The City of Launceston has updated its procedures for project overspends after councillors raised concerns they were kept out of the loop when additional works were added to Riverbend Park.
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The project ended up costing almost $2 million more than originally planned, including the addition of a court, lawn area, landscaping, artwork and sewer connection without the explicit approval of councillors.
The pedestrian bridge also went $464,000 over budget.
Councillor Andrea Dawkins said it was "embarrassing" to have community members approach her about the overspend when she had no knowledge of it herself.
"What I was most concerned about is that information was bubbling up from the community and coming to people like me without getting a council missive or anything more formal, even a comment in a workshop," she said.
Resurfacing works at UTAS Stadium went $835,000 over budget due to the discovery of soft, silty clay. It required a variation in the contract to use geofabric, geogrid, ballast and cement-stabilised crush rock, along with the disposal of "very soft subgrade material".
The council had no contingency funding in the original budget in the instance of cost blowouts, meaning the matter had to return to council to be approved retrospectively.
Chief executive officer Michael Stretton said a 20 per cent contingency would be considered for all major projects in the future, to be factored into budgets.
"We have instigated controls internally, not only structurally, but procedurally to make sure that is addressed moving forward," he said.
The lack of contingency was a concern to councillors who spoke at Thursday's ordinary meeting, and they urged the adoption of the practice in the future.
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Councillor Hugh McKenzie labelled a range of matters "poor process", including the lack of contingency, the lack of reporting back to council when additional works were added and the poor management of contracts.
"We need to take our whack, but make sure that we've learned our lessons to ensure that future projects of this ilk don't suffer a similar fate," he said.
"It's a good reminder to us all that we need to continue to be vigilant on cost management, which I'm confident through discussions with the CEO and their accounting personnel that this is something that is very much front of mind."
Councillor Tim Walker said it was concerning that the council appeared to have limited personnel with the experience in handling larger projects like these.
"My concern is that our collective knowledge as a council may have got lost somewhere along the line to allow a situation where projects were not being fiscally managed as well as ratepayers would expect," he said.
All councillors agreed that Riverbend Park and UTAS Stadium resurfacing were overwhelmingly positive projects for the city.