Grants-in-aid examined by qathet Regional District committee

qathet Regional District’s (qRD) finance committee is recommending the regional board streamline its grants-in-aid program.

At the January 10 finance committee meeting, Electoral Area E director and committee chair Andrew Fall said the recommendation before the committee was to move all the grant-in-aid funding to general grants-in-aid and local (Electoral Area A to E) grants-in-aid. This would eliminate funding streams from social planning and economic development grants-in-aid.

City of Powell River director George Doubt said the general grants-in-aid included contributions from the city and electoral areas, whereas the local grants-in-aid were just from the electoral areas.

“I’d like to hear from staff what this actually means in terms of who pays for what,” said Doubt.

Manager of financial services Linda Greenan said the regional district provided total grants in 2022 of $355,226 from the various pots.

“What this change would mean, if we moved funding from economic development, was that in 2022 it was $23,613, which came from Areas A, C and D,” said Greenan. “If we took that funding and instead of having it in economic development, we would divide it up and put that funding into Electoral Areas A, C and D based on the assessed values.

“Social planning is currently funded from Electoral Areas A through E, so what we would do is take the social planning funds, and instead of budgeting $147,389 in the social planning service, the idea would be to put that toward the general grants-in-aid. The idea is that social planning benefits the whole region.”

Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said he was in favour of the recommendation because it is going to help simplify matters for staff and help eliminate confusion over trying to balance eight pools of money.

Fall said there was unnecessary complication in the current structure.

“The staff report outlines the benefits and the benefits are less administration and other factors,” said Fall. “The bottom line is who pays, and having the proposed structure, there’s a pot for everyone.”

City director Cindy Elliott said she did not like the recommendation and that it was the wrong motion to get the job done.

“In order to get to the right motion, we need information that supports our motion so we know the actual impacts of what the motion is going to do,” said Elliott. “What this motion is trying to do is cancel the social planning and get rid of the economic development envelope. We need an overall grant-in-aid process that is simpler and flexible enough so we, as a board, can decide where to put it. We need recognition that we are all contributing and benefitting from each other’s success.”

Elliott said she believes the regional district needs a simpler grant-in-aid program.

Gisborne recommended that when draft three of the five-year financial plan is presented, the committee receive two options, with the social planning grants being moved into general grants-in-aid and the second option being social planning grants being moved into the electoral area grants-in-aid.

Greenan said the way the recommendation could be amended is that staff propose two options for draft three of the proposed five-year-financial plan to relocate social planning to electoral areas or general grants-in-aid.

Elliott said Greenan’s wording was good and she moved that the two options be presented by staff as an amendment to the original recommendation, which was that the committee recommends that the board direct staff to restrict grant-in-aid funding through general grants-in-aid and local grants-in aid.

The amendment carried, with Doubt opposed. The main motion as amended carried, with Doubt voting in opposition.

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