Moose Jaw city council voted on May 25 in favour of hiring an outside consultant to help the city create a climate action plan. 

The city is allocating $26,500 from its facilities building reserve to hire the consultant. 

As part of the city’s strategic plan, the climate action plan would look at ways the city can reduce its carbon footprint. 

Director of parks and recreation Derek Blais said the consultant would pay for itself in the long term. 

“It is really going to help us find some deficiencies in how we can be leaner in our emission usage within our facilities and also set some targets and highlighting those to the public and being able to show the good things that we're doing to help reduce emissions, reduce our costs to keep things affordable,” Blais said. 

The consultant will also help assist the city in applying for provincial and federal funding through climate change programs.

The city recently received over $760,000 in federal and provincial funding to fit five municipal buildings with solar panels and the city recently learned about funding that becomes available for electric buses. 

The motion to hire a consultant passed 6-1 with Coun. Dawn Luhning was the only opposing vote. She felt that the job could be done in-house without hiring an outside consultant. 

“I'm all for making sure that we can be efficient in our buildings and that sort of thing, but I do not believe that we need to spend $25,00 to find a consultant, somebody out there who knows better about what we should be doing in our own facilities,” she said. 

City administration justified the move, saying that there is no one within City Hall with the expertise to put together a climate action plan. 

“We could make an effort, but I don't know that would be as effective as it could be, and that's why we came with the reserve as being the option to pay for it. That's money that we have in the account to help us with these types of projects,” said city manager Jim Puffalt.