Provincial grant outlined by City of Powell River CFO

City of Powell River Council will vote on transferring the $4,218,000 grant it received from the province into a special reserve fund.

At the April 27 finance committee meeting, chief financial officer Mallory Denniston outlined that the city recently received the grant from the growing communities fund.

“The primary object of this fund is to increase the local housing supply with investments in community infrastructure and amenities,” said Denniston. “There are only a few strings attached. The first is that we create a reserve fund just for these funds.

“The second requirement is that an annual report that identifies work-related housing needs and pre-zoning requirements as applicable will be provided to the province. As we do projects that are funded through this fund, we are to have onsite signage.”

Denniston said the city’s senior management has already met to discuss the strings and are happy to check all the boxes to receive the funds.

“The biggest question that people might have around this money is: what can it be used for?” said Denniston. “It’s mainly for capital and it can be used for sewer, water, recreation, parks, public safety, storm, child-care facilities and many other local government infrastructure capital costs. It’s very flexible. Most of our capital projects do fall into the criteria.

“There’s one exception where there is some flexibility for non-capital uses of the fund. This includes non-capital administrative costs where necessary – for example, adding staff capacity related to development or to establish complementary financing for local government-owned infrastructure of amenities.”

Denniston said this means if a project manager needed to be hired to get some of these projects done, this grant recognizes that some local governments need staff to implement the capital.

“The bottom line at this point is we have $4.2 million that will be in a reserve,” said Denniston. “The next question is what are we going to do with it and when are we going to talk about that?

“In August we will start talking about the 2024 five-year financial plan, and so at that point, this reserve fund becomes available funding for the capital plan we establish. It will be part of budget deliberations. That’s the point where we would be naturally talking about this fund, unless something happens and we need to make a budget amendment for 2023 and access these funds.”

Denniston said it’s important that the public know this is not a windfall, or a bonus. The city has an infrastructure deficit and relies on 39 per cent of future capital money for the next 100 years to be from grants like these, she added.

“If that doesn’t come through, we are either accessing debt, if we can, or raising taxes for capital contributions,” said Denniston. “Some might think this is extra money, but when I look at the asset management plan, this money is what we anticipate, so I’m so happy to see it and so thankful for the province providing us with these funds. It’s what we budget for and we hope to see more of it because that is how we do our fiscal planning.”

Councillor Cindy Elliott asked if there were timeline restrictions on spending the money.

Denniston said she did not note an expiry in the letter from the province.

The finance committee voted to send the draft growing communities reserve fund to council to be given first three readings, and that the 2023 to 2027 financial plan be amended to transfer the $4.2million grant to the growing communities reserve fund.