M.D. of Taber working on shop plans

Municipal District of Taber council has awarded MP Engineering an $18,000 contract to examine the M.D.’s current shop facilities and to undertake a preliminary design/cost estimate for a new shop.

“We have some structures that were built in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and a lot of things have changed since then. Equipment has got a lot larger and we’ve certainly involved ourselves in certain maintenance activities that we haven’t done in the past,” said Derrick Krizsan, municipal administrator with the M.D of Taber. “It’s included major equipment repairs. We have two shop facilities that are just not large enough for our needs right now.”

In its new shop schematics, it is looking to include a small administrative office component with public works and ag service board together in one facility along with shop maintenance facilities within one structure.

“The objective is to come up with something where our departments heads in planning infrastructure and our ag service board and other staff going out and looking at three or four facilities. They are talking with other municipalities who have recently built similar structure like 40 Mile, Willow Creek and a few others to see what they have done and determining what the structure looks like, what the pitfalls are and working with MP evaluating our current structures and if these structures can last another 50 years and we find ways to utilize the existing structure for some purpose all the better,” said Krizsan. “We will then examine what the need is for what type of structure we are going to require. The hope is to come back to council in February or March with a preliminary design and council will review the availability of grant funding. They will then make the determination if we proceed with or without grant funding at that time.”

One advantage Krizsan noted to the potential project is the M.D. is fully funding its own amortization with the depreciation of all its capital assets.

“We have been putting money away annually to replace our depreciable assets like our motorized equipment, our bridge structures and our buildings,” said Krizsan. “The downside is of course, our amortization goes into historical costs. We built those buildings in the 50s and 60s where the historical cost probably went in at $50,000 or $60,000 or $70,000. Now to build just one of those structures, is probably in the million-dollar range. We’re hoping with our objective that when it comes back, we build something that is needed now, but allows for possibility of changes of equipment in the future. We used to run single axle gravel trucks with single-axle trailers behind them and now we are running tandem trucks with triple-axle trailers. We have to think ahead where we build things that will last long term.”