Prince George City Council has voted against a motion that would have given funds to five seniors centres in the City, but they plan to meet to help figure out how they can better support seniors moving forward.
At tonight’s (Monday) meeting, Prince George Mayor Simon Yu put forward a report, asking City Council to consider allocating the remaining Council contingency fund to help address a financial gap affecting the Prince George and District Senior Citizens Activity Centre Society.
However, he changed it so that it would go to each of the five senior centres, divided equally.
“I really do believe they should all receive a Christmas present from the Council,” Yu said.
Yu put forward two motions.
The first was to distribute the remaining balance of the Council Contingency Fund ($17,691) equally among the five senior citizen organizations.
The second was to direct Administration to engage with senior organizations to determine whether a budget enhancement is required in the coming year to adequately support these organizations.
Councillor Kyle Sampson said he was looking at it differently, calling it a band-aid.
“My concern with the approach is that dipping into contingency to directly support one or a few organizations without a broader look at how the landscape is for seniors programming in our community, what their needs truly are, is a bit reactive and is not providing a long term solution to folks who need it,” Sampson said.
Sampson said he felt they should be bringing the seniors groups together to have a facilitated session to understand where they may be struggling, where they could collaborate, and see if there’s a way the city could do to help.
Councillor Susan Scott said she supported that direction.
“I think we do need to come together in a different way to talk about how we can work better, how we can make our resources go further,” Scott said.
“Every one of us sitting in this room and those listening have a finite amount of resources available to them, and we all have to learn how to make those resources work smarter and harder.”
Councillor Brian Skakun said he would support Yu’s motion, but agreed that a deeper look is needed.
“I definitely think we need to know what their challenges are,” Skakun said.
Asked by Councillor Cori Ramsay, Director of Finance and IT Services Kris Dalio reminded Council that unspent Council Contingency Funds go towards the surplus for the next year.
“I feel like when we get to the end of the year, Council Contingency isn’t just this slush fund of money that we should just allocate to the maximum amount, it is moneys that do go to the following year to help reduce the tax levy and the burden on others,” Ramsay said.
“While I totally understand it’s important to support our seniors groups, our seniors aren’t the only groups that are in need, there’s a lot of other groups around the City of Prince George that also need support.”
Ramsay added with Yu’s pivot to splitting the funds, she added there were a lot of variables that she didn’t have time to consider, such as permissive tax exemptions.
Dalio also added that the $17,691.00 number may not have been accurate, as the City underspent on another project funded by Council Contingency earlier in the year.
Councillor Tim Bennett said he was having an easier time with Yu’s new motion, but he still had concerns.
“I think there is a need to, how do we further support our senior centres, and provide resources to allow them to continue the great work that they’re doing and stretching every dollar, probably better than we’re able to stretch it as a community,”
“But I do have concerns with just approving an amount for the sake of approving an amount.”
Councillor Ron Polillo said the motion is very well intentioned, but the pivot threw him for a loop.
“I do feel that it is short-term, and it’s not sustainable,” Polillo said.
Polillo said this also brings up a larger question of how the Council Contingency Fund is used.
“I’m not going to bring that discussion up here tonight,” he added.
“I know at Finance and Audit, I had suggested that that’s something I would like Council to look at in budget discussion, I’m not sure it’s the best way to use taxpayer dollars quite frankly. I would like and encourage my Council colleagues to have a discussion coming up during budget and month of whether we should even have Council contingency.”
After an amendment to remove the dollar figure, Council ultimately defeated the motion.
Following the vote, many of the visibly upset seniors in attendance got up and left, making remarks such as “you’ll be here one day,” and “their time will come” on their way out, which led to Manager of Legislative Services Ethan Anderson asking that they be quiet during Council proceedings.
Sampson put forward an amendment with more detail to Yu’s second motion.
“The issue I have with this, this is making a phone call and saying would you like us to ask for more money in the tax process, and would you like us to give you more money,” Sampson said.
“The engagement needs to go deeper. We need to understand where their opportunities are, where their challenges are, we need to understand where there’s opportunity for efficiency, where we can help them collaborate with each other, and we need to understand what kind of feedback they have for us on our grant process.”
Sampson’s motion called for a facilitated, collaborative session with representatives from each of the seniors centres, with a one-time budget of up to $5,000 from the Council Contingency Fund to support the session.
This motion was passed.
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