The flood of 2014 is still having an impact on the Municipality of West-Interlake, as they work on the 2016 budget. Reeve Randy Helgason says unpaid Disaster Financial Assistance Claims related to that flood mean they need to be careful when choosing with projects to pursue in the municipality. West-Interlake recently had their deadline for claims extended to later this year as they work through these issues, which Helgason says date back to before amalgamation.

"At the outset in spring of 2014, we met with Premier (Greg) Selinger, the Councils of Grahamdale and Siglunes at at point. He indicated we do whatever it took to protect our people and property within the RMs. That's what we tried to do, and now we're having some issues with certain things we're not allowing, or have to resubmit. Some of them we've resubmitted, I'm going to say, three times."

Helgason says the situation has improved slightly since Christmas, but they're still working to receive that funding. He notes one stumbling block is an important project that was completed near Ashern.

"There's one boundary line drain that's been constructed east of Ashern. It protects the village, but also the people in the area east of Ashern, and west from Ashern to Lake Manitoba. It makes a huge issue with overland flooding there. Without saying too much, that's probably our biggest stumbling block right now."

Helgason says Council has a committee in place to address the DFA situation, and they're working to show the province the drain's importance to the region. He says when it comes to their budget, the unpaid claims are creating a challenge. Helgason says they'll need to recover between 80 and 90 per cent of the costs associated with the work during the 2014 flood, in order to finally begin to move forward.