On Tuesday, the Community Services Committee is meeting. It will be discussing funding the City gives to external organisations for community programs. There is a recommendation to decrease Community Group Funding over the next few years.

In my mind, there are four important questions before Council:

What level of funding should the City give to community groups?
If Council makes changes to Community Group Funding, when should they be made?
Once Community Group Funding is at the level Council decides is appropriate, should there be provisions for it to change with the community?
How should Community Group Funding be allocated to specific organisations?

I’m still deciding where I’m going to land on these questions. So I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Following is some background on Community Group Funding, what is being recommended, and some perspectives on the key questions before Council. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

WHAT IS COMMUNITY GROUP FUNDING?

Community Group Funding is important. There are many non-profit groups that make vital contributions to our community. They are often better positioned than the City to improve the well-being of residents. They are also often able to deliver crucial programs at a lower cost than government can. Funding some of these organisations makes sense.

The types of groups that receive funding include:

Libraries (these receive approximately half of the City’s Community Group Funding)
Cultural groups (ex: South Peace Regional Archives, Centre for Creative Arts, the Art Gallery)
Youth and senior organisations (ex: Big Brothers and Sisters, Golden Age Centre)
Economic development initiatives (ex: Community Futures, Regional Tourism Association)
Neighbourhood Associations
Community outreach and rehabilitative initiatives (ex: Youth Emergency Shelter, Saint Lawrence Centre, Rising Above)
Sport groups (ex: Regional Sport Connector, Nitehawk, Curling Club)
Safety initiatives (ex: STARS, Technical Search and Rescue, Victims Services)

In 2020, the City contributed a little over $4,000,000 to community groups.

Some of this funding was given through a number of grant programs. These programs include Neighbourhood Enhancement, Arts Development, Parks Improvement, and event grants.

Most funding was awarded directly by Council. You can see the funding allocations Council made in 2020 by looking in the rightmost column of this table. (Note: Council amended this chart to award $15,000 to the Grande Prairie Street Performers- all other 2020 Grant Recommendations were adopted as presented).

WHAT CHANGES ARE RECOMMENDED?

Administration is recommending that Council approve either a 15% or 10% reduction in Community Group Funding during future funding cycles. The reason for this recommendation:

A priority of Council has been to get our residential property taxes more in line with other Alberta cities. As we seek to do that, administration has done some spending comparisons between Grande Prairie and other municipalities. One area spending area studied: Community Group Funding.

Red Deer and Airdrie were unable to provide information about how they fund external groups. However, St. Albert, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge provided their numbers. Here is what various municipalities are spending per capita on Community Group Funding (all graphs taken from this staff report):

You’ll notice that St. Albert is very high compared to others. A big reason for that: it charges its library for rent and utilities, where these are provided to libraries as a gift in kind elsewhere (including in Grande Prairie).

A comparison was also done to look at how much money various municipalities contribute to grant programs. Here is what was found:

Compared to other municipalities, Grande Prairie seems to be providing more per capita to external groups. Therefore, to bring us more in line with elsewhere, it is being recommended that Grande Prairie reduce the funding granted to external groups.

There are two potential scenarios being presented. One is a 15% ($605,652) per funding cycle reduction. It would look like this:

Another potential scenario would see a 10% ($403,768) reduction per cycle. That looks like this:

I doubt I’ll support either one of these proposals. Over the six years considered, they represent too deep of cuts.

However, I firmly believe that we need to re-vamp how we do Community Group Funding. And I’m open to considering a reduction in total funding. So I’m glad to have this conversation get started.

Following are the key questions the Council needs to answer as it considers Community Group Funding.

FOUR QUESTIONS BEFORE COUNCIL

1) WHAT IS THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF COMMUNITY GROUP FUNDING?

I don’t know yet where I will land on this question. Here are some reasons to consider decreasing funding, as well as reasons to maintain or even increase it.

Reasons someone might support reducing Community Group Funding

We appear to be providing more funding per capita than comparative municipalities
Due to our economy, many taxpayers are struggling: our priority should be on tax relief
Due to senior levels of government making big cuts, City finances are under pressure: our priority should be on critical internal programs (click here to learn more about the cuts the City is experiencing)
If residents see value in a program, they should be given opportunity to support it through donations rather than through taxes

Reasons someone might support maintaining (or even increasing) Community Group Funding

Our City is growing and inflation is increasing costs
As a northern City, Grande Prairie needs more community enhancement programs than communities further south
Due to our economy, private donor dollars are decreasing: government funding is needed to maintain programs
Due to provincial cutbacks, many groups are already seeing reduced government funding: reducing municipal funding could have a big impact on community programs
For people struggling with employment, low cost community programs are more important than ever

2) WHEN SHOULD DECISIONS ABOUT COMMUNITY GROUP FUNDING GET MADE?

There are compelling reasons to decide on Community Group Funding soon. There are also compelling reasons to hold off on making any decisions. Here is some perspectives on both sides of this question:

Reasons to make decisions soon

Making a decision sooner rather than later will allow community groups to better plan for the future
If a funding reduction is made, the City might lose out on savings by delaying a decision

Reasons to delay decisions

The 2020 Provincial Budget will likely significantly impact some groups. It makes sense to wait and see what this impact will be before making our own decisions.
We’re currently doing a study of what community programs are operating and what programs are needed in the City- results of it should inform our Community Funding discussion (more info on this initiative here)

3) Should Community Group Funding change with the city?

I don’t think Community Group Funding should be brought to a certain level and then left to stagnate. Our city is likely to keep growing. Additionally, inflation makes the cost of programs more expensive year over year. If funding doesn’t grow, then the impact it has on the community will decrease over time.

At the same time, there is always the possibility that our community will shrink. If that happens, there should be provision made to decrease the funding given to external groups.

It isn’t enough for Council to set Community Group Funding to an appropriate level. It should also make some sort of provision for funding to change over time to adapt to the community and to economic conditions.

I can think of two natural ways to do this:

Set Community Group Funding to be a percentage of the City’s operating budget
Direct that Community Group Funding should increase at the rate of inflation every year, and be changed after every census to maintain per capita levels

4) How should funding be disbursed to organisations?

It isn’t enough for Council to set the total amount of Community Group Funding it will allocate. We also need to figure out how we will disburse those funds.

I’m not going to use this post to get into detailed discussion about how funds should be allocated to different organisations (perhaps that will get a post of its own someday). However, one thing is clear to me: Council shouldn’t just make a sweeping, across-the-board change to all groups. This would be inadvisable for a number of reasons. Three big ones:

We need to prioritize funding current community priorities. How we proportion out funding should not just be based on how we have historically disbursed funds.
The programs we fund have very different purposes and this needs to be recognized. For example, a program dealing with vulnerable people should not be approached in the same way as a cultural program.
The organisations we fund are very different. For example, the library is a large organisation that is based on provincial legislation and that has a board which is appointed by Council. It shouldn’t be approached in the same way as a small, fully independent organisation run by volunteers.

Council doesn’t just need to figure out how much total money to contribute to external groups. It also needs to determine how to allocate that funding.

ONE OTHER RECOMMENDATION: STREAMLINING GRANTS

Committee will also be discussing another recommendation coming from administration. The concerns the Neighbourhood Matching, Parks Improvement, and Community Enhancement grants.

These three grants have a lot of overlap. They are all given to local groups to undertake projects which will improve public spaces. We frequently see groups apply for all of these grants while undertaking a single project. That leads to a lot of wasted time for the groups themselves as well as for City staff and Council.

Administration is recommending that these three separate programs be rolled into a single grant. The total funding given out under these programs would be maintained. However, it would all be accessed through a one process.

I’m fully in support of this recommendation. I’ve never understood why these grants are separate, and I like to see us making our processes more efficient.

A NOTE ABOUT PROCESS

The recommendations described above are being discussed by the Community Services Committee. This is a Committee made up of three Councillors and the Mayor.

I’m not on this committee. I’m allowed to go to its meeting and participate in conversation. However, I am not allowed to make or vote on motions.

This committee exists to do pre-work before something goes to a regular Council meeting. It cannot authorize any changes on its own. All it can do is recommend that Council make changes. If committee does make recommendations, they would be debated and voted on by Council at a future City Council meeting.

So: there will be some important conversation but no decisions getting made this week.

PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

This is a very tough conversation.

On one hand, I’ve got a TONNE of thankfulness for all the groups the City supports. Grande Prairie is a great place to live. The programs that receive Community Group Funding are all a big part of making our community so awesome. And many of them are at risk do to cutbacks from both private donors and from the province. There is a great case to be made to maintain current funding levels.

On the other hand, the City is facing mounting fiscal pressure. Due to our economy, many families and businesses are struggling. We’re facing huge budget constraints from other levels of government (click here for more information). And, compared to other Alberta municipalities, our residential taxes are high. Since we are aggresively pursuing savings elsewhere, it might make sense to reduce Community Group Funding.

I don’t yet know where I’m going to land in terms of to what amount we should be funding external groups.

And, regardless of where we end up on the total funding allocation: we need to figure out how to disburse it, and how to insure it changes with future community needs.

As I form my positions, I’d love to hear from you.

What questions do you have?

Are you comfortable with our current Community Group Funding? Or do you think it should be changed (either decreased or increased)?

How should community group funding change in the future?

And how should we disburse the funds we set aside for external groups?

You can share your thoughts here. Of find me on Facebook. Or give me a call at 780-402-4166 or email me at dbressey@cityofgp.com.

Thanks for reading!

-Dylan

Community Group Funding (at Committee This Week)