The Strathcona Regional District is considering a Grant in Aid policy which would funnel all applications through staff. According to Gerald Whalley, who has been a Regional Director since the SRD was formed in 2008, this is the third time the idea of a policy has come up. After an intense debate, the proposal has been forwarded to the Electoral Areas Services Committee and Municipal Services Committee for further discussion. 

Some of the main points of the proposed policy include:

• Financial assistance will only be considered for registered, non-profit organizations that have an operational presence within the Strathcona Regional District.
• Applicants must provide a current financial statement and budget for the year
• the SRD will not fund core operating expenses, capital improvements to equipment, insurance, property taxes, or multi-year funding commitments  
• The SRD will give priority to applications that do not exceed $5,000 and are from organizations that do not already receive funding from the SRD

Mayor Julie Colborne of Zeballos explained that in the past, “We found that it would alter many of the contributions that are already being made.  We just felt that some of the restrictions were too restrictive.” 

Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney of Area C agreed: “I just wanted to point out that the next item on the agenda is three requests for financial assistance from Electoral Area C,  and with this policy as is, none of these three very important and valid applications would be considered eligible.  That includes the Quadra Island Foundation’s application for financial support because they are hiring a consultant to create a Vital Signs report for Quadra Island. Neither would liability insurance costs for the Quadra Island Conservancy, which maintains public land that is publicly accessible and is a highly used piece of land for outdoor recreation in our community for visitors and for residents, be covered. Lastly Quadra Island Concerts is asking for $1,000 to assist with administration insurance costs for bringing music to our community for the entire winter. I just want to point out that this policy would negate all three of those applications.” 

Chief Administrative Officer David Leitch, and three of the Campbell River Directors, spoke in favour of adopting a grant in aid policy. 

Doug Chapman stated, “I would support the policy as it is, everything comes to staff first. Staff would make sure it meets the preliminary requirements of the policy. Staff could then either give a list or what’s coming to each director, or a copy of the application. You can still talk to applicants, but the board wouldn’t be considering any of them unless they meet the policy requirements. I don’t know how many would then be rejected for not meeting the policy, but I think as it’s taxpayer’s money and it’s a corporate responsibility to make sure we’re dispersing those funds properly.” 

“If you want to refer it to each committee, that’s fine too, but I think we should be creating some criteria for giving taxpayer’s money out.”   

CAO Leitch responded,” I’ll just speak to one item that director Chapman brought up, the issue about the request coming to the Chief Financial Officer first. In my 10 years here, we have never denied a grant-in-aid application. Therefore the individual director must be making that decision and directors do not have that authority, applications come to the board. I have not seen one denial in 10 years, which suggests the process lacks transparency.” 

“In the past, there were Grants in Aid given regularly to organizations, let’s say for $5,000. If that was the case, the discussion was, ‘well, if you need $5,000 every year, that’s a substantial amount, maybe you should create a service instead of being given this money.’ It was a sticking point with certain electoral area directors that they insisted that the grants need to come to them instead of the corporate officer. Therefore, we magically never received a grant need that was not supported.  We never saw them, they always came from the directors. This policy requires those submissions to come to the Chief Financial Officer and we would bring them forward.”

Director Ben Lanyon added, “I can hear valid points on both sides. I think what I’m seeing currently, and definitely saw in the past, is that using an area director as the first filter on incoming applications creates a bias towards people who are favourable towards that particular director and  has at least a potential bias against people who politically oppose that director.”  

“I think that sets the stage for corruption and for vote buying. Essentially,  you have the temptation to make your vote, your grant decision based on where the most number of votes are going to come for in the next election.  It’s like using the community zone money to buy your way back in.” 

“That’s the way the mechanism looks to an outsider. Whether or not that’s the case, I think having a policy that puts Regional District staff as the first level of filter prevents a bias from entering at the first approach. It at least gets into the system in a nonpartisan way. From there, we can assess the merits. Although I would prefer to see as few of these on our agenda as possible and have more of just a system of approaching this.

“I think the policy could be expanded to include things like Vital Signs on Quadra. I don’t know if we have to be so restrictive, but I do like the idea of having our staff be the first filter as opposed  to an area director.”

Director Susan Sinnott  had another issue, “There’s a lot of sophisticated people who know how to go for grants, and there’s a lot of people that don’t realize they exist. We are responsible for the public purse and the overall well being of the Regional District in meeting our strategic objectives. I don’t see how the current system, which goes on and on and on, is  helping the community as a whole when you create these winners and losers.”

“I would prefer the policy to actually have an ability to have intake processes, more transparency processes. I’m fine with moving around on different sorts of things, like why consulting fees are not consulting fees – not a big deal to me, but I’m really concerned that we end up with a real skewing of the applicants. Only certain people get ahead and certain people never even know. I’m thinking there’s so many small sports organizations that have no clue.  They need a lot of support, as do youth organizations.”  

“I can see where  you’ve only got so much money in the electoral areas, that’s fine. Being involved with the Community Foundation is a bigger process. We direct the funding based on the needs assessments and vital signs. If someone has set up a fund specifically, we actually think about what organizations (should receive funding). If we’re not getting those applications, how do we make those organizations come forward so we’re actually meeting the needs.” 

“I think it’s a little bit more sophisticated and I think our voters, and the people that we’re responsible to, need us to be diligent with their dollars. It’s not our money, it’s their money.”  

Three of the Regional Directors had concerns about the proposed policy.

Regional Director Gerald Whalley explained, “This is the third time that this has come to the board and my term started when the SRD was set up (in 2008). When this issue came to a vote, we always deferred it to the Municipal Services Committee and Electoral Area Services Committee for discussion on how that would directly affect our grant aid requests.”

“It has repeatedly been found to eliminate the opportunity for several of the traditional grant needs, that we gave out year after year, because it was too onerous.”  

“In my electoral area, I require that every grant aid that I give out has to be to a registered non profit. This is not part of the policy, but that’s just what I do. That’s what I tell my constituents. I wouldn’t want an application to come to the board and the board say, ‘well, that’s a great thing. Let’s approve it’ when I don’t approve of it.  

“I’ll just give you one little example. At one time I had a Grant in Aid request for feral cat neutering. I did that once.  This particular lady, since passed away, had about 20 cats. So as Area A, we paid to have them all neutered. Then they were given right back to the owner, who carried on producing more and more and more. It’s futile. It should never have been approved.” 

“So when the request comes to me, I directly phone the applicant.  I discuss it with them. I ask them, ‘is this appropriate? Are you a resident of the society?’ If it’s not appropriate, I tell them, ‘withdraw your application. It’s not going to go anywhere.’ That’s the way it should be.” 

“I don’t like it to come directly to staff, because a staff member lost the last application that was sent to them. They phoned me up and said, ‘where is it, the deadline was yesterday.’”  

(“I think we did it. One of our board brought it up as an emergency, or someone got the money late.”) 

“That’s why I think applications should come to electoral areas first. That’s the way it was in the past. My motion is going to be that we drop the thing. If you don’t like that motion and you defeat it, then I would like to refer it back to Municipal Services and Electoral Areas. We can all take a look at it and come back to the board with what we think would and wouldn’t work.”

Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney of Area C pointed out, “I think that  electoral areas will likely be the most affected by this policy. As an Electoral Area Director, I do have several things about this proposed policy, which I find frustrating.”  

“The CAO just indicated that there’s never been an application which has been denied. I’m wondering if the applications are being submitted to the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Financial Officer is going to receive the application and ensure that the application meets the criteria for funding requests. Will that not also mean that there are some applications which  don’t meet the funding policy and then therefore they will not come to the board.”

CAO Leitch: “No, no,  we would bring every application to the board. We would say this would not meet the criteria of the policy. However, we don’t vote or make decisions, so we would just inform you of that. So I will tell you, since I have been here for 10 years, there has never been one that has come to EASC, or the board, that has not been supported. This means all those decisions are being made individually by the director, which the director does not have the authority to do.” 

Director Mawhinney: “In the year and a half that I’ve been here, that has not been the case. Any application that I’ve received has been forwarded  to staff. I’m not sure if you’re thinking about what has happened in the long term, but I can speak to any that has happened under my watch.” 

“I do respectfully suggest that directors have a more comprehensive understanding of their area than the financial officer and I think that asking the financial officer to receive applications and communicate with organizations to gather the relevant details  is going to add a burden of staff time to administer each application, which is currently being done by directors”. 

“Not long ago, I brought a report and requested this board table seeking the possibility of delegation of authority for Grant in Aid decisions, as is done in the Comox Valley Regional District. This was largely because of  concerns that I’d heard about the ongoing time used at the board table to discuss these often relatively small supports provided to local organizations.”

“To me, this policy seems to be going in the opposite direction, adding cost of management and administration for these same small amounts.  I want to point out that here at the Strathcona Regional District, we often hire consultants to complete projects or to create specialized reports. It allows the administration to run a tighter financial ship and bring in specialized knowledge when needed.” 

“Why would we adopt a policy which dictates no financial support to non profit groups needing to hire a consultant?  I believe the scope of this proposed policy is overly broad. It is applying to all forms of discretionary assistance. Area C has an economic development fund. The scope of this policy would likely include it. However, per this policy, economic development support could not be provided for administration or other purposes or operating costs or hiring a consultant, which I would consider all key items for building and supporting local economic development.” 

“I’m not in favor of the policy as it is. I propose it is most appropriate for the policy’s scope to be regional Grants in Aid. Let’s start there and see how it unfolds. Then in a year or two, maybe we look at seeing how the electoral areas would be interested in revisiting the policy’s relevance on their own areas.”

On Cortes Island, Grant in Aid applications are examined by a committee of community members before being forwarded to the SRD. 

As Regional Director Mark Vonesch explained, “Last year I think we had $25,000 and +$40,000 worth of applications. A group of volunteers, not connected to the organizations that applied, went through a three week process to go through these applications, figure out what the best priorities are and do some negotiating.” 

“What I hear from this board is like, how can we make things simpler? There’s so much coming to the board table that doesn’t need to be here.  Certainly in the case of Cortes Island, there’s going to be way, way more Grant in Aids. You’re going to be looking at me for expertise. ‘What is this organization? Are they actually doing good work?’ Yes, they look good on paper, but let the community do that first level of processing!”

“Looking at the restrictions of what a $5,000 grant can be used for and  having run a non profit for 20 years,  I honestly think this is ridiculous. If you’re running a business, $5,000 is very little. The restrictions and what you can do with this grant are just making things harder for the good work that needs to be done.”

Director Whalley: “If we have a policy as proposed, will theGrant in Aid requests for electoral areas come to the Electoral Area Services Committee first?” 

CAO Leitch: “Yeah, I would think that makes sense.”

Mayor Colborne: “I was going to be in favour of this, but I think that with the level of conversation and consideration that’s happening here, I would really like to defer it to the MSC and the EASC separately and then have those kinds of issues with it compiled  and look at it from that. Not that I want to do this separately and in silos, but I think that there’s values that each  entity, whether you’re an electoral area, or a municipality, can come to terms with and other things that we just are too far apart on.”

The SRD Board unanimously agreed to forward this matter to the Electoral Areas Services Committee (EASC) and Municipal Services Committee (MSC)for further discussion. 

Top image credit: Canadian pennies on a counter top – Photo by Kim Siever via Flickr (Public Domain)

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