Adjustments were made to Nipawin council’s remuneration and travel compensation policies.
The new remuneration policy, passed at the Oct. 10 council meeting, establishes guidelines as to which meetings councillors attend that qualifies for compensation.
“They’ve spent some time establishing some guidelines, some parameters for when council members miss meetings, so that language has been updated,” said Barry Elliott, the town’s administrator. “The language indicates if they miss more than three meetings per calendar year, then there will likely be a reduction in their stipend that they receive.”
That doesn’t apply if they have a good reason to miss the meeting, like something health related.
As for travel, council chose to adopt the Saskatchewan Public Service Commission’s rates for themselves and town staff. Using their own vehicle below the 54 parallel is 42.83 cents per kilometre, above is 46.12 cents per kilometre. Rates for meals are $8 for breakfast, $14 for lunch and $19 for supper.
“Those are reviewed by the province twice annually, typically April 1 and Oct. 1,” Elliott said.
The basic wage for councillors hasn’t changed, though Elliott said a committee could soon be struck to review that. If so, no councillors will sit on that committee.
Council to sell professional duplex
Nipawin council will make an offer to the Kelsey Trail Health Region to sell them the professional duplex next to the hospital.
“The building itself is owned by the town, the property is owned by the Kelsey Trail Health Region,” Elliott said.
The administrator said he and Shane Merriman, the CEO of the health region, have been discussing the matter for a while.
“We both recognized that it made good sense for either the town or KTHR to own the building and the property,” Elliott said, adding that the status quo didn’t make sense.
The amount the town is asking for cannot be made public at this point, as negotiations are still ongoing.
Tender awarded for water treatment plant
The fifth tender out of nine has been awarded for the new water treatment plant under construction.
The tender, which is for the mechanical system within, was awarded to Interwest Mechanical for almost $2.1 million plus a contingency of $200,566, which puts it above the planned cost of $2.25 million.
“We have come in under budget for all of the previous phases and we don’t anticipate using the entire contingency – if any of it – so we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to come in close to what the tendered amount was, ” Elliott said.
As to what’s remaining for the water treatment plant, the structure is largely done, but there’s still some external work to be done around the building and equipment to install inside.
“The largest components of the project are either underway or behind us,” Elliott said.
The town is hoping to be finished by summer 2018, but progress will depend on the availability of contractors and weather.
New economic development officer
A new economic development officer has been hired.
Jayne Remenda started her new job Oct. 2.
“She comes to us from Prince Albert and she comes with a considerable experience in economic development, in downtown business development. Tourism, as well,” Elliott said. “She comes with a very, very strong background and we’re very excited to have her on board.”
Bylaw officer can give parking tickets
One of the new changes to the town’s traffic bylaw will allow the bylaw enforcement officer to give tickets for parking violations.
“The traffic bylaw went through an extensive revision,” Elliott said. “We worked for a number of months in conjunction with bylaw enforcement, emergency services and the RCMP.”
The bylaw was passed at the Sept. 25 council meeting.
“It wasn’t terribly well-worded for proper enforcement by our staff, so that’s been improved,” the administrator said. “For the most part, it quite simply strengthened the enforcement ability for our bylaw enforcement officer to deal with things as opposed to having to send everything to the RCMP and have them deal with it.”
