qathet Regional District will be receiving a $1,367,000 grant from the provincial government from the Growing Communities Fund.
At the April 5 finance committee meeting, Electoral Area director Mark Gisborne said when he first saw the grant, he thought the money was coming to the regional district only for electoral areas and the municipality would get its own grant, similar to community works funds, but reading correspondence from provincial minister of municipal affairs Anne Kang, it’s more complicated than that.
He said looking at the breakdown, the population considered under the funding formula considers the total population, which includes city residents and the rural population.
“I thought it was just for the rural population but it turns out I’m wrong,” said Gisborne.
Electoral Area E director and finance committee chair Andrew Fall asked manager of financial services Linda Greenan how the numbers used by the province were arrived at, and also if she has comments on the process.
“It’s very nice to receive $1.367 million, that’s excellent news, but the question then becomes where it gets used,” said Fall.
Greenan said the way the grant has been calculated is $500,000 of flat funding, $17 for each of the total population, $30 for each of the rural population, and $1,000 for each new resident of the rural areas calculated on the figures from the last two censuses.
Fall asked if there was any indication of how this funding will come forward as projects.
Greenan said there haven’t been any suggestions yet, but work will be done with the regional district’s asset management group and the other management teams to look at what this would best be used for.
Electoral Area D director Sandy McCormick said the minister’s correspondence stated that the grant must be allocated to appropriate regional district services by the end of the year.
“My question is, would improvement district water systems be eligible to receive a chunk of this money,” asked McCormick. She said improvement districts have struggled to find funding to upgrade the water systems to meet government regulations.
“We had asked through the Union of British Columbia Municipalities for a one-time fund to help improvement districts and I had hoped this was it, but given the status of requirements that they turn over their assets to the regional district, it isn’t what we had asked for,” said McCormick.
Fall said the regional district will see where the grant rolls out going forward.
“We’ll be hearing back from staff on it for further discussion,” he added.
