By Cheryl Jahn

Major Projects behind schedule

Nov 1, 2023 | 2:49 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – As of the end of July of this year, a number of major projects – those in the millions of dollars – were behind schedule. That would include projects like the demolition of the former Four Seasons Leisure pool and the construction of the new pool. Those are just a pair of projects that were in that category, and the number is unusually high, and there are reasons for that.

“So a lot of what you’re seeing. All these projects, they’re on-budget, but they’re behind schedule for a number of reasons,” explains Tiina Schaeffer, Manager of Capital Program Management. “Some of the reasons are the continuing supply chain issues. It’s also associated to labour or there are project dependencies of projects that need to happen prior to another project happening where there was a delay on the previous one. Therefore, there is a delay on the next one.”

The other issue, as usual, is labor shortages in various different trades.

“The labor shortages are not only we’re experiencing it internally, it’s also externally. We’ve had the Northern Regional Construction Association, along with the B.C. Construction Association, present to Council on this same issue. It’s the same issue we were experiencing over previous years, especially coming out and whether or not you can argue who is coming out of COVID, but coming out of that, we started to continue to see that.”

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So it begs the question of Mayor and Council, would they prefer to be late and on budget or over budget and on time?

“Some project we we can delay a little bit, but some of the projects we talk about a critical maintenance in in the in a critical path of another project that we we have to get it done,” says Mayor Simon Yu.

“So we need to put our thinking hats on.” The City just wrapped up three days of public engagement on the pending budget discussions and a review of the official community plan is underway and this is the time to be fiscally careful. I think overall we need to be really careful. Hold the levy down. It is tough out there. The grocery bills. Everything. We don’t have this extra spare cash to pay more levy.”

Mayor Yu says when the capital budget comes forward in the New Year, Council will have to be extra vigilant.

by Cheryl Jahn

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