With more than six weeks left before year-end, the Hanover Fire Department has maxed out its budget for 2018.

Hanover Fire Chief Paul Wiebe says expenses this year have been greater than expected. He points to hall and equipment maintenance costs this year being above normal, the grass fire season in spring being busier than forecast and the fact they progressed further on the Blumenort fire hall than anticipated.

"The Blumenort project is not what pushed us over," stresses Wiebe. "It's just one of the contributors."

In fact, Wiebe says that project is under budget. He notes they exceeded what they had planned for this year by scheduling some of the courses, testing and evaluations for 2018 instead of 2019. That means more of those costs associated with the overall project will be paid for this year instead of next year.

Hanover Fire Department's operating budget for 2018 is $758,000. This includes the municipality's contract with the City of Steinbach. Hanover council has agreed to extend this budget by about $92,000 in order to finish off the year.

"We're hoping we don't need all of that," he says. "But we want to be prepared in case it does get to be a busy end of the year."

Wiebe explains the Hanover Fire Department is reactionary and so it is difficult to put an exact budget in place.

"Best we can do is look at our projections from year to year," he says. "But this year we've had some things that have caused us to exceed our normal spending."

For example, it normally spends about $18,500 on fire hall maintenance but this year has nearly tripled that amount.

Wiebe says it is actually a perfect storm this year. While expenses are higher than expected, revenue is lower than projected. Hanover can invoice Manitoba Public Insurance for its highway calls. But, Wiebe explains a lot of their collision calls this year are happening along their municipal roads by Hanover ratepayers. Those cannot be invoiced to MPI.