Portage la Prairie city council has approved an increase in spending for the ongoing work at the Portage la Prairie fire hall. When they first awarded the tender for the work, they allocated $875,000 from the general reserve and $125,000 from the fire reserve for a total of $1 million. At last night's meeting a public hearing was held to discuss increasing the general reserve allocation by $360,000 for a total of $1,235,000 out of that fund, equating to a total project cost of $1,354,400.

While some questions were raised during the public hearing, Finance Chair Brent Budz emphasized the importance of the increase, noting the scope of the project has grown to address the fire hall as a whole.

"I think when this first item came up for budget deliberations, actually it's been discussed for a number of years as Chief Phil Carpenter has been requesting the expansion of the fire hall to accommodate a training area, and the accommodation of a ladder truck. It's not a surprise that we did see costs escalate. Some of the items that were identified were an expansion of the original ideas and things that needed to be addressed that weren't outlined in our first budget considerations."

Budz says council's comfortable paying more for the work, noting it's best to ensure all the work is done at once, rather than in a piecemeal fashion.

"We're comfortable with where we're at. Yes, it is over budget but we're not in a situation where we feel we're not getting value for the dollars we're spending. We're actually doing more over at the fire hall, which will set us up for a good position in the future.

The heating, ventilation and air conditioning, as well as the cost of the engineering are all cited as reasons for the increased cost.