By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — The Town of Davidson will scale back on its pavement plans for this summer as it attempts to shoulder other unexpected costs, council heard at its meeting last week.

Administrator Gary Edom said during council’s regular meeting on Tuesday that the town needs to recover about $80,000 in its budget, following an unplanned string of street repairs caused by a high water table and subsequent frost boils.

“Our street repairs have just gone through the roof,” said Mayor Clayton Schneider, explaining that town needed to revisit the budget to find funding to “cover these surprises.”

Edom recommended that the town’s pavement budget be reduced from $200,000 to $120,000 for the current year, though he said this would sharply reduce the number of projects the town could afford to tackle.

“I think we’re just going to have to cut back as much as we can,” he said, explaining that he couldn’t find any other areas in the budget to target for reduction.

“We’ve had so darn much street work to do this year,” he told the Leader on Wednesday. “We’ll just have to play it by ear as we go.”

Edom said the town would still aim to resurface a couple of sections along First Street, including the two blocks from Washington Avenue to Garfield Street, and one block between Grant Street and Francis Street.

United Paving, based in Swift Current, has been recruited to complete the paving. Edom said the company had initially scheduled the work to begin June 1, but then came up against delays as employees finish the pavement at the Riverbend Co-op’s new service station on Highway 11.

Coun. Tyler Alexander remarked that if the water table continues to stay high in future years, council members may “have to revamp our whole thinking on it.”

In response to a query from Coun. Gerald Kenny, Edom noted that there had been very little wiggle room in the budget, with a budgeted surplus of $1,819.