Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 19/02) - Councillor Dave Ramsay said the city's audit committee will be drafting a report to examine why the new twin-pad arena, still under construction, went $2 million over budget.

"It was just the magnitude of the cost overruns," said Ramsay at last Tuesday's corporate services committee meeting, which oversees the audit committee.

"Hopefully, we can get some insight on how the other half (Phase II) can be completed."

Ramsay is chair of the corporate services committee.

The plan calls for the hiring of an independent expert to review the budgeting process for the arena.

The committee will look at such factors as the start time for construction and how it affected costs, reasons for design changes, the process for selecting the construction manager, and how and why actual costs varied from the budget.

The audit committee will also make recommendations for the next phase of arena construction.

Unlike the arena construction, administration said the cost of the report will be relatively inexpensive to conduct -- about $5,000.

Council announced last May that Phase I of the $13 million arena had gone $2 million over budget.

They were consequently forced into an embarrassing situation of having to go to ratepayers in the form of a plebiscite vote scheduled for Sept. 10, asking if they can borrow more money to complete the project.

"This shouldn't be construed in any way as a witch hunt," said Coun. Dave McCann.

"But a 20 per cent overrun is a concern."