HOLLAND, Mich. (WOOD) — Inflation is having an impact on local government building projects and supply chain issues continue to be a challenge for West Michigan municipalities.

The higher costs have caused some projects to be pushed back and others to be modified. 

Keith Van Beek, the city manager of Holland, said inflation can be challenging especially with long-term budget planning. 

“In particular with some of our projects, our capital improvement projects, that’s where we’ve been seeing the impact,” Van Beek said.

Van Beek says the impact could mean some projects, like replacing an additional section of a road, could be pushed back. 

“If that costs $2.4 million, then you do a couple of those over time and then a project that maybe we were hoping to do in two or three years we might have to bump out three or four years,” Van Beek said.

The cost of purchasing equipment like firetrucks is also higher and with longer lead times.

“We know that (with) the supply chain we may not be able to get something for 16, 17, 18 months but we’ve gone ahead and gotten in line and actually we’ve done that the price actually was indicating to go up,” Van Beek said.

Al Jano, the facilities director for Kent County, said inflation is also having an impact on its projects.

“We see that both in the labor market — everything from custodial services to the skilled trades — and we also see it from materials, especially technology,” Jano said. “Roofing insulation, transformers, glass, generators.”

The county is having to order items earlier because of continued supply chain delays.

“I’ve been doing this a very long time and the lead times are just astronomical for things that we used to wait 30 days for, or 60 days was a long lead time, now we’re waiting, six months would be a best case scenario,” Jano said.

He said they have found ways to keep costs down for things that can be added later.     

“Not the curtain wall or the front entry or the roof but some fixtures, furniture, and equipment that could go in the building. We might have to scale back on some of those in order to meet budget,” Jano said.