The City of Kelowna will receive nearly $2.9 million from the provincial government over the next two years. The Strategic Community Investment Funds replace the Traffic Fine Revenue Sharing grant for the next two years. In explaining the change to City Council, Finance Director, Keith Grayston, says the intent of the change is to provide faster, strategic funding to communities to help offset the effects of the current economic conditions.
Grayston says Kelowna will receive payments on a previously determined schedule:
- $1.56 million - March 2009
- $752,000 - July 2009
- $581,000 - July 2010.
The funding is approximately $36,000 less than the city anticipated receiving from traffic fine revenues over the next two years, however, Grayston says with interest earned on the reserve funds, there should be no impact to the 2010 budget. Under the Traffic Fine Revenue Sharing grant, communities were required to spend the funds on new RCMP members and municipal staff and report to the province where the money was spent. Grayston says intended use of the restructured funding is similar to the traffic fine revenue. The city must sign the agreement by March 13 in order to receiving the grant funding.
No comments:
Post a Comment