s finance committee has taken a look at the city’s first two-year capital budget.

The proposed $42-million budget focuses heavily on upgrading existing assets to reduce the city’s infrastructure deficit.

Coun. David Merrithew, who chairs the committee, said they look at assets with a letter grade of “F” first.

“A letter grade of ‘F’ would represent something that needs to be replaced immediately,” said Merrithew. “It’s past its useful life and must be replaced immediately.”

Merrithew said staff also look at projects which make great economic sense, such as the Fundy Quay upgrades.

Saint John’s current infrastructure deficit sits at nearly $435 million.

Merrithew said it is hard to take a long-term look at something when you are planning year-to-year.

“We know we’ve got infrastructure deficits, we know they’re out there, we know that some of them are going to take more than one year to fix,” Merrithew said. “Why should we have a one-year plan? We should have a multi-year plan.”

Staff say the multi-year budget lays the foundation for the 10-year capital budget which they will bring to the committee later this year.

The two-year budget includes $8.9 million in sewer separation projects, new roofs at three of the city’s fire stations, and replacing part of the roof at the City Market. Only $1 million has been set aside for new infrastructure projects.

“You shouldn’t go out and buy new cars when you can’t fix the one you have,” Merrithew said. “If the one we have needs to be fixing and that’s the right route, then we fix it first.”