Local governments are still fine-tuning the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will create a new Coast-wide economic development agency.
The latest revisions to the MOU were in front of the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) planning and development committee on Feb. 18, and they included a significant change in the funding.
The Town of Gibsons suggested a reduction from $300,000 a year to $250,000, and Elphinstone director Lorne Lewis wanted to see Area E’s contribution tied to property assessments instead of the mix of assessment value and population being used to calculate contributions from the other partners.
SCRD chair and director for Halfmoon Bay Garry Nohr said he was worried about the impact. “That means actually the 250 [thousand dollars] will be less than 250, and that all of those numbers that we agreed to before will be reduced,” he said.
Alice Lutes, who represents the District of Sechelt, said Sechelt also had concerns, partly because of the anticipated start-up costs. “We know that a lot of the things at start-up will be ongoing, but original purchases of computers and those kinds of office equipment [expenses] will come in during that first year, and we’re concerned that $250,000 may not be enough,” Lutes noted.
Silas White, Town of Gibsons director, explained that one of the reasons they suggested the change was because the new agency wouldn’t be up and running until part way through 2016.
“For the first year we’re probably not going to need that recommended amount of $300,000, so what about more of an average over four years of something else, like $250,000,” White told the committee. “The thinking there was it was going to take a while to start up and likely you’re not going to need a lot of this money in the first year, so if you had $250,000 in the first year it would carry over.”
Area A director Frank Mauro, though, argued for sticking with the original funding. He pointed out that would allow the new agency to start building reserves for future years.
“They shouldn’t be in a position of having to not do something because of lack of funds, or having to raise funds otherwise to do something that is valuable,” Mauro said. “In my mind, I don’t know that we need to prorate the first year.”
Some directors also raised issues with the details around when to review the performance of the new agency.
Mauro said he’d like to see the MOU spell out specifically that there will be an annual review, an idea supported by Lewis.
White, however, was not convinced. “If we were going to do a review in a year, I don’t know how we measure that [progress]. Certainly part of the discussions I had with a number of people who’ve been involved in economic development on the Coast for a long time reflected a real desire and need to have a commitment from our local governments, as opposed to a real expectation that something needs to happen within a year or a number of months. There has to be some reasonable time to get this going.”
SCRD chief administrative officer Janette Loveys pointed out that all MOUs are reviewed annually as a matter of course.
Roberts Creek director Mark Lebbell said that approach should be good enough, and sticks to the spirit of not overburdening the new agency with too much government oversight, “to provide some distance between this board and the entity and other boards and the entity to avoid some of the politicization.”
Staff told directors another review and revision of the MOU could be done in time for the Round 2 budget discussions set for March 8, when the final funding arrangement will need to be approved.
Meanwhile, local governments have been reviewing applications to sit on the new agency’s board, but have yet to announce who’s been chosen. There will be eight directors selected at large and one appointed by the shíshálh Nation. The agency will also be hiring an economic development officer.
