Council discusses the meaning of contract increases

On Monday, Sept. 23, Burnaby City Council approved contract increases for four large projects, including the RCMP new detachment and Cameron Community Centre and Library. Still, debate ensued regarding the meaning of a contract increase. If you find this confusing, you are not the only one. Read on to find out what a contract increase means on city reports, whether all projects are over budget and other highlights from Monday’s council meeting.  

Uncertain future for Harry Jerome Sports Centre 

A Volleyball BC delegation attended the council meeting on Sept. 23 to update council on the organization’s financial situation after a recent roof replacement project for the Harry Jerome Sports Centre (HJSC). Volleyball BC manages the centre, which is leased from the city. The centre is currently under review by Cornerstone Planning Group, and Volleyball BC’s lease has not yet been renewed. 

“We also invested over $680,000 of our own savings into the project, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank the City of Burnaby for the $500,000 that made up the remainder of the costs before we embarked on this project. We received verbal confirmation from the city representatives at the time that we would be obtaining a lease extension that would secure our long-term future at this facility,” said Emma Gibbons, CEO of Volleyball BC. 

Gibbons said that Volleyball BC’s points of contact at the city changed before the lease could be extended. Instead of parks and recreation staff, the city’s lands and facilities department became their main point of contact. An assessment by the city’s lands and facilities department showed that the centre needs extensive upgrades and renovations, which Gibbons said Volleyball BC could not afford. 

“As a non-profit organization, we’re unable to commit to these upgrades. Most recently, the city has appointed Cornerstone Planning Group to undertake a review and site analysis of the Harry Jerome Sports Centre to provide recommendations for the future use of the facility. This means that Volleyball BC has been left out of pocket for the roof, but without a lease, and potentially without a facility depending on the recommendations from Cornerstone,” Gibbons said. 

Lands and facilities staff will be returning to council before the end of the year with a report regarding the capital investments required for the centre. 

Burnaby to get two new childcare facilities 

The Rowan Avenue and the Christine Sinclair Community Centre (CSCC) childcare centres are one step closer to reality now that the city has $7,490,000 in grant funds from the province. According to a report submitted to council on Sept. 23, the city received this funding from the ChildcareBC New Spaces Fund in June 2024. 

“Of the Provincial funding received, $7.4 million will be allocated to the new 74-space child care centre under construction at 4838 Rowan Avenue. The centre will provide 24 spaces for children under three years old and 50 spaces for children ages 30 months to school age,” the report said. “Initially, the City had received a Provincial grant of $2,280,000 in 2020 for this project based on a proposed 57-space centre at 6570 Deer Lake Avenue ($40,000/space).” 

The province later removed the original cap of $40,000 per space and increased the funding to $100,000 per space. The report said the Rowan Avenue Centre is scheduled to open in May 2025, and priority will be given to the children of staff members at the city and the RCMP. The Lower Mainland Purpose Society for Youth and Families will operate the centre. 

“The remainder of the Provincial funding, $90,000, has been allocated to the new 25-space centre for children 30 months to school age at the Christine Sinclair Community Centre. The centre has been open since February 2024 and is at full capacity. Burnaby Family Life was selected to operate the centre through an RFP process,” the report said. 

RCMP contract causes confusion in council 

One of the items that appeared on Monday’s meeting agenda was a “contract increase” for the new RCMP project, which has been renamed the “Community Safety Building Project.” According to the report submitted to council, city staff requested an increase of $572,250 for EcoAmmo Sustainable Consulting to act as integrated project delivery (IPD) owner’s representative for the City of Burnaby. 

The report sparked a great deal of discussion during the meeting. Coun. Alison Gu started the discussion by asking about the reason for the increase and the services EcoAmmo Sustainable Consulting is providing the city. 

“I am not clear on what exact services they are actually going to be providing and just for future contract increases, it would be helpful to actually understand the driver of that contract increase. If we are actually hiring them on to continue into the end, to be the big room facilitator, my understanding would have been that we hire them on at the beginning and they’re committed through the end,” Gu said. 

Coun. Pietro Calendino joined the discussion, asking questions in the same vein as those of Gu. 

“I have the same concerns as Councillor Gu just expressed, and what I don’t understand is the procurement process. Obviously, if we have this owner representative from the beginning, we intended to keep them to the end. So why doesn’t the cost of this come to us in full at the beginning? Because it’s very irritating to see all these contract increases midterm, or after three months, or at the end of the project, we still have more costs. I think it would be wise for us to have the full cost at the beginning of this type of personnel so that we have a clear figure of what the total cost of the project is,” Calendino said. 

James Lota, the city’s general manager of lands and facilities, responded to the questions by saying that the contract increase stated in the report was not, in fact, a contract increase at all and had been budgeted all along. 

“It’s almost word choice, like we knew we were going to spend more if we awarded the contract, and so this isn’t really a contract increase. This is an expected expense if the contract got awarded. So it’s not that they went over and above their estimate. It’s just we only awarded phase one,” Lota said. “Another way to put it is, we awarded phase one of the contract initially, and now we’re awarding phase two of it, but it’s not really a contract increase.”

Mayor Mike Hurley agreed with the councillors that the language was very confusing and that the city needs to use more precise language to avoid confusing those attending or watching the meetings. 

“This is part of the original budget, correct? So that needs to be very clear because it looks like we’re adding this amount onto the original budget,” Hurley said. “That’s why I’m concerned maybe we need a much clearer way of reporting this because that’s so very confusing.”

The city’s chief administrative officer, Leon Gous, attempted to clarify that this is all related to the city’s procurement system.  

“Unfortunately, that’s just the way we work through procurements who don’t go back to BC Bid or something to try and get additional bids on phase two of a contract. Now, there are ways we can word it better. I agree, and that’s what we’ll keep working on,” Gous said.

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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