Two government announcements this week will give Steinbach more than $1 million in unexpected new grant funding this year. Troy Warkentin, the city's Chief Administrative Officer, says one is a new provincial infrastructure grant.

"It means an additional approximately $250,000 that the City of Steinbach will have available to put towards a variety of infrastructure projects that it may be considering."

Warkentin says this $250,000 dollar grant is less than the $400,000 the city was eligible to receive under the province's former Road and Bridge Program that was cancelled last year. But he notes the old program was based on a 50-50 cost sharing basis while this new program has no such strings attached.

Warkentin says the second grant this week came in the federal budget where the Liberal Government has doubled the amount of infrastructure money that municipalities receive from the gasoline tax.

"This was a surprise. We are still trying to determine further details on it. However, if this does proceed as we have been made aware, that would mean an additional $850,000 being provided to the City of Steinbach for that program."

Warkentin says it is likely that city council will put this new money into reserves until it determines how it will be used.

"It would take some time for the city to identify and prioritize projects that we feel would be best suited to be paid for by that program."

He adds there is no deadline as to when it must be spent.