The Municipality of West-Interlake is thrilled with the work of their new MLA. Derek Johnson's been working with the municipality to help them recover funding associated with the flood of 2014. Reeve Randy Helgason says Johnson, who's a former St. Laurent councillor, is well aware of the Disaster Financial Assistance process given his experience during the 2011 flood.

"He's been kind of working on that on our behalf. With the DFA situation we're in, things are progressing better than they had before. Things are finally starting to fall into place."

West-Interlake's Council also made a significant change in their approach to recovering those funds last month. They had decided to move forward with the process with another firm, after becoming dissatisfied with the work of the former firm looking after that file. The recent changes, along with the assistance of Johnson, has Helgason confident they'll be able to see some progress.

"I'm hoping early in the new year we can get everything straightened out. For 2011, we just received $1.5 million, so five years for a municipality with a budget less than that, it's pretty hard to carry on your day-to-day operations."

The municipality is still owed about $3 million through Disaster Financial Assistance. Helgason says the new firm working on those claims has no shortage of experience on the process, and will be utilizing the information compiled by the former party looking after those claims.