Derek Neary
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 14/98) - Fort Simpson's sewage treatment plant is in need of an $1.6 million upgrade but there is no money to do it. For that matter, there might not be enough funding to complete projects already under way.

Representatives from the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs met with village council last Monday evening to discuss finances, or a lack thereof. The discussion was not always friendly.

"Every time we sign a deal (with MACA)... it puts us more in debt," Fort Simpson councillor Owen Rowe said afterwards.

"The fact of the matter is the government has signed every year that it's all right for us to carry a debt. Now they are basically red-flagging us when about 15 years ago they should have red-flagged us... We're not lawyers down there. We need MACA to be our liaison and they have just done a terrible job."

The village entered into a three-year block funding agreement with MACA in 1996. The goal was to eliminate Fort Simpson's $713,000 deficit. Instead, that deficit has risen. It stood at $869,000 by the end of 1997. That translates into charges of close to $5,000 per month in overdraft interest alone, according to Don MacDonald, of MACA.

"I think MACA's philosophy on block funding is that there is an increased flexibility and responsibility at the community level," MacDonald contended. "It allows the decisions to be closer to the people who are affected."

Rowe said Fort Simpson has been in debt ever since it formally became a village. He added that he's considered proposing a return to hamlet status.

The village has already started replacing sewer mains along 100th Street. That work is supposed to carry on along Antoine Drive. Then all streets in the village are due to be paved. From what council was told by MACA, that project could take three times as long as the originally projected three years, depending on the route council now decides to take.

MACA, represented by MacDonald, the senior advisor of community monitoring, and regional manager Liza McPherson, has made it clear that there is no longer new GNWT money available, even under the government's new public-private partnership initiative.

"Our budget has gone down... they (the village) are a little vulnerable right now with their existing financial position. I think it's very important that they don't over-extend themselves any more," MacDonald said, acknowledging that each of the projects necessary but it's a matter of spreading them out over time. "All of these investments will essentially pay for themselves... but the community just has to determine its priorities amongst those three projects. That's really the key here."

However, it was noted that MACA has developed some financing options for the sewage treatment plant. One example is generating revenue by imposing a local improvement levy for the work on 100 Street.

"The real tough decision is that the community may have to pay some of those repairs over a number of years just to make them affordable," said MacDonald. "That's the decision council will have to make."

In addition, denial of extraordinary funding to complete work on the arena could mean that the facility might not open this year, according to Rowe.

"The only people that are suffering are the taxpayers of Fort Simpson, and the non-taxpayers too, because now we can't provide services -- we can't afford them."