Directors at the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) are looking at creating a new budget template to make grant-in-aid decisions easier and more transparent.
It’s one of the moves coming out of the most recent yearly audit, and a debriefing session held after the 2017 budget rounds ended.
The SCRD board asked auditors BDO Canada to include a review of recreation program and grant-in-aid funding as part of this year’s report. The results, presented to the April 27 meeting of the corporate and administrative services committee, found “some items funded which might arguably be considered against [SCRD] policy. There certainly were numerous grey areas where differences between current policies and practice may have occurred. Some of the potential deviations from policy included: funding paid for remuneration, capital funding provided to owned assets, funding social services through recreational services.”
The auditors also pointed out that regardless of the policy issues, all the grants-in-aid ultimately went to activities that benefitted the community.
They did, however, “recommend that SCRD develop an updated comprehensive policy for grant-in-aid funding that clearly outlines funding items and sources.”
Chief financial officer Tina Perrault told the committee that community groups hoping to secure grants were asked for more detailed information than the SCRD had requested in previous years, but her report on the budget debrief included recommendations to “consider the legal / legislative authority for some areas where grant-in-aid funding is provided… For community budget requests, provide the committee with clear information about which functions are funding, who participates, and who votes.”
SCRD chair, and Halfmoon Bay director, Garry Nohr said a clear template would help end the confusion that’s crept in over the years in areas like grants for youth services.
“We get asked for grant-in-aid from different organizations from year to year. We have, to my knowledge, never proven the need for it, what they were actually using it for, and was that what we actually thought we were funding… We should know what the actual services are.”
Nohr added: “It would make grants-in-aid more effective if I knew we were doing the right thing, and funding was going in the right direction. If my constituents ask me why we gave $30,000 to this, or $10,000 to that, or $5,000 to that, I can give them my gut feeling, but I can’t give them statistics to prove that, and I think that’s one of the flaws in our budget system.”
Roberts Creek director Mark Lebbell said though he’s very supportive of the idea, “I have concerns around the capacity of some organizations to do it, and whether the degree to which [SCRD] staff would be involved in [helping with] completion of the template.”
When it comes to how it shares some of the grant money it gets from senior governments, the SCRD directors are favouring the status quo. Money from the Gas Tax Community Works program is shared among the rural areas based on population. It’s typically used for projects like bike lanes.
With the release of new census data, the sharing formula will have to be updated, and West Howe Sound director Ian Winn pitched the idea of looking beyond just population.
“In my mind we should have something in here that looks not only at population, but at the needs of that particular area. A needs-based analysis needs to be done,” he argued.
Winn’s idea, however, didn’t find support among the other directors and the committee voted to continue using a population-based model.
