Second Crew Making Progress But At A Slowing Rate

A second utility repair crew - paid for through savings realized by the City taking engineering design services in-house - tasked with catching up on outstanding jobs made progress in 2022 but at a slowing rate due to system failures.

Speaking during the second special meeting dealing with the 2023 Budget director of public works and utilities Darrin Stephanson said the crew is making progress

“In 2021 we realized a backlog reduction of 54 jobs that took us from 163 to 109 outstanding repairs by the end of the year. (In) 2022 we are looking to see a smaller reduction approximately 20 jobs off that backlog list to an estimated 90 repairs. We are currently sitting at 92 as of today,” Stephanson said.

One of the many repairs made to service connections, this one was a leaking water valve - MJ Independent file photo

When approved in October 2019 the 12 person crew would see six previously laid off workers moved to full year employment plus an additional six workers hired. At the time of its formation the repair backlog was 137 and growing.

“We have increased the number of repairs year over year so work output has increased however our backlog has not shrunk in effect due to an increasing number of failures we realized in 2022 broadly in our infrastructure,” he said.

The backlog of service connections for homeowners has been reduced by over 60 percent, Council was told.

Stephanson did not state the number of homeowners at the present time waiting for the City to replace their service connections.

“We have really good traction on that front so far,” he said about the residential service connection backlog.