BY LAURIE WEIR

It wasn’t an expenditure they were looking at this year, but due to deterioration, the water treatment plant in Perth will get a new roof at a cost of $292,500.

During the town’s committee of the whole meeting on Jan. 16, it was recommended that the town approve an increase this amount to the Capital Expenditure Budget to fund the repair of the plant’s roof, and siding.

Brian Burns, the town’s treasurer and director of corporate services explained that the repairs were scheduled under the asset management plan for 2025.

“We missed it by a year,” he said. “But we’ve been having leaks, and we did have a study done to see what the problem was. They’re recommending that we mitigate it sooner rather than later. The potential for the impact on the water plant insulation is high so that’s why we’re proposing moving this into the current year.”

Burns said it would affect the reserves in the current year, but it won’t affect the reserve over a two-year period, “because it was scheduled to be in 2025 anyway.”

Coun. David Bird, who chaired the meeting, asked if that figure was driven out of what has been experienced for the cost of materials and the construction price index, or “is the actual thing worse off than we thought it was?”

Cathy McNally, director of community services, said this was through the asset management plan estimation in terms of what it would cost. They had a roofing consultant look at the three different types of roofs for the building and this was the overall assessment in terms of current standards.

This will come to a future council meeting for final approval.