qathet Regional District directors have voted to recommend to the regional board that it maintain 2025 grants-in-aid at the same funding level as 2024.
At the January 7 finance committee meeting, directors were provided three options for 2025 grants-in-aid, including maintaining the same level as 2024, increasing budgets by five per cent and increasing budgets by 10 per cent over 2024 actuals. The recommendation in the finance committee agenda was for the 10 per cent increase over 2024 actuals.
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne moved the second option, which was increasing budgets by five per cent. He said his preference would be to go through each grant-in-aid application line-by-line, but when it comes down to it, there is increased demand from the community for grants, so he was comfortable with a five per cent increase across the board.
City of Powell River director Rob Southcott said grants-in-aid are a topic of great concern at the city. He said the regional community absolutely needs the social benefits of grants-in-aid to stay healthy, but it also needs to be in balance with the fiscal capability.
“I can’t actually support any increase in grants-in-aid here, so I couldn’t support option two or option three,” said Southcott. “The basic problem here for me is the balance between affordability, that certainly is a concern for the same people who benefit from grants-in-aid. In terms of balance, I can only support option one.”
Electoral Area D director Sandy McCormick said she agreed with Southcott, so she couldn’t support an increase.
Electoral Area C director and board chair Clay Brander said he was opposed to increases in the grants-in-aid budget, so he could only support maintaining the status quo.
“I don’t see the need to increase the budget,” said Brander.
City director Cindy Elliott said she was in favour of the option Gisborne favoured in his motion for a five per cent increase. She said when looking at affordability, there were two ways to look at it. She said the idea of supporting nonprofit organizations in the community that are stepping up to help make life affordable and more liveable can use some support from the regional district. She added that qRD gets much leverage from the grants, which help and benefit the economy.
“My thinking is, investing in our nonprofits gets us further than increasing our own services,” said Elliott.
The committee, however, voted against the motion for the five per cent increase in grants-in-aid. A motion was then made to not increase over the 2024 grants, which carried, with Elliott opposed.
If the regional board approves the recommendation, general grants-in-aid would be $96,000, Electoral Area A would be $84,321, Electoral Area B would be $20,000, Electoral Area C would be $38,094, Electoral Area D would be $28,456 and Electoral Area E would be $11,227, for a total of $278,098.
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