St. Albert's Youth Community Centre (YCC) might be forced to close its doors after council voted unanimously Monday to redistribute grant money it typically receives to other agencies in the community starting next year.
"This isn't going to be easy for the board or their staff to deal with," said Mayor Nolan Crouse.
At issue was the Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) grant the YCC has received annually since it opened in 1997. The Community Services Advisory Board (CSAB), charged with distributing the funds to programs throughout the community, reviewed the YCC's application for 2012 and agreed to fund it only from January to June.
In the interim, the CSAB asked the YCC for additional information to help it decide whether or not the YCC would qualify for another six months of funding. A report was presented to the CSAB March 31 and several follow up questions were forwarded to the YCC.
After reviewing the report and answers to the questions, the CSAB decided to fund the YCC through the rest of this year for transition reasons, but apparently voted against extending any further funding beyond 2012.
The exact reasons for the denial of future funding are confidential and the board gave no reasons for its justification on keeping the report private, saying only the decision came from an in camera discussion.
"For the purpose of this public report, it is noted that CSAB was unanimously unsupportive of funding the Youth Community Centre beyond those funds already committed for the 2012 year," the agenda report states.
The St. Albert Gazette asked council to make public the reasons behind the CSAB's decision during Monday's meeting. Coun. Malcolm Parker served a notice of motion to make the report public. It is not known when the notice of motion will return to council for a vote.
"I know that CSAB goes into camera to have discussions every year when they review applications to maintain the integrity of organizations," said FCSS director Scott Rodda. "What is made public is its recommendation."
But at least one councillor was wary of making such a decision without public information.
"We're essentially ceasing funding of youth to community but we can't explain it to the public," said Coun. Wes Brodhead.
YCC future
Though the CSAB stated it would originally only give the centre six months of funding, it decided to fund its programs through the rest of 2012 "for any necessary transition planning and honour human resource commitments."
The YCC will receive $114,183 for 2012.
"The decision to support the YCC receiving their full-year funding was to allow them time to find alternative funding for 2013 should they continue their operation," the agenda report states. "CSAB originally recommended providing 90 days notice but did not want to cause undue stress or hardship to the YCC."
Former YCC executive director and current board chair Doug Campbell was on hand for council's vote and left chambers shortly afterwards, appearing emotional. He declined to make any statement until the board meets, which he says will take place within five days.
"Our board has to sit down and review it, review the intent," Campbell said.
Campbell said he was notified Friday afternoon of the CSAB recommendation.
"We have known about the six months and we did prepare our reports and we found out on Friday the motion would be made," Campbell said.
According to Rodda, the intent is to reallocate how youth programming is funded, not to reduce how much is invested in youth.
"We advocate that service be broader and to a broader range of all youth and to not have a significant investment in a small number of youth," Rodda said.
Rodda repeated that FCSS grants "fund programs, not organizations."
The agenda report intimated the youth centre's approach to servicing youth is not in line with the CSAB's goals.
"Furthermore, consideration was given to preferred investments going forward into 2013 in terms of targeted programming, as well, the desire to shift investments to align better with primary prevention," the report states.
