Owen Sound Council will meet in special session this afternoon to look at ways to pay for the Regional Recreation Centre to be constructed at Victoria Park.
The centre already over budget by more than 3 million dollars and the total cost now has ballooned to 38 million dollars.
Councillor Jim McManaman says city staff will present council with various options on how to deal with the funding gap and what other cost saving measures can be implemented.
He says Council will be looking at all options from increasing funding to perhaps cutting back on some of the features to be included in the Centre.
McManaman says says one of the problems of cutting back is there is hardly any wiggle room left as the steering committee already has cut back on aspects of the facility and they do not want to be forced to take away any of the major components of the facility.
He says some of the other funding options Council may look at is extending the length of time used by the city to pay off its debentures from 10 years to perhaps 12 or 14.
McManaman says the interest from the sale of Georgian Bay Energy for 16 million dollars also could be used to fund the Recreation centre.
He says that money is currently being used to pay for the Downtown big dig and that will be paid off by 2012.
McManaman says Council will probably will decide use that money to fund the construction of the Rec Centre.
The special council meeting dealing with the Recreational Centre gets underway at 4 PM today at the Owen Sound Public Library, and follows a general pre budget meeting by council that runs all day.