The Municipality of West-Interlake's shifting gears, when it comes to their multi-year battle for disaster financial assistance claims. The municipality's Ward 2 (former RM of Siglunes) received significant damage during the floods of 2011 and 2014. Reeve Randy Helgason says during the flood years, the former provincial government advised the Siglunes Council to move forward with all work necessary to protect people and property, and they'd be able to recover those costs through DFA. However, it's been more than two years since the flood of 2014, and West-Interlake continues to seek compensation.

At this week's meeting Council voted to pass off their DFA files to another firm, in hopes of seeing fewer denied applications and more results. Helgason says they'll be taking the current applications and revising them, to help receive the funding that's yet to be paid back to the municipality.

"They have a lot of experience in it. One of the gentlemen used to work for the province in the DFA department. I think they're going to put it together in a manner that the province is more receptive to refunding out costs from the flood."

The municipality still has about $3 million in claims related to work conducted during the flood of 2014. While most municipalities managed to wrap up their flood projects late last year, the ongoing challenges in seeking the funding resulted in West-Interlake seeking an extension to the deadline, which is now set for November 2016. Helgason hopes they're able to move on to the next chapter, and feels the introduction of the new group may help move things along.

"I'm hopeful. I'm really hopeful that we can. He's already coming out tomorrow morning to meet with us. He's ready to get on his horse and go."

He says the new firm won't have to start from square one, as they'll have all the documentation and previous applications available to them.