Sweeping changes are being proposed for qathet Regional District’s (qRD) financial assistance policy.
At the September 6 finance committee meeting, Electoral Area E director and committee chair Andrew Fall brought forward a motion with six proposals in an effort to streamline the way the regional district provides money to community organizations through grants-in-aid.
The first recommendation is eliminating grants-in-aid from the social planning and economic development services and limiting funding streams to general grants-in-aid and local grants-in-aid program for electoral areas.
The second recommendation is looking at the benefits and costs of creating a standalone general grants-in-aid service through a bylaw.
There was a recommendation to set an objective in the policy for general grants-in-aid to regionally balance benefits over time among the collection or projects, rather than for each individual project.
Fourth is providing a summary of organizations supported over the preceding 10 years with the pro-rated amount by which each participating area benefits, as well as the contributions of each participating area to the service.
Options for establishing a multiyear financial assistance arrangement with groups that have received relatively large grants over multiple years was proposed, along with changing to a single grant intake per year rather than two per year.
“The purpose of this motion is to request a staff report to help us review and possibly revise our financial assistance policy and procedures,” said Fall. “I have attempted to consolidate areas for which improvements were suggested during our recent and extensive discussions of the first financial assistance intake.”
Fall said the intention is to potentially improve equity, efficiency, flexibility and certainty.
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne thanked Fall for the motion.
“Over the last several years, there have been issues with how we do our grants-in-aid,” said Gisborne. “The June and July finance committee meetings attest to some of the challenges we’ve been having around our table in determining what holes the pegs fit into.
“When it comes back to the taxpayers, they are asking who pays for what. Having it from individual electoral areas, or the general grant-in-aid if it has a regional benefit, will really streamline the process.”
Electoral Area D director Sandy McCormick said she was not happy with the way the grant-in-aid process works. She said she has not been happy with the shifting of the various grant streams in allocating funds.
“If we put it all into general grants-in-aid, that would make a lot of sense and would ease a lot of my discomfort with the current process,” said McCormick.
City of Powell River director George Doubt said reviewing the grant process is a good idea. He said he would be happier if the resolution was simpler, saying the board was requesting staff to produce a report regarding changes to the qRD financial assistance process, rather than a detailed list of things the board would be instructing staff to bring a report on.
“I would like to have a wide-ranging look at the granting process and make sure we have crystal-clear definitions,” said Doubt.
The committee carried Fall’s motion that it recommend the regional board request staff to produce a report regarding potential changes to the qRD financial assistance process, including, but not limited to, the six points Fall had raised.
According to qRD manager of financial services Linda Greenan, for the 2023 grants-in-aid, the regional board awarded $96,000 for general grants-in aid, which are contributed to by taxpayers in the city and five electoral areas.
Approximately $66,000 was awarded in electoral area grants-in-aid, which are contributed to by the five electoral areas. There was $33,332 contributed from the economic development stream and $65,666 from the social planning stream.
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