The City of Windsor is calling on the federal government to uphold a funding agreement for needed flood mitigation work.
Earlier this week, a report to council stated original estimates of $90-million have ballooned to $176 million.
The 16 different projects were originally approved for funding through the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund. Under the program, the municipality was responsible for 60 per cent of the costs and the federal government would take care of the rest. But to date, the federal government has not come forward with any additional costs to cover inflation.
"The response has not been favourable," said Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens. "We need the federal government to act reasonably and responsibly in this case because the work that was in our application in 2018, that was approved in 2019, that was scheduled to take a decade to roll out, the costs have dramatically changed and we can't cover this alone."
Both Dilkens and Windsor-West MP Brian Masse have penned letters to the government asking them to come to the table with their 40 per cent.
"We're not asking for a free lunch. We're willing to cover the difference in our 60 per cent share which is an additional $61-million to city taxpayers. That's a huge amount of money," said Dilkens.
City staff warned any delay in project funding will have an impact on all future projects.
"We've developed the plan, we're trying to implement the plan, we're willing to pony up more money to cover the inflationary costs on the 60-40 share but we need the federal government to do the same thing," said Dilkens.
