Council puts a freeze on funding levels

Bruce Walkinshaw - Penticton Western News February 23, 2010 6:00 PM

With the City of Penticton dealing with the fiscal repercussions of the worst worldwide recession in decades, local festivals and community societies should view a city-grant freeze, as opposed to a cutback, in a positive light. Such was the sentiment implied (if not outright stated) by Penticton council’s unanimous vote Monday night to freeze funding at 2009 levels — or at a reduced amount in cases where the applications are already less — for the more than 60 groups who had been preliminarily approved for city grants. The vote came after council, over the last six weeks or so, had heard from several delegations, the bulk of whom could be crudely categorized as either one of the many grant applicants demonstrating a need for more funding, or a representative from the business community urging the city to reduce spending and civic taxation. The list of organizations that will have their grants frozen or approved at a lower amount include: Ironman, the Penticton Art Gallery, Community Arts Council, the Okanagan Children’s Festival, the Peach Festival Society, the South Okanagan Seniors Wellness Society, Penticton Search and Rescue and the Salvation Army.

“This is not a motion that would see us taking anything away from any particular group here by having us go through (the budget) line by line,” said Coun. Mike Pearce, regarding his “companion motions” to freeze both the grants and the Penticton Public Library’s budget at 2009 levels. “I don’t think it’s appropriate this year to give any increases at all and I think our organization should go back into our books and our programs and see how we can do things more efficiently.” Pearce pointed out that city staff had estimated that Penticton gives out the largest per capita amount of civic grants for any municipality in British Columbia. “I don’t think that the general taxpayers are looking for us to increase grants,” Pearce said. “I think there comes a time when we have to take a bit of a stand right across the board.”

Coun. Garry Litke acknowledged that all the organizations on the list “do really good work” in the community. “(However), everybody is tightening their belts right now or have been for a couple years now ... (and) inside the corporation of the City of Penticton we are looking at tightening our belts,” said Litke. “I don’t think we will be hurting these festivals by holding them to the same levels they were at last year ... I think it’s better than the alternative that was discussed last time, which was the progressive reduction of grants by 10 per cent a year. “This is the year where I think we have to hold the line on that front and I think that a freeze should be generally accepted by everyone.” Within the now-frozen civic grant budget, council designated $64,000 for supplemental grant requests. The 13 or 14 supplemental applications will be discussed at another budget meeting today at 5 p.m. at City Hall, including requests for: Octoberfest, Canada Day Fireworks and Celebrations, South Okanagan Volunteer Society, Peaches Daycare, Penticton and Area Cycling Association, the Penticton Italian Society and the Community Foundation of South Okanagan. The supplemental grant requests total over $212,000.