15 years ago when Moose Jaw City Council was going through the budget process, you might get a sentence or even a short speech about the infrastructure needs of the city. Most of the conversation at the time was about getting to a zero budget, an operating budget that maintained the status quo without raising taxes. While councillors tried to hit that mark, members of city administration warned of the pending issues with infrastructure and guaranteeing a safe water supply into the future.

Back in 2009, the city was starting to address some of the infrastructure needs, spending $75 million on capital projects. It's now 2019 and all you seem to hear during budget talks is how did this happen? How do we pay for all of this work? We can't do it all at once.

According to the preliminary Capital Budget presented at the end of 2018, the city had planned to spend nearly a quarter of a billion dollars on major capital work over the next five years or about $7000 for every resident of the city.

"There's just over $240 million worth of expenditure requests," explained Finance Director Brian Acker at the time. "In terms of funding that, we have about $138 million in identified funding sources, we plan to borrow an addition $45 million and we have previous borrowing of $30 million that we just placed in the fall, as well as money from reserves and short-term financing."

In the last week, councillors focused in on avoiding a very unpopular infrastructure levy and passed a motion that would cap the capital budget at $200 million. In order to do that, they've asked city administration to cut or delay $42 million in projects. As councillors continue to debate what can be delayed and what can't, they're learning of more infrastructure needs that are climbing the priority ladder.

One of those growing concerns is our reservoir system and the pumps that move water around our city. City administration has been identified the projects as the next major infrastructure project that needs attention and it'll be upwards of $17 million to fix according to City Engineer Josh Mickleborough.

"The major project is the replacement of the High Service Pump House itself," explained Mickleborough. "The reservoirs are good but the pump house there is in need of replacement."

Updates and enhancements can be made to the current reservoirs with an expansion also being proposed to allow more water to be stored in case of an emergency, such as the citywide power outage that we experienced this winter. The replacement of the pump house has been deemed as the top priority and could be worth $15 million by itself.

Council will have to consider their options carefully as the process continues in the weeks to come. Councillor Heather Eby re-iterated the fact that while some projects can be delayed, they will have no choice but to find funding for others.

"For me, cast iron has always been so important. We have to get that done," said Eby. "But the pump houses are critical as well. We could have the best (pipes) but if the pump houses aren't going to work, then it's not going to matter."

Councillors will now have to wait for a report on what projects can be cut or delayed in order to meet the new $200 million Capital Budget cap.