St. Albert city council’s decision to change the way it funds ‘outside’ agencies may have some unintended and painful consequences for the agencies that receive the funding today and the people they serve. The agencies say the decision was made without consulting them.
Council has opened the application process to other agencies and all agencies must now apply annually for funding.
We wonder how city council can know the ramifications of its actions when the city did not consult any of the agencies affected. Many agencies learned only last week that the city was considering this move. As of Monday it was a done deal. The only saving grace is that it does not kick in until 2019. Council plans to review the move in 2020.
Councillors Sheena Hughes and Ken MacKay voted against the change because they were unclear on the impact it would have on current agencies. They are right to be concerned.
The city has some good reasons to review its funding model. It wanted to make the process more open, more transparent, more equitable, and to eliminate duplication of funding to some agencies. In the past, only agencies that had received funding previously could apply. City business manager Anna Royer said this "invite-only" style was becoming increasingly difficult to justify to other agencies.
Under the old formula those eight agencies counted on funding every year, and were the only ones who could apply. The organizations that got funding this year were the St. Albert Community Village and Food Bank, St. Albert Housing Society, Victim Services, St. Albert Seniors Association, Michif Cultural and Metis Resource Institute, St. Albert Community Information and Volunteer Centre, Visual Arts Studio Association of St. Albert and St. Albert Bereavement Fellowship.
Under the new rules these groups will have to reapply every year along with everyone else. The applications will be reviewed and the Community Services Advisory Board will make recommendations to city council. There is no guarantee of funding.
The city has given out its funding ($580,000) for 2018 and when the new funding model kicks in next year, a similar amount of money is expected to be available. That gives the organizations some time to consider other funding sources, but those sources, as those in fund-raising know well, are very limited. It’s the very reason we began providing reasonably predictable funding to these agencies in the first place. Coming ‘cap-in-hand’ every year is going to be a significant challenge and may force a reduction in services. Business planning just got a lot more difficult.
No one is disagreeing that council needs to spend taxpayers' dollars prudently. At the same time, the way the new funding decision was made has created unwelcome uncertainty for the groups providing services to the most vulnerable in our community. It all might have been avoided if the city had been open and transparent with these groups before the decision was made.
