LAC LA BICHE - Halting flood waters, insulating against a global pandemic and lending helping hands to neighbouring communities has added a new line to the Lac La Biche County's financial budget for 2020.
At least three separate incidents over the last two months have forced municipal officials to add more than a million-and-a-half dollars to the current budget year's expenses. Municipal authorities hope to claim back the majority of the costs through the Alberta government's Disaster Recovery Program.
In documents released last week, County officials say the lion's share of the costs come from repair to community roads damaged during the overland flooding that forced a State of Local Emergency to be issued on June 7. Repairs to at least a dozen municipal roads damaged by floodwater washouts and culvert damage could reach as high as $1.1 million.
"These are estimates, actual costs of repair will vary depending on the scope of work identified during repair," notes the county document that tallies flood-associated costs to June 17.
Payroll costs during the flooding emergency was put at $161,000 and direct costs associated with the emergency operations of the municipality's Incident Command Post (ICP) are approximately $334,000. The ICP costs include the rental of pump equipment, hauling sewage or water between lift stations, hotel costs for residents forced to evacuate their homes and food costs for evacuees and employees working at the ICP.
Along with the flood-related expenditures, Lac La Biche County councillors have also agreed to include overtime pay for municipal staff and management working on COVID-19 protocols, and assisting with the mid-spring flooding in Fort McMurray.
The breakdown of those payroll costs include more than $57,000 paid out to 11 department managers for a combined 486 hours of time-and-a-half overtime, as well as 1756 hours of non-management overtime totalling $94,000.
According to the municipality's employee guidelines, managers are not eligible to claim overtime pay — but a provision was made identify the back-to-back-to-back disasters as an "extra-ordinary event" to justify the payment.
The discussion on overtime had one county council member doing some quick math when it came to compensation for the municipality's managers.
"Doing some quick math — that gives a rough hourly pay to $78 per hour. Is that right?" Councillor Lorin Tkachuk asked municipal administrators during last Tuesday's council meeting.
Assistant CAO Dan Small said the math is pretty close — including some marginal benefits including in the calculations. Small said the actual costs for overtime pay may ring in a little higher as final tallies will include additional work that carried on beyond the June 16 deadline for the first round of expenses.
"From June 16 up to the end of June, I'm going to guess about another ten or $20,000," he said, emphasizing that the province's Disaster Recovery Program will compensate for the expenses.
Councillor Collin Cote says the funding for all expenses — as long as it can be reimbursed — was worth it for the work that was done to protect the residents, the infrastructure and the environment of the municipality.
"If it's all been documented, management and staff really stepped up and I think they should be rewarded — especially if there's a good chance of a refund," Cote said.
