Either taxes will be raised, surplus funds dipped into or the leisure services department budget slashed for city council to fund an absent maintenance budget.

There is currently no money in the City of Merritt’s budget to maintain the multi-use sports complex and concession building at Central Park — a project completed last May that incurred more than $300,000 in cost overruns.

“It was built without operating funds added to the budget, so we’re adding them this year,” chief administrative officer Shawn Boven told the Herald.

Councillor Dave Baker said that the facility has been maintained by the leisure services and public works departments since it opened, but they’ve had to use manpower that would have otherwise been utilized elsewhere.

“They would take an hour her, an hour there from different places,” he said.

“It’s not that it wasn’t getting the maintenance, it was just that we had not set up any kind of a budget for that,” Baker said.

Boven couldn’t say exactly how much an annual maintenance budget will cost, but estimated it would not be more than $100,000, nor would it require hiring a full-time employee.

City council is expected to discuss their options and the leisure services department budget this coming Monday (Feb. 29) at a public budget meeting at city hall.

“We have to add a person or a number of hours or we have to make due with the people we have, which takes them away from other sources,” Baker said.

Boven said accounting for operational costs are the responsibility of each department manager and in the case of the lacrosse box facility, the former financial services manager and leisure services department head did not do this.

“Anytime you construct a new facility you have to account for what it’s going to cost to operate this thing,” Boven said.

The city parted ways with its leisure services department manager at the end of 2015 shortly after an audit report found him responsible for the cost overruns the project incurred. The city is currently looking for his replacement and has a shortlist of candidates lined up for the new director of recreation and facilities position it has vacant.

When asked  how the lack of a maintenance budget for the facility escape council at last year’s budget meetings, Baker said no one on council asked the question.

“In this case here, nobody asked [and] nobody brought that to our attention,” Baker said. “It just plain got missed.”