The main topic to come out of Swift Current City Council last night involves a budgetary spending decision on a major maintenance project.

Seven figures of the 2017 Capital Budget has been approved to go towards the project at the Credit Union iPlex.

After a report from Dean Robson, GM of Community Services, Council unanimously passed the motion to invest $2.5 million in replacing the ice floor slab of concrete in the rink, which has seen an increase in shifting on a yearly basis.

A lack of sufficient insulation and drainage under the floor slab has been causing the floor to rise and shift unevenly as the ground thaws and freezes.

Mayor Denis Perrault explains Council's reasoning behind the unanimous decision to immediately address the issue.

"We got a lot of information on it, and Council came to the conclusion that it's something we had to do.

If we waited for it to fail, which a third party engineer told us it would, during the winter the events would be tragic. We'd be really disruptive for all of our partners there.

It was something that needed to be approved today so that in the Spring we'll be ready to go - we sincerely hope it will last until then," he said.

Mayor Perrault explains that despite the sizeable budgetary decision, he hopes to see a positive year-end result for the city's debt.

"It's still our hope that at the end of this year we will have less debt on our books than what we did last year - the goal is to have a declining balance over time," he said.

The first-term Mayor also described the difficulty when deterioration occurs.

We have items that are at the end of their life - and we will see other ones as we're a city with lots of different departments and there are lots of items underground that I'm sure will need replacement in the near future... It's an unfortunate thing, as far as timing goes, but Council still voted unanimously on this issue," he said.

The possibility of getting Government funding for the project was discussed, but quickly clarified as a current impossibility, due to the area of spending the iPlex would fall under.

City Councillor and Deputy Mayor Ryan Plewis pointed out in Council that despite the City's prioritization of spending on a wastewater facility, among other areas that warrant grants and additional funding, Swift Current still is currently without any Governmental funding options.

Mayor Perrault explains that although no options have been found in the 'Building Canada' fund, the thorough search will continue.

"We are going to be exercising all avenues that we can over the next little while to see what funds are available - specifically in the 'Building Canada' fund. That is what we were actually able to use to fund our bridge - $1 million to us, $1 million to the Federal Government, and $1 million to the Provincial Government.

We're going to continue to look to see if there's any possible hope for any of our Capital projects for us to be able to get partnerships on," he said.