Eagle Valley News reporter Lachlan Labere reports on a CSRD board battle over funding allocation policy
Consensus may have been reached, but negotiations for the distribution of $1.1 million in annual funding are not over at the Columbia Shuswap Regional District board table.
This was Sicamous Mayor Malcolm MacLeod’s take after Thursday’s CSRD board meeting, where directors attempted to hash out who will get what, and when, in an hour of passionate discussion.
Around $143,000 is at stake for Sicamous and Electoral Area E, $130,000 of which is contributed annually to the area’s Economic Opportunity Fund; $13,665 goes towards the Sicamous and District Recreation Centre.
“I’m very confident that we’re going to be in a position where we won’t be losing anything,” said MacLeod.
Regional district staff were seeking board approval for an amendment to a BC Hydro Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) Policy F-29, as directed by the Ministry of Community and Rural Development.
The amendment had been worked out by directors at a budget meeting on Jan. 18 and again last Wednesday, at which time directors asked finance and IT manager Peter Jarman to produce another option for Thursday’s board meeting.
Most of the discussion centered around whether the $1.1 million should be treated as tax revenue, or whether areas such as Electoral Area B Rural Revelstoke whose landbase, economy and population were heavily impacted by construction of a BC Hydro dam deserved a bigger slice of the PILT pie.
In accordance with the new policy derived from board input at the January budget meeting, Area B will not see the any of these funds until 2013/2014, something Area B director Loni Parker and several others deemed unfair.
Asking directors to rethink the proposal to include her area in a share of the funds for 2011, Parker said the reason she has a lower population is because there is nowhere to put people.
“We’ve been flooded,” she said, noting she would direct any PILT funding she might get in 2011 to fire protection for Area B and parks and recreation for Revelstoke, services her constituents use.
“I have come to directors asking for fairness but it has been out-voted. Why should Area B have to wait until 2013?” she asked, noting she was surprised the previous day’s request for Jarman to come up with an option that gave her area $169,000 in 2011 was turned down. “I’m frustrated. It’s discouraging. The impacted areas are not getting the benefits.”
Parker said the PILT funds make a big difference to the less populated areas of A (Rural Golden), B and E (Rural Sicamous), areas she said that do not get a lot of other funding.
MacLeod sided with Parker in calling Policy F-29 unfair and put forward another amendment that would have included Area B in 2011, a proposal he later withdrew.
“How do you think it’s fair that Area C (South Shuswap) gets $107,000 and Sicamous gets $16,000?” asked MacLeod.
Salmon Arm director Kevin Flynn noted his appreciation that $80,000 in PILT funding has gone to the SASCU Rec Centre for several years, an amount that will be reduced to nil in two years.
“I find it interesting that we haven’t asked the CAO for his opinion,” said Flynn, referring to chief administrative officer Charles Hamilton.
Hamilton told directors he opposed amending the policy brought before the board for approval last week.
As one of the principal authors of Policy F-29, Hamilton said the $1.1 million in PILT funding is 8.5 per cent of the total CSRD revenue and, as such, should be employed for the good of the organization as a whole, while balancing it with the needs of the affected or impacted areas.
“I have a difficult time to believe that the legislative intent behind the PILT program was to simply enrich one group of taxpayers and deprive the vast majority of any benefit whatsoever,” he said.
Hamilton told directors that since he took over as chief administrative officer over two ago, he has put a lot of emphasis on improving the level of support CSRD provides to electoral area administration.
“EA administration is labour intensive and costly,” he said. “My thinking was that by allocating a portion of the PILT funds to EA administration – just as we do for general government – a broad benefit would be achieved by the taxpayers in all the electoral areas.”
With that, directors approved the policy as presented to them in the board meeting agenda, with directors Parker, MacLeod, Ron Oszust (Area A Golden-Columbia) and Rhona Martin (Area E Sicamous-Malakwa) opposed.
Last year, $150,000 was used from the Sicamous/ Area E Economic Opportunity Fund to help get a new, community learning centre in Malakwa going. The fund has also been used for Sicamous skateboard park and the water park.
MacLeod says the board’s decision was made for the sake of the CSRD budget, and that he would continue to argue for Sicamous and Area E so that funding continues beyond the 2013 cutoff.
“This money is for the affected areas, and our argument here in Sicamous and Area E, is we’ve always been part of the impact area right from day one,” says MacLeod. “A lot of our loggers and contractors, that’s there backyard. And we’ve received this money basically from day one… For sure places like Revelstoke and the outlying area, they expect to receive more and so they should. But yeah, I think it’s all going to work out fine.”