Annual Operating Costs

Annual Operating Costs are the amount budgeted to operate and maintain the Bridge each year. Under the Concession Agreement, this was set at $600,000/year, indexed for inflation, for the first five full years of the Sublease Term (and a prorated amount for the initial partial year after opening). After that, the amount would have been set by agreement between the GNWT and the DCBC.

Now that the bridge is a GNWT project, the Department of Transportation is currently (January 2012) estimating something like $60-80,000 for these costs. This seems very low, and I'm trying to get confirmation.

- According to comments made by the Minister of Transportation during the Assumption debate, now that the Bridge is a GNWT project the annual operating costs may shrink to the neighbourhood of $350,000. Supposedly this is because now that "things have changed in terms of requirements, such as insurance, we expect that is going to be around half of the $700,000. So O and M we are pegging at $350,000 a year." Later indications in the Community Agreements show an expected savings of $300,000 on insurance and $50,000 on administration, leaving an implied annual operating cost of $250,000.'