Islands Trust Council regular meeting, May 31, 2023

[0:00:00] Voice 8: and we're up and running.

[0:00:02] Trustee Bernardo: Thank you. I'm now calling to order a meeting of the Financial

[0:00:06] Trustee Bernardo: Planning Committee. Before we begin our meeting, I wish to acknowledge that we are privileged to

[0:00:12] Trustee Bernardo: live and work in lands and waters that have been the traditional home of indigenous people since

[0:00:18] Trustee Bernardo: time immemorial. As I've said before, their counsel to newcomers has always been to recognize

[0:00:24] Trustee Bernardo: the sacredness of these lands and their surrounding waters and the dignity and the worth

[0:00:30] Trustee Bernardo: of all whose lives are embedded in them and the islands trust that's actually the duty with which

[0:00:37] Trustee Bernardo: each of us has been entrusted and to fulfill that duty with honor and wisdom we must and will work

[0:00:43] Trustee Bernardo: side by side with the nations who were and continue to be the first stewards of what many

[0:00:47] Trustee Bernardo: of us now call the islands trust area and on a personal note i just want to say we open our

[0:00:54] Trustee Bernardo: meetings with this kind of acknowledgement not as a formality but as a reminder a reminder that

[0:01:00] Trustee Bernardo: as an organization our first obligation is to be guided by respect for the

[0:01:06] Trustee Bernardo: voices of all the people that we serve and with that let's move on to the

[0:01:13] Trustee Bernardo: agenda that was previously published and circulated first item on our agenda is

[0:01:18] Trustee Bernardo: to review what we intend to do today so I'm calling for any late items or

[0:01:28] Trustee Bernardo: discussion of new items or reordering of the agenda if anybody has any comments

[0:01:31] Trustee Bernardo: along those lines not hearing anything so i'm taking that to be the agenda's fine and uh if

[0:01:43] Trustee Bernardo: it's all right with everybody i'm going to assume that the agenda is approved by consent unless i

[0:01:48] Trustee Bernardo: hear otherwise in the next few

[0:01:51] Voice 6: moments thank you uh and

[0:01:59] Trustee Bernardo: now uh this meeting is of course uh open

[0:02:01] Trustee Bernardo: to the public and we always have an opportunity for the public to make a comment or two if they

[0:02:08] Trustee Bernardo: have any points they wish to make i'm now calling for any members of the public who are watching

[0:02:13] Trustee Bernardo: this uh live stream if they have any comments to make uh

[0:02:18] Voice 6: now's the time to do it chair there are no

[0:02:24] Voice 6: members of the public in attendance thank

[0:02:28] Trustee Bernardo: you and uh i see from the agenda there are no no

[0:02:32] Trustee Bernardo: delegations there's no delegations nor correspondence to deal with so we'll move on to

[0:02:37] Trustee Bernardo: the next point which is uh reviewing and uh if they meet with our approval uh approving uh the

[0:02:47] Trustee Bernardo: minutes of our previous meetings and we have two sets of minutes before us i've gone through the

[0:02:53] Trustee Bernardo: minutes they look fine to me but if anybody has any comments about either set of minutes

[0:02:57] Trustee Bernardo: um could

[0:03:00] Voice 6: you please uh make those points now no comments uh and

[0:03:13] Trustee Bernardo: i'm gonna in the interest of just

[0:03:14] Trustee Bernardo: moving things along i'm going to uh assume unless i hear otherwise that the minutes are approved by

[0:03:21] Voice 6: consent both sets of minutes all right that's done let's move on to the next item if

[0:03:32] Trustee Bernardo: we could have

[0:03:32] Trustee Bernardo: the agenda put up there yes okay uh what we have here now is the i believe the follow-up action

[0:03:41] Trustee Bernardo: report our

[0:03:44] Voice 6: action list uh for review i'll be honest i'm not entirely sure uh what we should

[0:03:53] Voice 6: be reviewing here in terms of that um

[0:03:55] Trustee Bernardo: do we from staff do we have any of the ongoing uh and

[0:04:02] Trustee Bernardo: follow-up items do we have anything to report from staff with respect to

[0:04:08] Voice 6: um the items are in

[0:04:09] Voice 6: progress i have nothing sir all right thank you and if i'm not mistaken if i could look at this

[0:04:21] Voice 6: again um this the

[0:04:26] Trustee Bernardo: follow-up when i was reading this last night i think the follow-up action list

[0:04:33] Trustee Bernardo: include items that have been completed, is that right?

[0:04:35] Trustee Bernardo: I'm trying to remember if that's what I saw here.

[0:04:42] Voice 6: That's correct, Mr. Chair.

[0:04:44] Trustee Bernardo: And I think I've commented on this before,

[0:04:47] Trustee Bernardo: but is it just in terms of just trying to keep things

[0:04:52] Trustee Bernardo: a little simpler and easier to review?

[0:04:57] Trustee Bernardo: I mean, this can be just a personal thing,

[0:05:00] Trustee Bernardo: but I find it a little distracting.

[0:05:02] Trustee Bernardo: It would be, I think, a bit more convenient if we could just

[0:05:05] Trustee Bernardo: take off the list at least at the part of the list that gets included in the agenda of those

[0:05:11] Trustee Bernardo: completed items uh it doesn't really add anything i think for the business of meeting to have those

[0:05:15] Trustee Bernardo: there but um would that be feasible uh that question is direct i see uh director mobs has

[0:05:23] Trustee Bernardo: her hand up uh feel free to comment on that um

[0:05:28] Voice 9: sure so the typical process is an item remains

[0:05:31] Voice 9: on the follow-up action list until it's completed uh then it is marked as completed and comes back

[0:05:37] Voice 9: to the committee one more time to show that it's completed and at the next meeting it will be

[0:05:42] Voice 9: removed um you know this is the the system is in place so that if an item is marked as completed

[0:05:48] Voice 9: and the committee um hasn't seen it or wishes for further clarification or work associated with an

[0:05:54] Voice 9: item that staff believer completed there's an opportunity um to take that on so at the next

[0:05:59] Voice 9: meeting all of the items booked is completed and the current meeting will drop off okay

[0:06:03] Trustee Bernardo: i get it

[0:06:04] Trustee Bernardo: all right um and i do

[0:06:06] Voice 9: have an update on some of the items uh allocated to to me if you'd like me

[0:06:10] Voice 9: to take that now or wait sure

[0:06:13] Trustee Bernardo: i i would and uh thank you for the the clarification there i i'm

[0:06:17] Trustee Bernardo: pretty sure you may have made that clarification before and i'll try to remember it next time so

[0:06:21] Trustee Bernardo: i don't gripe about this for a third time so uh i see before you proceed to report on that i saw

[0:06:28] Trustee Bernardo: that trustee elliott had her hand up so perhaps we should hear from her and then you can proceed to

[0:06:32] Trustee Bernardo: do the report yeah

[0:06:35] Trustee Elliott: i just had a question about um items four and five which are director mobs's um

[0:06:43] Trustee Elliott: responsibility and maybe you could speak to those i just didn't know where where this these items

[0:06:49] Trustee Elliott: came from and um was this the request of the previous financial planning committee

[0:06:56] Trustee Elliott: to bring back an amended remuneration policy?

[0:07:02] Voice 9: Yes, that's correct.

[0:07:03] Voice 9: So the directions to take on that work

[0:07:06] Voice 9: was given to staff at the October 2022 meeting.

[0:07:11] Voice 9: And that date is provided at the top of the report.

[0:07:15] Voice 9: The trustee remuneration policy

[0:07:17] Voice 9: has actually been looked at already

[0:07:19] Voice 9: by the former financial planning committee

[0:07:21] Voice 9: and they've made some suggestions for changes.

[0:07:23] Voice 9: And so that work needs to be completed

[0:07:25] Voice 9: and come back to FPC before it goes forward to Council for consideration.

[0:07:30] Voice 9: That dovetails quite nicely into what I wanted to talk about

[0:07:33] Voice 9: related to the work that's assigned to me.

[0:07:35] Voice 9: Most of the work there is related to financial policies that are under review.

[0:07:40] Voice 9: My intent was to bring back review of one of those policies to this meeting.

[0:07:44] Voice 9: So you might remember earlier meetings,

[0:07:46] Voice 9: there was a target date for May 31st, which is today.

[0:07:50] Voice 9: That work has been deferred to later meetings

[0:07:52] Voice 9: because Legislative Services is taking some policy review

[0:07:56] Voice 9: to Trust Council in June,

[0:07:58] Voice 9: and the results of Council's decision associated

[0:08:01] Voice 9: with that sort of overall policy review

[0:08:03] Voice 9: will impact the work that I undertake

[0:08:05] Voice 9: for financial policy review.

[0:08:07] Voice 9: So we have delayed that,

[0:08:09] Voice 9: but the intent is to have that done

[0:08:11] Voice 9: or get started in time for September Trust Council.

[0:08:16] Trustee Bernardo: All right, thank you for that.

[0:08:17] Trustee Bernardo: And Director Mobbs, perhaps you could now go

[0:08:22] Trustee Bernardo: into the rest of your comments regarding the works work in progress on at least the areas

[0:08:27] Trustee Bernardo: that you're concerned with uh

[0:08:29] Voice 9: that was that was my comments mr chair oh

[0:08:32] Trustee Bernardo: that was it nothing left to

[0:08:33] Trustee Bernardo: go into that that case that means we're going to uh next get into um the review of the draft

[0:08:42] Trustee Bernardo: financial results uh for year end or at least the highlights of them and director mobs i believe is

[0:08:49] Trustee Bernardo: going to walk us through that before we do that just a few introductory comments um i don't

[0:08:56] Trustee Bernardo: believe i could be wrong but i don't believe there's any controversial issues for debate or

[0:09:00] Trustee Bernardo: decision at this particular meeting unlike some of the other meetings that we've had so let's try to

[0:09:05] Trustee Bernardo: get ambitious here to treat and uh actually uh attempt to have an fpc meeting that actually um

[0:09:11] Trustee Bernardo: operates within the time allotted for it so we don't stagger out in exhaustion uh the principal

[0:09:18] Trustee Bernardo: task on this business item today is to review the material points in the draft year-end financial

[0:09:24] Trustee Bernardo: results that the staff has prepared. As I mentioned, Director Mobbs is going to walk us through that.

[0:09:29] Trustee Bernardo: I am sure people will have questions. Subject to any comments or insights from Director Mobbs,

[0:09:36] Trustee Bernardo: I think it makes sense for people to ask for clarifications as she works her way through

[0:09:42] Trustee Bernardo: the highlights but when we do that let's keep any expressions of opinions big picture comments or

[0:09:51] Trustee Bernardo: any outright discussion for the end of this specific presentation I say that in in the

[0:09:59] Trustee Bernardo: hopes of trying to be efficient as we go through it and there is a certain amount of detail here

[0:10:04] Trustee Bernardo: and I think before we get into any kind of discussion if it's necessary it's good to have

[0:10:09] Trustee Bernardo: a kind of a comprehensive understanding of what the whole picture is before we get into a discussion

[0:10:15] Trustee Bernardo: uh if a discussion is necessary uh i expect the net underspending will catch your eye but we know

[0:10:23] Trustee Bernardo: we knew that was coming as a result of the discussions that we had before so again let's

[0:10:28] Trustee Bernardo: wait to the end of the discussion before we get into any into any debate or discussion about that

[0:10:33] Trustee Bernardo: so over to you director mobs to walk us through these um uh draft financial results for your end

[0:10:42] Voice 9: Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'll try to be brief in the interest of time, as you say, but still give enough detail such that the committee can understand our financial results for the year.

[0:10:54] Trustee Bernardo: Just to point out, you take as much time as you need to make this information clear to us. My plea for brevity was directed to the trustees.

[0:11:05] Trustee Bernardo: days okay

[0:11:06] Voice 9: that's good clarity thanks chair so the draft march 31st 2023 financial results

[0:11:13] Voice 9: represent a full year of financial activity for the islands trust they are still considered draft

[0:11:20] Voice 9: financial statements as the year-end financial statement audit has not yet taken place that's

[0:11:24] Voice 9: scheduled for july of this year after which a complete final set of financial statements and

[0:11:30] Voice 9: notes will come to financial planning committee and also to trust council for their review and

[0:11:34] Voice 9: approval because these are still draft we are expecting some changes to a couple of areas

[0:11:39] Voice 9: primarily as it relates to the new accounting standards for asset retirement obligations

[0:11:44] Voice 9: the implementation of that standard is likely to increase our expenses and liabilities

[0:11:48] Voice 9: and reduce accumulated surplus balances we're also waiting for some new information from the

[0:11:54] Voice 9: province related to local government climate action program which is a new program they are

[0:11:59] Voice 9: undertaking and this new information may impact the accounting treatment of the funding that

[0:12:04] Voice 9: islands trust has received under this initiative other than that the draft statements are not

[0:12:10] Voice 9: expected to change significantly can

[0:12:13] Trustee Bernardo: i ask you to briefly address and explain what the

[0:12:16] Trustee Bernardo: new accounting standards are that you expect will change the expense and liability balance

[0:12:24] Trustee Bernardo: wants?

[0:12:26] Voice 9: Sure. So the new accounting standard associated with asset retirement obligations

[0:12:30] Voice 9: requires the public sector entities take a look at the assets that they lease or own and assess

[0:12:37] Voice 9: them for any obligations that may arise at the time of retirement of that asset. So retirement

[0:12:42] Voice 9: of the asset may be releasing a leasehold such as an office or selling of a building or demolishing

[0:12:49] Voice 9: or renovating a building, for example.

[0:12:51] Voice 9: So the Islands Trust does hold some property,

[0:12:54] Voice 9: and as well the Islands Trust Conservancy.

[0:12:57] Voice 9: And so assessment of those properties is still in the works

[0:13:00] Voice 9: to determine what type of liabilities may exist for us

[0:13:03] Voice 9: if we do retire those assets.

[0:13:05] Voice 9: So some of the obligations that are most relevant in our context

[0:13:09] Voice 9: are things like mainly health-related things

[0:13:13] Voice 9: associated with the building, such as lead paint or asbestos.

[0:13:17] Voice 9: So if any of our buildings have lead paint or asbestos or other materials that are deemed hazardous, there may be extra costs that Islands Trust will need to incur when those assets are retired.

[0:13:27] Voice 9: So formerly, accounting standards did not provide space for those liabilities to be accrued when the asset was owned.

[0:13:36] Voice 9: They would simply land in the financial statements at the time the asset was retired.

[0:13:39] Voice 9: And the new standard says that we need to do an assessment and record a liability for those assets when we own them.

[0:13:46] Trustee Bernardo: so those those uh kind of end of life for assets those end of life liabilities are now being

[0:13:51] Trustee Bernardo: required to be booked um that's right now as opposed to later that's correct thank you i see

[0:13:58] Trustee Bernardo: trustee boland has her hand up audio just

[0:14:04] Voice 16: yeah just just quickly and julia do we have we received

[0:14:08] Voice 16: funds or is it that we are applying for and may received funds and i don't recognize that we have

[0:14:17] Voice 16: funds from the Climate Action Program. Thanks.

[0:14:21] Voice 9: Yes, so we have received those funds. I think

[0:14:23] Voice 9: it's around $38,000 that we received last year. The program has changed. Formerly, the program

[0:14:29] Voice 9: was called the CARIB program. It was the Climate Action Revenue Incentive Program. The province

[0:14:34] Voice 9: has now completely revamped the program, which is a good thing for local governments and the

[0:14:39] Voice 9: Islands Trust, as it means we're receiving more grant funds under the program. There are new

[0:14:45] Voice 9: criteria associated with the program and the funds and what we can spend them on. Understanding that

[0:14:51] Voice 9: criteria impacts how we account for the money. So if there isn't specifications or stipulations

[0:14:57] Voice 9: associated with the funds such that we have to spend them in a certain way, and if we don't

[0:15:02] Voice 9: spend them that way, we have to repay them. Then when we receive the money, we don't recognize it

[0:15:07] Voice 9: as revenue when we receive it. Instead, we book it as unearned revenue on the statement of financial

[0:15:13] Voice 9: position and when we spend it we get to recognize it as revenue so there's still some conversation

[0:15:19] Voice 9: with the province around the stipulations of these grant funds which may change the accounting

[0:15:23] Voice 9: treatment currently it's recorded as unearned revenue so it's not included in the revenue stream

[0:15:29] Voice 9: if we receive the information that supports recognizing it when it's received we'll make

[0:15:34] Voice 9: that adjustment complicated accounting fund thank

[0:15:40] Trustee Bernardo: you for that uh and uh julia if you could

[0:15:43] Trustee Bernardo: not continue with the uh the rest of the review uh

[0:15:47] Voice 9: sure turn back to the agenda so page 33 of the

[0:15:52] Voice 9: agenda package shows the islands trust statement of financial position uh the statement of financial

[0:15:58] Voice 9: position represents a snapshot in time of the islands trust financial states and it reflects

[0:16:03] Voice 9: the values of assets liabilities and accumulated surplus at the fiscal year end date which is march

[0:16:08] Voice 9: March 31st. The most significant areas of change seen year over year in our statement of financial

[0:16:15] Voice 9: position relate primarily to cash and cash equivalents and investments. So we see a change

[0:16:21] Voice 9: in the distribution of funds that were held as cash and cash equivalents, which are short-term

[0:16:25] Voice 9: investments, versus cash that was invested in longer-term investments. So in 2022, more of our

[0:16:33] Voice 9: funds were held as cash and cash equivalents whereas in 2023 more of our funds are invested

[0:16:39] Voice 9: in longer term investment vehicles we also see a year-over-year change in the area of accounts

[0:16:45] Voice 9: receivable so there's an increase of about 109 000 related to that line and that is due to the

[0:16:51] Voice 9: approval of grant funding associated with first nations engagement work which was approved but not

[0:16:56] Voice 9: received at March 31st 2023.

[0:17:00] Trustee Bernardo: I'm wondering if Robert could move the screen back up to where

[0:17:04] Trustee Bernardo: the text is in the briefing note I think that's actually much of what you're saying in terms of

[0:17:13] Trustee Bernardo: explaining those those columns of numbers in fact you've got that in the text and I think it might

[0:17:17] Trustee Bernardo: be helpful for the trustees to follow what you're saying frankly by not looking at the the columns

[0:17:23] Trustee Bernardo: but but by you know the questions may arise as they're looking at the text it might be a little

[0:17:27] Trustee Bernardo: easier for them i certainly have one question that when you're talking about the cash and equivalents

[0:17:33] Trustee Bernardo: uh i understand your point that uh there's been an increase of 1.5 million dollars uh in terms of

[0:17:42] Trustee Bernardo: of what's being put into investments because they're longer term but our cash on hand is

[0:17:48] Trustee Bernardo: reduced by 1.8 uh where's that other 300 where's that other 300 000 gone to in terms of the the

[0:17:58] Trustee Bernardo: the cash on hand that was available

[0:17:59] Trustee Bernardo: but is no longer available?

[0:18:01] Voice 9: So that is directly related to spending in the year.

[0:18:05] Voice 9: So the approved budget for 2023 did assume

[0:18:08] Voice 9: that there would be a draw on surplus,

[0:18:11] Voice 9: which means that there would be a cash reduction.

[0:18:13] Voice 9: And so it's a direct result of the financial operations

[0:18:15] Voice 9: in the year and spending.

[0:18:17] Trustee Bernardo: All right, and that's further, you know,

[0:18:19] Trustee Bernardo: those expenditures and higher than anticipated expenditures

[0:18:23] Trustee Bernardo: and that sort of thing, that's discussed later on.

[0:18:25] Trustee Bernardo: So, okay, great.

[0:18:26] Trustee Bernardo: Great. All right. Thank you. Carry on.

[0:18:30] Voice 9: Sure. So on the liability side of things, we see a year-over-year change most significantly in the wages and benefits payable.

[0:18:38] Voice 9: So we see a reduction in the value of that liability at year-end, and that's primarily due to the timing of salaries invoices received from the Provincial Service Agency.

[0:18:48] Voice 9: The Provincial Service Agency is responsible for processing all of staff wages, and then they bill us for those payments.

[0:18:55] Voice 9: payments. And so we do see one less pay period worth of wages included in the 2023 value versus

[0:19:01] Voice 9: the 2022 value. When we move on to page 34 of the agenda package, although we may want to stick with

[0:19:13] Voice 9: the text as the chair has indicated, but page 34 of the agenda package has the statement of

[0:19:19] Voice 9: financial operations for the year. So this statement represents the financial activities

[0:19:23] Voice 9: that have taken place over the fiscal year,

[0:19:26] Voice 9: as well as the resulting surplus balances

[0:19:28] Voice 9: from those activities.

[0:19:29] Voice 9: The accumulated surplus balance

[0:19:31] Voice 9: at the end of March 31st, 2023

[0:19:34] Voice 9: is reflected at $2.5 million,

[0:19:37] Voice 9: of which 2.2 million is in the General Revenue Fund,

[0:19:41] Voice 9: 103,000 is in the Local Trust Committee

[0:19:43] Voice 9: Project Specific Reserve Fund,

[0:19:45] Voice 9: 41,000 relates to the Special Property Tax Requisition Fund,

[0:19:49] Voice 9: and 193 is invested in tangible capital assets.

[0:19:56] Voice 9: I'll move now into the details of our financial operations.

[0:20:00] Voice 9: We'll start with a look at our revenues.

[0:20:03] Voice 9: Total revenues were reported

[0:20:05] Voice 9: at almost exactly 100% of budget,

[0:20:08] Voice 9: coming in only $2,600 under budget,

[0:20:11] Voice 9: which is considered non-significant.

[0:20:13] Voice 9: We did see less revenue recognized

[0:20:15] Voice 9: from grant funds in the year,

[0:20:16] Voice 9: but this was offset by increased revenues from investments,

[0:20:19] Voice 9: And so we were still able to reach our revenue targets for the year.

[0:20:23] Voice 9: And I see, oh, I see a question.

[0:20:28] Voice 9: Do you want me to pause?

[0:20:30] Trustee Bernardo: Thank you for noting that.

[0:20:32] Trustee Bernardo: Trustee Patrick, go ahead.

[0:20:34] Trustee Patrick: I understand the revenue nearly broke even, but for fees and sales, which would be our application fees, were under.

[0:20:44] Trustee Patrick: Is there any comments on that?

[0:20:47] Voice 9: Sure.

[0:20:48] Voice 9: Sure. So we were under budget for fees and sales, and that was primarily due to a slowdown in

[0:20:52] Voice 9: application volumes that are being received at the trust. We did note this at budget setting time for

[0:20:58] Voice 9: the current fiscal year. And so it looks like that trend started last year and is continuing.

[0:21:05] Voice 9: It's a hard one to budget for fees and sales. It's hard to predict application volumes.

[0:21:13] Voice 9: Okay. I will continue on. When we look at consolidated expenses, we're seeing spending

[0:21:21] Voice 9: of $8.9 million against the approved budget of $9.3 million and that represents an overall

[0:21:27] Voice 9: underspend against budget of about $408,000. When we look at the details of that underspending by

[0:21:34] Voice 9: functional area, we start with Trust Council Services. Trust Council Services came in almost

[0:21:40] Voice 9: exactly 100% of budget spent with just a slight underspending of $5,000 overall. Again, that's

[0:21:46] Voice 9: not considered significant. Within that area of work, we did see an underspending in trust area

[0:21:52] Voice 9: services, and that was primarily due to the full year vacancy for the senior intergovernmental

[0:21:57] Voice 9: policy advisor position. And this area of underspending was offset by overspending in

[0:22:02] Voice 9: trust council related to meetings, the local elections, as well as legal costs associated

[0:22:07] Voice 9: with trust council work. As well, there was a slight underspending on administrative costs

[0:22:12] Voice 9: allocated to this area. When we move on to local trust committee services, we see a reporting at

[0:22:21] Voice 9: 92% of budget spent for the year. The most significant areas of underspending in this

[0:22:26] Voice 9: area relate to staff salaries, as we did have a number of significant vacancies in planning in

[0:22:31] Voice 9: the year. We also saw underspending on projects. Again, that's partially driven by the fact that

[0:22:37] Voice 9: there were staff vacancies. We also had new trustees who required time to be oriented into

[0:22:42] Voice 9: their role after elections there was a conscious decision not to undertake a planned heritage

[0:22:48] Voice 9: overlay mapping project which was budgeted at 74 000 and there was also some delays in the planned

[0:22:55] Voice 9: timing for the local government development application approvals project and those were

[0:23:00] Voice 9: the most significant areas of underspending we also saw some slightly less underspending in

[0:23:06] Voice 9: local trust committee costs and that was mainly due to high legal costs associated with litigation

[0:23:11] Voice 9: litigation against LTCs. And sorry, that was an overspend.

[0:23:16] Trustee Bernardo: Can you comment on that? I mean, was that, if you can, that number that's spent on litigation

[0:23:24] Trustee Bernardo: against LTCs is, how much is that over the average? You know, over say

[0:23:32] Trustee Bernardo: a five-year average,

[0:23:34] Trustee Bernardo: you know, you don't have to be exact about it. I'm just trying to get a grasp of

[0:23:38] Trustee Bernardo: how big a spike that actually is.

[0:23:40] Trustee Bernardo: I

[0:23:41] Voice 9: don't have that information. I'd have to pull up our data on averages. This is looking at a comparison to the budget. We did have some reductions in the approved budget last year. A lot of our areas of spending took a bit of a haircut during budget approval time. And so that's probably contributed to some of the overspending.

[0:24:02] Trustee Bernardo: Yeah, that was a general question I was going to ask later, but I might as well ask it now,

[0:24:07] Trustee Bernardo: since you've touched on it. If you go going through all of these numbers, it's clear there's

[0:24:13] Trustee Bernardo: a bunch of different areas where overspending is indicated. As a practical matter, is that in fact

[0:24:22] Trustee Bernardo: largely a result of the fact that we had a zero increase in the budget last year,

[0:24:27] Trustee Bernardo: that these expenditures were basically forced on us because

[0:24:31] Trustee Bernardo: that's what the operations actually cost and we just didn't budget for the appropriate number?

[0:24:36] Voice 9: I think it's a combination of factors. We did see a reduction in many budget areas last year,

[0:24:44] Voice 9: which of course requires a change in sort of spending behaviors. So that was part of it.

[0:24:50] Voice 9: We also did see a higher than normal staff cost increases handed to us by the union and the

[0:24:56] Voice 9: the provincial service agency. So that was a primary driver as well. With the local elections

[0:25:02] Voice 9: that took place, there was some additional costs associated with new trustees. So we had under

[0:25:07] Voice 9: budgeted in the area of computer purchases, for example, and information services, software

[0:25:14] Voice 9: licenses. So we did have to procure extra associated with that. A number of our office

[0:25:19] Voice 9: leases were renewed in the year. And of course, with rising costs everywhere and inflation being

[0:25:24] Voice 9: high or landlords are passing those costs on to the islands trust and so that's also a contributing

[0:25:29] Voice 9: factor. Yeah, I think those are primarily the drivers in conjunction with the fact that budgets

[0:25:37] Voice 9: were reduced.

[0:25:38] Trustee Bernardo: Well, the increase in labor costs we know is the biggest driver of what we had to

[0:25:44] Trustee Bernardo: deal with in terms of overspending. We've dealt with that before. Would you say that the zero

[0:25:53] Trustee Bernardo: zero budget strategy of the last budget cycle.

[0:26:00] Trustee Bernardo: Would you say that's the second biggest driver

[0:26:01] Trustee Bernardo: in terms of causing these costs,

[0:26:04] Trustee Bernardo: these numbers to come in as overspending?

[0:26:10] Voice 9: I think it was more so external factors.

[0:26:15] Voice 9: There would definitely be particular areas

[0:26:19] Voice 9: where I think that would have had an impact,

[0:26:22] Voice 9: Act, but external drivers, I think, are more largely contributing.

[0:26:28] Voice 6: Okay, that's good to know. Thank you. Trustee Boland?

[0:26:34] Voice 16: I'm looking at the overspending due to legal costs, and I see that's local trust committee

[0:26:41] Voice 16: expenses, which, okay, so it's across all the local trust committee, but that's, you know,

[0:26:48] Voice 16: an increase of an overspend of 100 000 is as far as i remember probably a 20 to 25 percent overspend

[0:26:58] Voice 16: on legal costs and we've discussed this before but i don't know where to land this but if we

[0:27:03] Voice 16: really need to dig into this at some stage and i don't know what heading to put under it but

[0:27:08] Voice 16: but I really like to see a breakdown of trends

[0:27:11] Voice 16: and to see how this feeds in and is integrated,

[0:27:18] Voice 16: let's say with bylaw enforcement statistics.

[0:27:21] Voice 16: And I don't know if anybody else has anything

[0:27:24] Voice 16: to add to that.

[0:27:26] Voice 16: Thanks.

[0:27:29] Trustee Bernardo: All right, thank you for that comment.

[0:27:30] Trustee Bernardo: And a reminder though,

[0:27:32] Trustee Bernardo: that we do wanna stay ourselves a bit more disciplined,

[0:27:36] Trustee Bernardo: just stay focused at this juncture

[0:27:38] Trustee Bernardo: on asking clarifying questions.

[0:27:39] Trustee Bernardo: i think that counts but uh and if an answer is possible director mobs now that'd be great

[0:27:47] Trustee Bernardo: if it requires uh some some time to figure out well we're going to be in your hands so that we

[0:27:53] Trustee Bernardo: can get a an answer to that question yeah i'm happy

[0:27:56] Voice 16: to i'm happy to park it it's just i wanted

[0:27:59] Voice 16: to draw attention to it thank you yeah justin peterson yeah

[0:28:04] Voice 4: on that i just note that the the

[0:28:06] Voice 4: lion's share of that overspending on uh on legal is associated with new claims against local trust

[0:28:13] Voice 4: committees so i honestly don't see how that's something we can mitigate i mean those are new

[0:28:21] Voice 4: claims against not something we have initiated so just

[0:28:25] Voice 6: wanted to point that out thank you for that

[0:28:29] Voice 6: and uh director mobs please resume i have to admit i've forgotten where we are

[0:28:39] Trustee Bernardo: We're talking about local trust committee costs.

[0:28:42] Trustee Bernardo: And by the way, there's a term that's used in the document here, LPS.

[0:28:46] Trustee Bernardo: It's not defined anywhere.

[0:28:48] Trustee Bernardo: I assume that means local planning services.

[0:28:50] Trustee Bernardo: Is that right?

[0:28:51] Voice 9: That's right, yes.

[0:28:52] Voice 9: My apologies.

[0:28:54] Trustee Bernardo: All right, thank you.

[0:28:56] Voice 9: So I think we've covered everything that needs to be touched on

[0:29:00] Voice 9: when we look at the spending in local trust committee services.

[0:29:02] Voice 9: So we can move on to Islands Trust Conservancy Services.

[0:29:09] Voice 9: ITC Services was reporting at 103% of budget, so a very slight overall overspending, which is primarily due, again, to increased staff costs associated with higher than expected wage increases that were handed to us from the union, as well as an increase in general administration costs that are associated with the Conservancy function.

[0:29:28] Voice 9: function. These areas of overspend were offset slightly by underspending and property management

[0:29:34] Voice 9: work and that was primarily due to delays in work that specifically is targeting climate change

[0:29:39] Voice 9: as well as a deferral of work associated with a contracted labour shortage as well as lower

[0:29:45] Voice 9: costs that were achieved for some of the work that actually did take place in the year which

[0:29:49] Voice 9: is a positive thing. Looking at overall general administration which is incurred and then

[0:29:55] Voice 9: and allocated out to the various areas of function.

[0:29:58] Voice 9: We see total

[0:30:00] Voice 9: bringing in at 101% of the overall budget. Within that overall figure, we do see overspending in

[0:30:07] Voice 9: almost slight overspending in almost every area, with the exception of office operations.

[0:30:12] Voice 9: So that area of underspending is primarily due to the fact that the approved 2023 budget included

[0:30:18] Voice 9: additional funds for contracted help to bring some improvements to administrative process.

[0:30:23] Voice 9: process. We weren't able to secure a worker for that work who stuck around. Unfortunately,

[0:30:29] Voice 9: the person we'd secured to take on some of that work found permanent employment

[0:30:32] Voice 9: and departed the organization, and so that work was halted, and we see an underspending in that

[0:30:37] Voice 9: area as a result. The areas of overspending are primarily due to, again, higher than budgeted

[0:30:44] Voice 9: increases for staff, extra staff costs due to backfilling of staff on extended leave,

[0:30:49] Voice 9: overspending of information technology services due to unused staff vacation in the year,

[0:30:54] Voice 9: and also, as I mentioned previously, increased spending on laptops for new trustees,

[0:30:59] Voice 9: as this was an under-budgeted area of spending. This additional area of spending associated with

[0:31:04] Voice 9: the laptops was approved by executive committee prior to procurement. On page 30 of the agenda,

[0:31:14] Voice 9: we see consolidated expenses by object. So you might recall from the financial session during

[0:31:20] Voice 9: orientation but we are required to present our financial results by functional area which we've

[0:31:25] Voice 9: just reviewed and also by object and so that is primarily to facilitate use of information

[0:31:32] Voice 9: understanding so we've presented that on page 31 of the agenda I won't go through it because it

[0:31:37] Voice 9: conveys the same information that we've just reviewed so I'll turn it back to you Mr. Chair

[0:31:42] Voice 9: thank

[0:31:44] Trustee Bernardo: you for that it's fairly straightforward and there's no real surprises here because

[0:31:51] Trustee Bernardo: because when we were struggling with trying to come up

[0:31:53] Trustee Bernardo: with a budget for this fiscal year,

[0:31:56] Trustee Bernardo: we really did cover a lot of the structural issues

[0:32:00] Trustee Bernardo: that explain some of these differentials

[0:32:04] Trustee Bernardo: in terms of the numbers,

[0:32:05] Trustee Bernardo: in terms of understanding that sort of thing.

[0:32:07] Trustee Bernardo: So now, do we have any comments or questions

[0:32:10] Trustee Bernardo: about the presentation as a whole,

[0:32:12] Trustee Bernardo: or any opinions that people wish to express

[0:32:14] Trustee Bernardo: about what we've heard so far?

[0:32:16] Trustee Bernardo: Trustee Patrick?

[0:32:19] Trustee Patrick: I don't think we need to take a lot of time

[0:32:21] Trustee Patrick: in today's meeting, because this is not,

[0:32:23] Trustee Patrick: but it's the local trust committee projects being underspent

[0:32:27] Trustee Patrick: by around, well, exactly, almost $301,000.

[0:32:31] Trustee Patrick: And I think this is one of the reasons

[0:32:33] Trustee Patrick: of the corporate planning process that we're talking about

[0:32:36] Trustee Patrick: and to finally maybe bring those numbers

[0:32:38] Trustee Patrick: closer together in the future.

[0:32:41] Trustee Bernardo: That's the goal,

[0:32:42] Voice 6: that's for sure.

[0:32:43] Voice 6: Thank you for that comment.

[0:32:46] Voice 6: Anything further?

[0:32:47] Voice 6: Now, before us, I think we

[0:32:53] Trustee Bernardo: have a request for a decision,

[0:32:54] Trustee Bernardo: which is to forward this information,

[0:33:00] Trustee Bernardo: Presumably, it'll be revised as necessary if there's adjustments between now and the next Trust Council meeting, but my understanding is that we have a request for a decision here to forward these financial results to Trust

[0:33:15] Voice 6: Council. Is that right? I see Trustee Graham has his hand up.

[0:33:22] Voice 6: Happy

[0:33:23] Voice 3: to make that motion, Chair. I move that the Financial Planning Committee forward the

[0:33:27] Voice 3: draft March 31, 2023 financial results to Trust Council for approval.

[0:33:33] Trustee Bernardo: Thank you for that. Just a quick clarification. Did staff actually have that drafted up already,

[0:33:39] Trustee Bernardo: that resolution or that motion? I see Trustee Peterson is nodding his head violently.

[0:33:46] Trustee Bernardo: Perhaps we could just have the motion put up on the screen.

[0:33:52] Trustee Elliott: It is on the screen in the recommendations, sir.

[0:33:57] Voice 6: I'm having trouble seeing it here. Oh, I see. Great. Well, thank you for that.

[0:34:06] Voice 6: I second the motion, if that's

[0:34:08] Trustee Bernardo: appropriate.

[0:34:09] Trustee Bernardo: Yes, thank you. Trustee Bowman seconds the motion. Any further

[0:34:12] Voice 6: discussion on the motion?

[0:34:18] Voice 6: Hearing none, I'm putting up for a vote. All those in favor, raise your hands.

[0:34:28] Voice 6: Thank you. Please lower your hands. All opposed or any opposed, please raise your hands.

[0:34:37] Voice 6: The motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Moving on to the next item, 7.2.

[0:34:49] Trustee Bernardo: We have a discussion here, I believe, on the BCGEU wage increase. I think we're going to have a bit more clarification coming from Director Mobs on that front. Director Mobs?

[0:35:03] Voice 9: Sure. So we need to shift mental gears at this point.

[0:35:06] Voice 9: We've just been reviewing financial results from last fiscal.

[0:35:09] Voice 9: Now this conversation relates to finances associated with the current fiscal year.

[0:35:13] Voice 9: So this briefing is primarily to let financial planning committee know that the draft budget that was recently approved by council in March had an expected increase for union staff of 6.1%.

[0:35:25] Voice 9: The new union agreement has actually set the wage increase for union staff at 6.75%.

[0:35:33] Voice 9: So we have under budgeted in the area of union staff salaries.

[0:35:37] Voice 9: The impact of this under budget is going to be about $30,000 against our $6.3 million

[0:35:43] Voice 9: budget.

[0:35:44] Voice 9: So it's not considered overly significant.

[0:35:46] Voice 9: However, we did want to notify financial planning committee of this new information.

[0:35:51] Voice 9: this briefing has already gone to executive committee for their review and now is coming

[0:35:55] Voice 9: to financial planning committee for information well

[0:36:00] Trustee Bernardo: that seems very straightforward I mean it

[0:36:02] Trustee Bernardo: doesn't seem very controversial I mean it's just an adjustment of the you know the province is

[0:36:06] Trustee Bernardo: doing the negotiating and they've tweaked their numbers and we have to live with it that seems to

[0:36:10] Trustee Bernardo: be the take-home trustee Evans that's

[0:36:14] Voice 15: also going to say given the past history of staffing over

[0:36:18] Voice 15: the course of the year there seems to be an underspend at the end of it so I don't think

[0:36:22] Voice 15: this is going to have any significant impact fair

[0:36:27] Trustee Bernardo: enough that's probably true and um there's going

[0:36:31] Trustee Bernardo: to be a significant underspend given the constraints that we talked about before when we

[0:36:35] Trustee Bernardo: were developing the budget uh precisely because we have a long project list and frankly not enough

[0:36:42] Trustee Bernardo: staff resources to meet it all right thank you for that information item if we can now move on

[0:36:48] Trustee Bernardo: to the next item director mobs i believe that's uh you're going to talk to us about the budget cycle

[0:36:53] Trustee Bernardo: of timelines?

[0:36:54] Voice 9: I will briefly, and then there's space in the agenda for Financial Planning

[0:36:59] Voice 9: Committee to discuss the timelines. So the report that's before you outlines the historical budget

[0:37:07] Voice 9: cycle timelines for the Islands Trust. Normally, Financial Planning Committee reviews and approves

[0:37:13] Voice 9: the budget cycle timelines at their meeting in August. I did commit to Financial Planning

[0:37:19] Voice 9: Committee that we would start this discussion earlier on in this budget cycle, so that's why

[0:37:23] Voice 9: we see it here at the May meeting, and that's to give Financial Planning Committee a chance

[0:37:27] Voice 9: to weigh into the timeline and have conversation around potential changes.

[0:37:34] Voice 9: During last budget cycle, there was some concern expressed by trustees and the Financial Planning

[0:37:41] Voice 9: Committee that the timeline of things was quite compressed and it was difficult to engage

[0:37:46] Voice 9: properly in the budget development process with compressed timelines.

[0:37:50] Voice 9: I do think the fact that elections happened midway through the budget cycle is a contributing factor, so my hope is that the current budget cycle will feel less pressure.

[0:38:00] Voice 9: If we look at the timelines that are presented on the screen, we do see all of the activity that takes place traditionally from May to October was activity that the new Financial Planning Committee was not involved in in last year's budget cycle as they stepped into the process in November.

[0:38:20] Voice 9: And so that's where I see, hopefully, some of the potential pressures being alleviated in the upcoming budget cycle.

[0:38:27] Voice 9: So we're at May 31st right now, which is one of the first items on the budget cycle timeline.

[0:38:33] Voice 9: Over the summer, local trust committees and council committees, as well as SWPA, will begin and continue discussions of their upcoming fiscal priorities and work programs.

[0:38:43] Voice 9: And we'll be putting together business cases and funding requests that will come forward as part of the draft budget.

[0:38:52] Voice 9: In August, Financial Planning Committee puts together the draft budget assumptions and principles that go to Trust Council for their approval in September.

[0:39:01] Voice 9: My plan this year is to add a little bit more robustness to that document and seek some not only budget assumptions and budget principles from Financial Planning Committee and Trust Council,

[0:39:12] Voice 9: but also some guidelines related to discretionary spending so this is something that the fpc working

[0:39:19] Voice 9: group and the governance committee are talking about as part of the corporate planning process

[0:39:24] Voice 9: and it's something that we can begin to weave into the current budget cycle

[0:39:29] Voice 9: even in advance of that process being formally approved the first so trust council approves

[0:39:37] Voice 9: the budget assumptions and principles at their meeting in september do you want me to take

[0:39:42] Voice 9: questions as I go through, Mr. Chair.

[0:39:45] Trustee Bernardo: I see. Yes, I see. Trustee Bowen, you have your hand up.

[0:39:50] Voice 16: Just a quick one. The budget assumptions and principles, they're not approved until

[0:39:55] Voice 16: August, I think. And I look and I see the council committees begin discussions May to June

[0:40:02] Voice 16: and the LTCs July to August. I'm just wondering if there are key points in those budget assumptions

[0:40:10] Voice 16: assumptions and principles that apply to their work immediately?

[0:40:18] Voice 16: And if approving the budget assumptions

[0:40:21] Voice 16: principles in August is kind of the cart before the horse,

[0:40:26] Voice 16: I'm not sure that all of them apply, but maybe there are some key

[0:40:31] Voice 16: principles that could be established earlier and feed into those discussions.

[0:40:38] Voice 16: Just a thought.

[0:40:40] Voice 9: Yes. There certainly are aspects of the assumptions and principles document that

[0:40:45] Voice 9: could impact that work. For example, the assumptions document talks about staffing

[0:40:51] Voice 9: levels. Are we anticipating retaining current staff levels or increasing or decreasing? That

[0:40:57] Voice 9: could have an impact on the availability of staff resources for committees to undertake work.

[0:41:04] Voice 9: Council committee work programs are approved by Trust Council each quarter.

[0:41:09] Voice 9: So if there was any significant issue, the hope is that it would be identified in advance,

[0:41:16] Voice 9: such that committees aren't putting forward very significant work that would fall outside of any budget assumptions, principles or guidelines.

[0:41:23] Voice 9: The assumptions, principles, guidelines document is actually approved by Trust Council in September.

[0:41:28] Voice 9: It's drafted by financial planning committee in August,

[0:41:32] Voice 9: but isn't approved until September.

[0:41:36] Voice 6: Roski Patrick?

[0:41:38] Trustee Patrick: I would hope, I know last term we added to the assumptions

[0:41:43] Trustee Patrick: and principles that all projects,

[0:41:44] Trustee Patrick: especially from the local trust committees,

[0:41:46] Trustee Patrick: would include costs of engagement with First Nations

[0:41:50] Trustee Patrick: as well as public engagement and communications

[0:41:53] Trustee Patrick: so that we were building more robust things.

[0:41:57] Trustee Patrick: So I assume that's been shared and would be a principle

[0:41:59] Trustee Patrick: of the budgets that are being prepared now?

[0:42:04] Voice 9: Yeah, so there's certainly space in this conversation

[0:42:07] Voice 9: for trustees to provide feedback

[0:42:09] Voice 9: on how budget information is presented,

[0:42:13] Voice 9: because now is the time to take that feedback

[0:42:15] Voice 9: and really roll it in as we're just starting

[0:42:17] Voice 9: to kick things off.

[0:42:18] Voice 9: So that type of feedback is a good time to receive that

[0:42:22] Voice 9: so it can be woven in.

[0:42:25] Trustee Bernardo: On that very point, Director Mods,

[0:42:29] Trustee Bernardo: And I think it does relate to assumption and principles.

[0:42:32] Trustee Bernardo: A lot of the debate that we had when we were developing the current budget, and it was

[0:42:38] Trustee Bernardo: pretty strenuous, was really orbited around the question of value for money for various

[0:42:43] Trustee Bernardo: line items.

[0:42:43] Trustee Bernardo: There was certainly from many of the newcomer trustees, including myself, there was a lot

[0:42:48] Trustee Bernardo: of curiosity and hard questioning about what are we really doing with these various projects.

[0:42:54] Trustee Bernardo: And, of course, that was an awkward situation because what we were dealing with, of course, were projects and initiatives that had already been approved and essentially have newcomers coming in, scratching their heads and second-guessing things.

[0:43:10] Trustee Bernardo: Whether we think that's a good thing or a bad thing, I think we can anticipate that going forward, when we're now going to be faced as a new committee with requests for approvals of various projects and initiatives,

[0:43:24] Trustee Bernardo: I think we can, it's reasonable to anticipate that there's going to be a fairly robust examination of value for money, looking at it in terms, looking at these initiatives with an earnest desire to figure out, does it, how do they really contribute to the mission and that sort of thing.

[0:43:45] Trustee Bernardo: and the reason I bring that up it all comes back to the business cases because certainly

[0:43:50] Trustee Bernardo: my recollection was in reading the business cases in for the previous cycle it would be

[0:43:59] Trustee Bernardo: preferable to facilitate those discussions that we are going to have and in order to make them

[0:44:05] Trustee Bernardo: construction and not constructive and practical and not overly abstract I think it'd be very

[0:44:12] Trustee Bernardo: helpful if as part of this examination of assumption and principles we go back

[0:44:19] Trustee Bernardo: to the policy on business plans or business cases that we have which if I

[0:44:26] Trustee Bernardo: recall from looking at it actually requires a fair bit of information which

[0:44:29] Trustee Bernardo: is in practice as far as I can tell not really coming forward that somehow it's

[0:44:33] Trustee Bernardo: the information the policy requires is not happening in terms of some of these

[0:44:39] Trustee Bernardo: business cases and if I'm being too harsh about that please correct me

[0:44:43] Trustee Bernardo: But in terms of assumption and principles, I think it would be wise for us to reiterate that policy needs to be observed with a view to really beefing up these business cases.

[0:44:53] Trustee Bernardo: So this committee knows what it's dealing with when we end up having that strenuous discussion about whether or not a project really should be approved for funding or not.

[0:45:05] Trustee Bernardo: And this anticipates to a certain extent the kind of analysis that we're talking about at the corporate planning in the corporate planning project.

[0:45:14] Trustee Bernardo: But in any case, we do have that policy.

[0:45:15] Trustee Bernardo: It does require fairly robust business cases.

[0:45:19] Trustee Bernardo: And what I'm asking for is that we work that into the assumptions and principles that the policy that we already have be observed, you know, both in letter and spirit as fully as possible.

[0:45:36] Trustee Bernardo: And I see other people have their hands.

[0:45:38] Trustee Bernardo: And, of course, anybody said, you know, before they get to that, I mean, do you have any comments about what I'm asking for, Director Mobbs?

[0:45:43] Trustee Bernardo: Is it if I'm missing something or if I'm being unreasonable, I

[0:45:47] Voice 6: need to know?

[0:45:51] Voice 9: I do think we could build some of that information into the assumptions and principles document.

[0:45:57] Voice 9: So it would probably be a principle that financial planning committee would want to recommend in the documents associated with that around sort of the level of information that's coming forward in our business case templates, if I'm understanding what you're saying correctly.

[0:46:14] Voice 9: So, yeah, certainly we can build in something associated with that principle.

[0:46:18] Voice 9: FPC could review it in August before it goes to council.

[0:46:22] Voice 6: Thank you.

[0:46:23] Voice 6: Trustee Boland?

[0:46:26] Voice 16: Yeah, what I would really like to see is a shared repository accessible by trustees of business case documents as they are being prepared.

[0:46:38] Voice 16: heard I don't want to wait till August or October and try and find business case documents buried

[0:46:46] Voice 16: in a giant agenda and you know the page that they're on changes from one agenda to the next

[0:46:52] Voice 16: so it's really a horrible way to present that information so what I would love to see I

[0:46:59] Voice 16: recognize now that certain council committees are already approving the preparation of certain

[0:47:05] Voice 16: certain business cases I would like to see a document folder repository whatever you want to

[0:47:13] Voice 16: call it where draft you know version one version two version three not every single iteration but

[0:47:20] Voice 16: key steps in the approval process of business documents a version is presented in a folder

[0:47:27] Voice 16: that's accessible by everybody and a register at the top that gives you a list I think there'll be

[0:47:33] Voice 16: maybe 15 to 20 initially a list of the ones as they are approved to be prepared and then columns

[0:47:42] Voice 16: that give you an indication of the key steps and their status with a date so first for example the

[0:47:52] Voice 16: executive committee and regional planning have approved to you know okay staff please prepare

[0:47:58] Voice 16: pair business cases for the following and well immediately that should be registered in that

[0:48:04] Voice 16: register with the date that it was requested and approved and then the next date would be when it

[0:48:10] Voice 16: comes back to that committee when it's approved etc etc and I'm not talking about a giant register

[0:48:17] Voice 16: just key steps and then you know at those key steps a version should be in the folder accessible

[0:48:25] Voice 16: by everybody. I feel really that this is an essential component to us being more on board

[0:48:34] Voice 16: with what's going on than we are at the moment. It all comes to us in a rush at the end.

[0:48:40] Voice 16: So I think that's really a key step. Plus, it's possible that somebody may look at a business

[0:48:46] Voice 16: case and go, oh, sorry, we need more information than this. And it gives a longer lead time for

[0:48:53] Voice 16: that.

[0:48:54] Trustee Bernardo: Thanks. Before Director Mott's response to that, if I could just ask a clarifying question

[0:48:59] Trustee Bernardo: of you, Trustee Bowen. In terms of getting up to speed and what these different funding requests

[0:49:08] Trustee Bernardo: through business plans are like, and it makes sense to wanting to get an earlier look-see at

[0:49:14] Trustee Bernardo: these things, is it really necessary to see a reiteration as these committees and bodies are

[0:49:20] Trustee Bernardo: struggling with these things or once they've got a final draft it's immediately circulated to us

[0:49:26] Trustee Bernardo: at FPC so we don't have to wait for an agenda item we have time to review their final draft because

[0:49:33] Trustee Bernardo: I know you certainly have the capacity which bewilders me to read through all of that stuff

[0:49:39] Trustee Bernardo: and go through it I think I've got enough energy to read the final business plan in in some you

[0:49:46] Trustee Bernardo: you know with some rigor but not the previous five versions of it do you really want those

[0:49:50] Trustee Bernardo: five versions or what you really want is is the final thing that they settle on made available

[0:49:55] Trustee Bernardo: to you at real time and

[0:49:58] Voice 16: i would like to see the earlier ones because i think they don't change

[0:50:03] Voice 16: radically and the final final final one is probably in the middle of august or not very long before it

[0:50:11] Voice 16: it pops into an agenda for us.

[0:50:13] Voice 16: I would love to see the one that goes back

[0:50:16] Voice 16: to the regional planning committee

[0:50:19] Voice 16: because it won't change significantly after that,

[0:50:22] Voice 16: but it gives you a heads up on content

[0:50:24] Voice 16: and what's being proposed.

[0:50:26] Voice 16: I don't want to see every iteration that goes around

[0:50:29] Voice 16: internally within the staff,

[0:50:31] Voice 16: but as soon as it's going to be put in

[0:50:33] Voice 16: a council committee agenda,

[0:50:36] Voice 16: I would like to see that version.

[0:50:39] Trustee Bernardo: Director Mobs, you've heard the suggestion. What are your thoughts about that?

[0:50:47] Voice 9: Well, honestly, I think this is probably more in the realm of a director of legislative services

[0:50:52] Voice 9: who oversees the record keeping or our CAO who sort of handles our web dev content.

[0:51:01] Voice 9: So I'd probably turn to them first to respond.

[0:51:05] Trustee Bernardo: Well, I see the CAO is conveniently here,

[0:51:07] Trustee Bernardo: Mayor Mrakas, So perhaps you could address that russ yeah

[0:51:10] Voice 13: in terms of structured decision making Mr chair what's being proposed as a sort of an idea is would be a fundamental change into how work is is developed here at the alums trust the idea that some.

[0:51:22] Voice 13: Mayor Mrakas, ideas in their infancy would then be provided to all trustees to comment on well before the committee's themselves have have had a chance to look at this work.

[0:51:33] Voice 13: Mayor Mrakas, would be challenging we staff.

[0:51:37] Voice 13: prepare the work as required i certainly am hearing through the corporate planning process

[0:51:41] Voice 13: that we we are tweaking and looking at different ways to present business planning

[0:51:45] Voice 13: and i think that's valuable um as to having a sort of not a running dialogue but several iterations

[0:51:52] Voice 13: of a variety of different pieces of work available to trustees and potentially the public

[0:51:58] Voice 13: um i think would be a real challenge um so at this point i'd ask if there's that kind of request

[0:52:05] Voice 13: that you make a formal request for us to review that,

[0:52:11] Voice 13: review the timing, review when various committees

[0:52:15] Voice 13: get the reporting in front of them.

[0:52:18] Voice 13: Because we want

[0:52:18] Voice 16: to make sure-

[0:52:19] Voice 16: You know, I

[0:52:22] Voice 16: didn't ask for us to comment.

[0:52:25] Voice 16: I didn't ask for various iterations of a work in progress.

[0:52:30] Voice 16: I'm talking about once a business case

[0:52:32] Voice 16: is going into a council committee agenda,

[0:52:34] Voice 16: I would like a copy of that separately from having to borrow around in an agenda to find it.

[0:52:41] Voice 16: And I'd like it maintained separately as a version that went to the public and went to that council committee.

[0:52:49] Voice 16: So that's what I'm asking for. I'm not asking for multiple iterations.

[0:52:53] Voice 16: I'm not asking for working drafts and I'm not even.

[0:52:56] Voice 16: It seemed

[0:52:56] Voice 13: like that's what you were asking for when

[0:52:58] Voice 16: you were speaking.

[0:52:58] Voice 16: I can order

[0:52:59] Trustee Bernardo: please order please I held a certain amount of back and forth here but

[0:53:06] Trustee Bernardo: that doesn't work when people start talking over each other what I've heard here is trustee

[0:53:11] Trustee Bernardo: Boland has clarified that she's not asking for every iteration or working document she's asking

[0:53:17] Trustee Bernardo: for documents that are drafts that will be discussed by the you know when a draft is ready

[0:53:23] Trustee Bernardo: and is on the verge of being discussed by the relevant committee,

[0:53:27] Trustee Bernardo: she'd like to have access to that draft on a real-time basis

[0:53:31] Trustee Bernardo: and obviously the final draft on a real-time basis.

[0:53:35] Trustee Bernardo: Russ, does that change her perspective on this?

[0:53:38] Voice 13: Yeah, but I just don't quite understand it.

[0:53:41] Voice 13: So I just would, as presented just now, as you've summarized,

[0:53:47] Voice 13: that seems a lot different than the last 15 or 20 minutes of conversation.

[0:53:50] Voice 13: So I'm missing something.

[0:53:51] Voice 13: thing um and we'll certainly try and figure out a way to make it as accessible as possible

[0:53:58] Trustee Bernardo: well as an interim measure i'm going to suggest that um i'm going to i'm going to ask you actually

[0:54:05] Trustee Bernardo: i mean would it be inconvenient for staff to um circulate to fbc uh these business plans

[0:54:17] Trustee Bernardo: plans when they've been approved by a committee but before they're formally put on the agenda for

[0:54:23] Trustee Bernardo: the FPC like yes on a

[0:54:24] Trustee Bernardo: real-time basis so that we get early notice because

[0:54:28] Voice 13: yes that would be

[0:54:29] Voice 13: inconvenient the

[0:54:29] Trustee Bernardo: basic issue here and I think you know we don't want to burn up a huge amount of

[0:54:34] Trustee Bernardo: time at this meeting trying to work out the logistics of this but what I'm hearing is the

[0:54:39] Trustee Bernardo: basic point is it would be extremely helpful for FPC if we could get earliest possible notice

[0:54:46] Trustee Bernardo: notice of what these business plans are saying on a real-time basis. And if it's a final draft,

[0:54:54] Trustee Bernardo: great, but even if it's some sort of interim draft that the committee has, the relevant

[0:54:57] Trustee Bernardo: committees looked at, that that also might be helpful. No,

[0:55:02] Voice 13: I understand the interest, sir.

[0:55:04] Voice 13: When we're going through these quarterly cycles, keep in mind that all of these committees are

[0:55:09] Voice 13: meeting and there's a matter of days between one of the content provision committees meeting and

[0:55:17] Voice 13: and then the agenda for FPC to be developed.

[0:55:21] Voice 13: So there's three or four different committees underway

[0:55:24] Voice 13: and that material's getting to FPC,

[0:55:27] Voice 13: frankly, in a sequenced manner, so there aren't surprises.

[0:55:32] Voice 13: So from a staff perspective,

[0:55:34] Voice 13: depending upon what RPC would say change

[0:55:37] Voice 13: to a business case for a water perspective,

[0:55:40] Voice 13: there might be two or three days of work

[0:55:43] Voice 13: before it just gets to the FPC agenda to go forward.

[0:55:47] Voice 13: Understood. There's some practicality associated with it.

[0:55:52] Trustee Bernardo: I'm going to suggest this, which is rather than us as a committee binding staff to a process that we ill understand,

[0:56:04] Trustee Bernardo: I'm going to suggest that staff's heard the concern.

[0:56:09] Trustee Bernardo: We want to get earliest possible notice of these business cases.

[0:56:14] Trustee Bernardo: You've heard me go on about how we want these business cases to be fuller.

[0:56:18] Voice 13: yeah if

[0:56:19] Trustee Bernardo: we could just hand that over to you that's that's the intent if you could work on that to

[0:56:23] Trustee Bernardo: develop that you know without any some big resolution or motion but that's that's what we

[0:56:28] Trustee Bernardo: need and if you could come back to us with some ideas about um uh tweaking the process to better

[0:56:35] Trustee Bernardo: enable that does that sound reasonable that

[0:56:37] Voice 13: sounds reasonable you're you're putting a a light on an

[0:56:40] Voice 13: issue you wish us to address and we'll certainly i'll sit with julia and we'll sit with the other

[0:56:44] Voice 13: people who are providing this material and seeing we can get it what i'm grappling with a little bit

[0:56:50] Voice 13: is more robust business cases more work less yeah less time to prepare it because we want to see it

[0:56:57] Voice 13: earlier so how do we make all that work um together so well

[0:57:03] Trustee Bernardo: yeah you're right that's uh that's your

[0:57:06] Trustee Bernardo: challenge uh trustee evans hi

[0:57:10] Voice 15: thanks um i'm just gonna weigh in just slightly on this topic because

[0:57:14] Voice 15: I think what is being heard is slightly different to what's being requested it's not a distribution

[0:57:19] Voice 15: out to all of FPC it's putting it into a repository something of a hierarchy like web dev

[0:57:27] Voice 15: so it's it's putting it in a repository so that we've always got access that we don't have to go

[0:57:31] Voice 15: searching through every single agenda which are hundreds of pages long trying to find a specific

[0:57:36] Voice 15: business case each and every time we need to go and search for it that takes too much we can't

[0:57:41] Voice 15: find it once it's out we can't find it that's all um i'm going back to earlier issue um just because

[0:57:50] Voice 15: my my screen froze and i missed it okay so

[0:57:54] Voice 15: going back to the um budget assumptions and principles

[0:57:58] Voice 15: that just and i believe the question was can it be moved up to the mate cycle so that uh when

[0:58:09] Voice 15: when the LTCs are building their business cases,

[0:58:11] Voice 15: they can have an early version of the BAP

[0:58:15] Voice 15: so that by the time the business case is written,

[0:58:18] Voice 15: if it's not in line with the BAP, it'll get rejected.

[0:58:21] Voice 15: Is that, and I don't really know

[0:58:24] Voice 15: how that discussion wound up.

[0:58:26] Voice 15: So if somebody could just fill me in, that would be great.

[0:58:29] Trustee Bernardo: We actually didn't have,

[0:58:30] Trustee Bernardo: the discussion on that didn't go in that direction.

[0:58:34] Trustee Bernardo: And I think we need to have Director Mobbs respond

[0:58:37] Trustee Bernardo: to that point that you've just raised.

[0:58:41] Voice 9: I'm happy to. So I think that's a great adjustment for future budget cycles. Unfortunately, with where we are in timing in our current year, we're already in May. Budget assumptions aren't drafted. The June Trust Council meeting is set.

[0:58:57] Voice 9: So there's nothing going forward related to that.

[0:59:00] Voice 9: So development of these things earlier on for future budget cycles is workable and could be something that's woven into the corporate planning document, which is the next step related to that work is going to be looking at timelines.

[0:59:12] Voice 9: For the current year, we're a bit strapped.

[0:59:15] Voice 9: Unfortunately, council doesn't meet again until September, subsequent to its June meeting.

[0:59:23] Voice 15: Perfect. Yeah, I wasn't asking for this year.

[0:59:25] Voice 15: i was just wondering like i said i froze for a little bit so i wasn't sure if that discussion was

[0:59:29] Voice 15: was was carried through but yeah if it's possible to do it for future years i think that that would

[0:59:34] Voice 15: be a a good step in my opinion it

[0:59:40] Voice 6: can only help that's great feedback trustee peterson

[0:59:47] Voice 6: uh thank chair

[0:59:48] Voice 4: i'll start with the very last point i heard and and i think that uh it's

[0:59:53] Voice 4: you know moving up that that timeline uh is is a great idea i think what we may want to

[1:00:00] Voice 4: keep in mind though is that post election with a new ltc that's always going to be a bit of a

[1:00:05] Voice 4: challenge to hit those those timelines uh so we may want to consider building something

[1:00:13] Voice 4: into the process that respects you know new ltc's coming into play um back to the the budget

[1:00:20] Voice 4: assumptions uh uh or the business case documents uh you know with all due respect uh we we all

[1:00:28] Voice 4: all have access to the web DAB for all the committees.

[1:00:34] Voice 4: And I think that if trustees want to look at that information

[1:00:43] Voice 4: that comes before committees,

[1:00:44] Voice 4: rather before we put more work on staff,

[1:00:50] Voice 4: I would suggest maybe you just spend a little bit of time

[1:00:53] Voice 4: going through and looking.

[1:00:55] Voice 4: Maybe it's because I've been doing this for eight years

[1:00:59] Voice 4: uh i i don't find it onerous to to go through and find that kind of information but maybe i've

[1:01:04] Voice 4: uh misheard what's being said but well

[1:01:10] Trustee Bernardo: you know you raise an interesting point owners this is a

[1:01:13] Trustee Bernardo: matter of opinion you've got yours and we've already heard from trustee bowen she's got hers

[1:01:18] Trustee Bernardo: and uh and i've also heard from trustee evans and grinding the very exercise you're talking

[1:01:25] Trustee Bernardo: about she's not particularly comfortable with it so we have those suggestions out there and

[1:01:30] Trustee Bernardo: we've have tasked you know informally uh in my little discussion there with the cao uh

[1:01:36] Trustee Bernardo: we're as he nicely put it we're shining a light on this need to access this information

[1:01:42] Trustee Bernardo: um in a prompt fashion and we await hearing from staff about a methodology that is uh practical

[1:01:51] Trustee Bernardo: and still delivers what the trustees need uh i see uh trustee like him has uh has his hand uh

[1:01:59] Trustee Bernardo: has his hand up there uh

[1:02:02] Trustee Luckham: thank you chair um you know there's lots of things to think about here

[1:02:07] Trustee Luckham: and certainly i'm glad that uh staff are able to um provide some advice on potentially improving

[1:02:17] Trustee Luckham: a process and so i think that's the best way to characterize all of that i want i raised my hand

[1:02:25] Trustee Luckham: because I wanted to say that I'm pleased to see that there's attention on the principles

[1:02:31] Trustee Luckham: and matters associated with the budget assumptions and principles.

[1:02:38] Trustee Luckham: This is a significant document.

[1:02:40] Trustee Luckham: I've always said that.

[1:02:41] Trustee Luckham: Julia knows that.

[1:02:43] Trustee Luckham: And it hasn't necessarily been given sufficient consideration in preparation of our budget

[1:02:49] Trustee Luckham: cycles.

[1:02:50] Trustee Luckham: Although we are obligated to do it, we always do it.

[1:02:52] Trustee Luckham: And the reason I mention this now is that the principles and assumptions generally and historically year to year don't change significantly.

[1:03:02] Trustee Luckham: There's minor adjustments that are added to it that seem to be contextually appropriate at the time of the current budget cycle.

[1:03:13] Trustee Luckham: And so certainly in terms of the development of business cases, that assumptions and principles can generally as a guideline be continued to use from the previous year, the value statements that are contained in the assumptions and principles remain the same for the most part.

[1:03:30] Trustee Luckham: And so certainly as that principles and exceptions documents progresses and is approved by council, then ultimately it would reflect upon the decisions that feed into the budget approvals.

[1:03:44] Trustee Luckham: But I just don't know that it's like it's not a brand new document every time.

[1:03:49] Trustee Luckham: It's an adjusted principles document that has carried on for years and years.

[1:03:55] Trustee Luckham: Thank

[1:03:57] Trustee Bernardo: you for that. And you're verging on an interesting issue, which is, of course, with the work on the corporate planning process that's been undertaken.

[1:04:08] Trustee Bernardo: An examination, and we've heard this before, an examination of principles and assumption is part of that exercise, and that it might inform in the interim what we're doing now in the absence of that process.

[1:04:21] Trustee Bernardo: So there may be some tweaking that emerges out of that just as we direct attention in that direction.

[1:04:25] Trustee Bernardo: Thank

[1:04:26] Voice 6: you,

[1:04:31] Trustee Elliott: Chair. I just wanted to ask a question about the role and responsibility of the Financial Planning Committee.

[1:04:38] Trustee Elliott: Is it to dig into the nitty-gritty of business cases that are put forward by committees to ascertain if they're in line with the strategic direction, let's say,

[1:04:53] Trustee Elliott: or is it to ensure the overall um financial linkages between strategic planning and the

[1:05:03] Trustee Elliott: work of the committees is followed um we were talking earlier about um the committees being

[1:05:11] Trustee Elliott: the workhorses of the organization and sort of trusting um their management of their areas

[1:05:17] Trustee Elliott: And that the business cases put forward would sort of have gone through a vetting process. So I'm a little unclear if the request from Trustee Boland is to that financial planning committee would intervene in that vetting process, or you just want to see them as they come out from the committees in a consolidated space so that they're easier to find and track.

[1:05:47] Trustee Elliott: I'm just a little confused about the measure.

[1:05:51] Trustee Bernardo: Well, FPC serves the function, which is those business cases are put forward because what's coming out of the committees, and they are the workhorses, but what's coming out of the committees are requests for funding.

[1:06:04] Trustee Bernardo: And they're requests to trust counsel for funding, but FPC's job is to review those requests and to assess them.

[1:06:13] Trustee Bernardo: And it's within the power of the FPC to say, that's all very interesting, you want to do this, but no.

[1:06:18] Trustee Bernardo: we don't think it's a good idea because it's either ill thought out the money's not there

[1:06:23] Trustee Bernardo: whatever the criteria happen to be for assessing that judgment the business cases exist for a

[1:06:30] Trustee Bernardo: reason i mean if things were supposed to be coming out of those committees and just to

[1:06:34] Trustee Bernardo: be approved as is then you wouldn't really need the business case it is it's a it's a tool for

[1:06:40] Trustee Bernardo: scrutiny those requests for funding are to be scrutinized at least that seems to be my

[1:06:46] Trustee Bernardo: understanding of it well

[1:06:47] Trustee Elliott: my understanding is our our job is to facilitate council's involvement in

[1:06:53] Trustee Elliott: the annual budget process so we are a link between the committees and please correct me if i'm wrong

[1:07:00] Trustee Elliott: staff committees to council but it's also ultimately council that decides um these are

[1:07:07] Trustee Elliott: the projects that we're going to go for and the direction that we're going in so if i'm missing

[1:07:12] Trustee Elliott: seeing something here let me know I didn't think that we were a funnel making decisions about the

[1:07:21] Trustee Elliott: merits of business cases that are advanced through council committees well

[1:07:27] Trustee Bernardo: that's that's a very

[1:07:29] Trustee Bernardo: interesting question because let's see I see before we go to trustee Bulland on this I'm going to ask

[1:07:35] Trustee Bernardo: the staff to comment on it because the question is really about you know what is the function of

[1:07:42] Trustee Bernardo: this committee and we may have a bit of a different view of that and uh uh i see director moms has her

[1:07:50] Trustee Bernardo: hand up and as does director marler but i'm gonna go director marler first on this because this more

[1:07:55] Trustee Bernardo: is more like a question that's in his wheelhouse yeah

[1:07:59] Voice 10: okay thank you and yeah the the terms of

[1:08:03] Voice 10: reference of financial planning committee are fairly broad uh but probably the key one is the

[1:08:09] Voice 10: interpretation of council's priorities and strategies and the related work program items so

[1:08:15] Voice 10: when you look at that the intent here is financial planning committee it is providing recommendations

[1:08:21] Voice 10: to trust council but i do believe there is an expectation that you're going to look at what

[1:08:27] Voice 10: each of the budget requests are and how that links back in your opinion as a committee to what trust

[1:08:35] Voice 10: council's priorities and strategies are. So I would say that you're totally within your right

[1:08:40] Voice 10: to request those details, to look at those business cases, and even go back to the committees and ask

[1:08:46] Voice 10: for more information if you feel there's something missing in that business case. So I'll just ask

[1:08:52] Voice 10: Director Moves if I may through the chair if I've missed anything, but that's my interpretation of

[1:08:56] Voice 10: your terms of reference. Thank you for that. Director Moves?

[1:09:02] Voice 9: Thanks. Yeah, no, I was going

[1:09:03] Voice 9: to say very much the same thing it is the responsibility of financial planning committee to

[1:09:07] Voice 9: recommend to trust council what it believes trust council's budget should look like for the next

[1:09:13] Voice 9: year and in making that recommendation financial planning committee needs to have proper information

[1:09:19] Voice 9: to make those decisions so if that does mean they need more information or they don't see a strong

[1:09:24] Voice 9: tie back to the strategic plan or council's work program absolutely there's some space for fpc to

[1:09:30] Voice 9: to be asking for that information.

[1:09:33] Voice 9: I do want to note also that we've made it a practice

[1:09:35] Voice 9: to include business cases that have been pulled

[1:09:40] Voice 9: from the draft budget in the trust council agenda package.

[1:09:45] Voice 9: So if a business case comes to financial planning committee

[1:09:48] Voice 9: and the committee determines,

[1:09:49] Voice 9: no, we don't believe this should be funded

[1:09:51] Voice 9: and they pull it out of the recommended budget

[1:09:53] Voice 9: that goes to council for review,

[1:09:55] Voice 9: that business case that's been pulled

[1:09:57] Voice 9: still lands on the trust council agenda package.

[1:09:59] Voice 9: So as a council, they can look at it to see if they agree or not with the recommendation of Trust Council.

[1:10:06] Voice 8: Thank

[1:10:07] Voice 6: you for that.

[1:10:08] Trustee Bernardo: Trustee Patrick? Hang on. I'm sorry. I see the CAO's hand up.

[1:10:14] Trustee Bernardo: Just a quick clarification here, CAO. Are you wanting to address that specific issue or do you

[1:10:21] Voice 8: have a different issue?

[1:10:22] Trustee Bernardo: I think it would be fruitful to hear from the CAO on this, considering that this is very much a continuing practice issue here.

[1:10:30] Voice 13: Yeah, I mean, my colleagues, I think, have explained it well. It's not a complete funnel with a close off. There's a filter at the bottom. And FPC provides some rigor associated with that. Ultimately, as we look at how we make decisions, and this is what the struggle was last year, is you make recommendations to trust counsel.

[1:10:52] Voice 13: But at a certain point, you will not have the insight available to you that any business case will provide.

[1:10:59] Voice 13: And it will be a matter of, say, two very comparable local trust committee projects that need to be decided at Trust Council.

[1:11:07] Voice 13: And that's where we have to make inside this organization an opportunity at Trust Council to have that conversation.

[1:11:14] Voice 13: And we don't really have it yet.

[1:11:16] Voice 13: at. So that's part of, I think, the corporate government decision-making process that we have

[1:11:21] Voice 13: to keep in mind and advance and amend into the future. But thank you.

[1:11:27] Voice 6: Thank you for that.

[1:11:28] Voice 6: Trustee Patrick?

[1:11:31] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, just not to belabor this conversation, but the Assumptions and Principles

[1:11:37] Trustee Patrick: document is critically important. And last year was the first time this committee had recommended

[1:11:42] Trustee Patrick: changes to it. Now it was different people, but that was the mandated content for business cases

[1:11:48] Trustee Patrick: regarding communications and First Nations engagement. So it is a powerful tool and one

[1:11:54] Trustee Patrick: that we're going to need to pay attention to and flex that muscle more. Now Trust Council gets to

[1:11:59] Trustee Patrick: approve the assumptions principles, but they didn't change it. They accepted what we had

[1:12:03] Trustee Patrick: recommended last year to add those components. So I think that's an example of how this committee

[1:12:09] Trustee Patrick: could work we had you know came from we had observed that communications was fundamentally

[1:12:14] Trustee Patrick: underfunded all the time and we knew that the projects resulted in the costs to communication

[1:12:19] Trustee Patrick: so we had linked that through the assumptions and principles process so i think it's more to

[1:12:24] Trustee Patrick: come and more for this committee to flex its muscles thank

[1:12:28] Voice 6: you trustee ball

[1:12:30] Voice 16: just a couple

[1:12:32] Voice 16: of points of clarification first of all if you look at the budget assumptions and principles

[1:12:36] Voice 16: October 18th budget requests, FPC reviews budget cases for budget funding requests and

[1:12:43] Voice 16: makes recommendations to staff on which requests to include slash remove from the draft budget.

[1:12:49] Voice 16: So the process could begin earlier.

[1:12:53] Voice 16: My request to see those business cases in a more coherent, easily accessible form earlier

[1:13:01] Voice 16: earlier than September, October, would enable the whole of Trust Council to see what's coming down

[1:13:10] Voice 16: the pipeline. At the moment, you see what's in your committee, or you dig around in other

[1:13:15] Voice 16: committees' agendas. So it would be, and I'm not asking for anything other than the versions that

[1:13:23] Voice 16: are provided to the agendas of those councils, committee meetings. So I know that, you know,

[1:13:29] Voice 16: the process to put the agenda together requires that a version is provided to whoever's creating

[1:13:36] Voice 16: the agenda and that version could be placed in a folder so that everybody can access it easily

[1:13:43] Voice 16: that's all i'm asking for and i'm not trying to make it overly complicated i think it's not

[1:13:51] Voice 16: a very difficult thing to do i know that's easy to say from my perspective but i'm happy to work

[1:13:56] Voice 16: with and discuss you know what could be provided and how easily that could be done thank you

[1:14:04] Trustee Bernardo: thank you for that um i think staff has the point um and you know they they know that they

[1:14:10] Trustee Bernardo: know what the request is uh cal yeah

[1:14:13] Voice 13: uh just expectations management mr chair um that's fine

[1:14:18] Voice 13: i i hear that message but i also heard at the start of it i we want to see them earlier and

[1:14:25] Voice 13: And in September and October, that's seven months before the budget's decided.

[1:14:30] Voice 13: So I think you have to think about this timeline and go, we haven't formulated some of the projects that will start in the spring of the following year, just coming out of the spring of the year previous.

[1:14:45] Voice 13: Or at least the committees haven't sat and thought those things through.

[1:14:50] Voice 13: So I understand as soon as something's in a good spot

[1:14:55] Voice 13: or we have a professional level business case

[1:14:57] Voice 13: ready for your review that you want to see it

[1:14:59] Voice 13: as soon as possible.

[1:15:01] Voice 13: But the idea that all of that starts earlier

[1:15:04] Voice 13: is something we'll just have to keep in mind

[1:15:06] Voice 13: as we go forward.

[1:15:07] Voice 13: Thank you.

[1:15:08] Trustee Bernardo: That's a fair enough point.

[1:15:09] Trustee Bernardo: I mean, it's not within the power of this committee

[1:15:12] Trustee Bernardo: to sort of browbeat other committees

[1:15:15] Trustee Bernardo: to start producing things earlier for our convenience.

[1:15:17] Trustee Bernardo: So we have to deal with their,

[1:15:20] Trustee Bernardo: contingencies and the realities that they have to deal with, they've got their work to do as well.

[1:15:25] Trustee Bernardo: I think it needs to be understood that it's subject to availability. I mean, that's what

[1:15:29] Trustee Bernardo: we're really talking about earlier, subject to availability. All right. If we can continue,

[1:15:34] Trustee Bernardo: continue, Director Mobs, with the discussion of the assumptions and principles, or sorry, of the

[1:15:42] Voice 6: timelines. Sure. Let me just flip

[1:15:48] Voice 9: back to the agenda here. So the proposed timing for the

[1:15:53] Voice 9: the current budget cycle, as I mentioned, looks very similar to previous years, simply because of

[1:15:57] Voice 9: where we currently are at. The next time that financial planning committee would be meeting

[1:16:02] Voice 9: would be August of this year. And that's when the assumptions and document assumptions and

[1:16:07] Voice 9: principles and guidelines document as mentioned, would be looked at for trust council's approval

[1:16:12] Voice 9: in September. The first version of the draft budget comes to financial planning committee

[1:16:18] Voice 9: committee in October so at this point all of the various departments of Islands Trust as well as

[1:16:25] Voice 9: Council committees will have submitted their budget asks for the next fiscal year and all

[1:16:31] Voice 9: of that information will be consolidated into the first draft so FPC sees that in October and has a

[1:16:37] Voice 9: chance to ask questions request additional information for refinement and also direct

[1:16:42] Voice 9: changes to staff there's only three weeks between the October meeting and the November meeting which

[1:16:47] Voice 9: is a very short timeline when we think about the fact that the next November agenda has to

[1:16:51] Voice 9: be circulated in advance of the meeting. So staff work to make the changes directed by the committee

[1:16:56] Voice 9: and also incorporate new data that comes available through the budget cycle. And then the second

[1:17:01] Voice 9: version is reviewed by FPC in November. That draft is seen by Trust Council for the first time in

[1:17:08] Voice 9: December. So this starts to look very similar to the process that we just undertook in the most

[1:17:13] Voice 9: recent budget cycle trust council has a look at the budget in december there is a public

[1:17:18] Voice 9: consultation process that takes place shortly after that and fpc continues to review refined

[1:17:24] Voice 9: versions of the budget in both january and february with the final recommended budget from

[1:17:29] Voice 9: fpc going to council in march for approval so that part of the process trustees will be familiar with

[1:17:36] Voice 9: is of course it was the the piece of the budget cycle you were involved with this past year

[1:17:40] Voice 9: So I'm happy to take questions on this or additional feedback as necessary.

[1:17:47] Trustee Bernardo: Before that happens, I just want to reiterate a point that I've heard both you and the CEO make, which is our experience as a committee will be different.

[1:17:55] Trustee Bernardo: When we are in the planning and approval of the next budget, we came into the whole process right at the tail end.

[1:18:03] Trustee Bernardo: Therefore, there's a certain amount of confusion and earnestness as we tried to learn what we're doing here.

[1:18:07] Trustee Bernardo: we're going to be much better informed as we go into those last meetings about approving a budget

[1:18:13] Trustee Bernardo: we will have had a hand in actually shaping the budget that we're being asked to approve

[1:18:16] Trustee Bernardo: unlike last time that's qualitatively quite a different situation to be in

[1:18:21] Trustee Bernardo: i'm anticipating my fingers across that the discussion that we have about approving the budget

[1:18:27] Trustee Bernardo: will be less strenuous this time around because we will have had a lot to say about what goes

[1:18:34] Trustee Bernardo: goes into the document in the first instance.

[1:18:37] Trustee Bernardo: So Director Mott has invited more comments

[1:18:39] Trustee Bernardo: and questions about the timeline,

[1:18:41] Trustee Bernardo: which we're being asked to approve, I believe today.

[1:18:43] Trustee Bernardo: Is that right?

[1:18:45] Voice 9: If the committee is comfortable

[1:18:46] Voice 9: with how things look today,

[1:18:47] Voice 9: absolutely approval would be excellent.

[1:18:50] Trustee Bernardo: Okay, well, let's entertain that thought.

[1:18:54] Trustee Bernardo: Any comments about the timeline?

[1:19:03] Voice 6: I see thumbs up from some quarters.

[1:19:06] Voice 6: I

[1:19:07] Trustee Bernardo: see Trustee Boland has her hand up.

[1:19:09] Trustee Bernardo: audio please uh

[1:19:11] Voice 16: yeah so my question is and i haven't looked at it properly but there was a

[1:19:16] Voice 16: discussion at the last um during the last term about the timing of the feedback and i know there

[1:19:24] Voice 16: are constraints primarily driven by the meeting schedule of trust council and then the fpc but

[1:19:34] Voice 16: But the public feedback on the budget was effectively cancelled because the timing didn't really allow for proper digestion and incorporation of that feedback.

[1:19:49] Voice 16: Is that still the case?

[1:19:50] Voice 16: Are we still on the same cycle and will we have the same outcome, basically, is my question.

[1:19:57] Voice 16: so

[1:19:59] Voice 9: uh financial planning committee did undertake a work uh and an exercise to review the timing

[1:20:05] Voice 9: of budget consultation each year so i believe that was a former fpc pre-elections and the review of

[1:20:13] Voice 9: the timing of public consultation the conclusion was that the timing uh there's there's no room to

[1:20:17] Voice 9: change it uh just given meeting schedules on when we receive data from bc assessment that's really

[1:20:23] Voice 9: important in the draft budget and has a significant impact. If memory recall is correct, I believe the

[1:20:31] Voice 9: reason this budget didn't go forward in the most recent budget cycle was more that financial

[1:20:35] Voice 9: planning committee didn't feel they had enough information to put forward the budget in its

[1:20:41] Voice 9: current state at the time. They weren't comfortable with where it was at. So the exercise about timing

[1:20:48] Voice 9: was undertaken fairly recently.

[1:20:50] Voice 9: If the committee wants to review those documents,

[1:20:53] Voice 9: I can find them in the former agenda package and circulate.

[1:20:56] Voice 16: I think one of the discussion points brought up by other people

[1:21:00] Voice 16: was that rather than ask for feedback

[1:21:03] Voice 16: on the specifics of the budget in the numbers,

[1:21:08] Voice 16: that there could be an earlier or different survey through the year

[1:21:12] Voice 16: that asked people about the principles

[1:21:16] Voice 16: principles and the services, you know, what the Islands Trust was delivering. So anyway, we can

[1:21:24] Voice 16: discuss it when it comes up in December again. But yeah, it is kind of difficult to see how that

[1:21:32] Voice 16: feedback can have any impact on the budget. Thanks.

[1:21:38] Trustee Bernardo: If I can comment, I'm hearing a question

[1:21:41] Trustee Bernardo: about whether public consultation needs to be examined

[1:21:47] Trustee Bernardo: as a principle of how we do this, go through this process

[1:21:51] Trustee Bernardo: so that it can be examined for what purpose

[1:21:54] Trustee Bernardo: does it actually achieve?

[1:21:56] Trustee Bernardo: There is definitely value in informing the public,

[1:22:00] Trustee Bernardo: but the reality is we've heard from Trustee Boland,

[1:22:03] Trustee Bernardo: but it's also a practical real world reality

[1:22:06] Trustee Bernardo: is that comments come from the public without

[1:22:12] Trustee Bernardo: there being any sense of whether they're fully representative of public opinion aren't likely

[1:22:17] Trustee Bernardo: to change our decisions on budget budgetary choices so i don't think we have a purpose

[1:22:24] Trustee Bernardo: of question asked to ask ourselves like what are we trying to achieve with public consultation

[1:22:28] Trustee Bernardo: the transparency is a value i can see that but let's be as honest as possible with the public

[1:22:35] Trustee Bernardo: about what we hope to achieve with consultation and if and if it's not feasible for us to take

[1:22:39] Trustee Bernardo: uh public input into consideration to like line item type stuff then we should be clear about

[1:22:46] Trustee Bernardo: that i i i'm hearing this is kind of like a a potential question to be elaborated at the

[1:22:51] Trustee Bernardo: principal

[1:22:52] Voice 6: level trustee graham thank

[1:22:57] Voice 3: you chair um interesting conversation i just want us to keep in

[1:23:02] Voice 3: mind that in three and a half short years there'll be a new financial planning committee struggling

[1:23:07] Voice 3: struggling to understand their role in November, December, January, prior to a new budget being

[1:23:13] Voice 3: accepted. If nothing changes in the process, then nothing will change in the outcome of the

[1:23:19] Voice 3: confusion that that next FPC will have to deal with. It's an incremental opportunity each time

[1:23:26] Voice 3: we look at the timeline to see if we can tweak it, look at our process so that we don't land that

[1:23:32] Voice 3: that new FPC in the same pot of confusion

[1:23:36] Voice 3: that we all landed in.

[1:23:39] Voice 3: We want to avoid that if we can.

[1:23:41] Voice 3: And I think it's our responsibility to look at,

[1:23:44] Voice 3: and I can appreciate staff's perspective.

[1:23:47] Voice 3: The timelines are very, very tight.

[1:23:49] Voice 3: The amount of work that's required to build agendas

[1:23:52] Voice 3: and look at business cases is very complex.

[1:23:55] Voice 3: So it may take this term.

[1:23:58] Voice 3: It may in fact take two terms to end up with a process

[1:24:01] Voice 3: where the the new FPC has a gentler ride to approving that budget thank you that

[1:24:10] Trustee Bernardo: sounds like wise counsel we do have an opportunity here over a number of years

[1:24:15] Trustee Bernardo: to tweak the process to deliver exactly what trustee Graham has requested and

[1:24:21] Trustee Bernardo: proposed and it's it may be that when we have an election year we have put ahead

[1:24:30] Trustee Bernardo: of time we'll have put some thought into adjusting the timeline for the purposes of an election year

[1:24:35] Trustee Bernardo: and to use the happy phrase the ceo had used before uh this is another issue i think we're

[1:24:41] Trustee Bernardo: asking in this informal way to staff to shine a light on but how can we adjust this process

[1:24:48] Trustee Bernardo: to get to where trustee graham is talking about uh happily we do have a fair bit of time to work

[1:24:55] Trustee Bernardo: this in so perhaps we could work that in as an ongoing thought project for staff director mobs

[1:25:05] Voice 9: uh thanks sir i don't really have specific comment on that train of thought uh the only thing that

[1:25:10] Voice 9: comes to mind most immediately is in the two election cycles that i've been a part of at

[1:25:14] Voice 9: the islands trust the october financial planning committee meeting has been cancelled each time

[1:25:19] Voice 9: so that may be an opportunity to to not cancel that meeting uh so that sort of work can continue

[1:25:25] Voice 9: proceeding pushing forward one of the struggles of course is the formation of FPC during an election

[1:25:32] Voice 9: year how quickly can we get financial planning committee actually formed getting all the members

[1:25:37] Voice 9: together and actually getting them oriented so those are some of the things that we'd have to

[1:25:41] Voice 9: work out as ways to make the initial budget cycle easier for a new term financial planning committee

[1:25:48] Voice 9: I did have a comment about the budget public consultation if I may

[1:25:53] Voice 9: go

[1:25:54] Voice 6: ahead uh

[1:25:55] Voice 9: i think there's two different conversations at play one is around the

[1:25:59] Voice 9: timing of the consultation and the other is around the content of the consultation

[1:26:03] Voice 9: i think those are two separate conversations and the conversation that's been had recently

[1:26:07] Voice 9: was around the timing less so around the content however financial planning committee does every

[1:26:14] Voice 9: single year review and approve the budget survey that's going to be circulated so that's built

[1:26:21] Voice 9: built into this budget cycle the conversation starts at the next FPC meeting which is August

[1:26:26] Voice 9: so there'll be an opportunity at that time for financial planning committee to really lean into

[1:26:30] Voice 9: what changes they want to see in that process so time between now and then to think about it

[1:26:35] Trustee Bernardo: that's good to know thank you for that and back to the previous issue I think what we're really

[1:26:40] Trustee Bernardo: talking or orbiting around is a is a kind of succession planning for the FPC so that in

[1:26:46] Trustee Bernardo: anticipation that there's going to be a new committee it may well come down to having a

[1:26:50] Trustee Bernardo: briefing book available for them where we explain the rationale of things. Instead of just throwing

[1:26:55] Trustee Bernardo: previous history at people and digest, we give them the new committee has a record of how we got

[1:27:02] Trustee Bernardo: to the point where they have to make decisions. Trustee Bowman?

[1:27:07] Voice 16: Yeah, not to circle back again

[1:27:09] Voice 16: to the business cases, but what about in August or September when the business cases are being

[1:27:17] Voice 16: put forward. In the new corporate planning process, there'll be goals and business cases

[1:27:24] Voice 16: for the different objectives. And, you know, that would be an interesting thing to get public

[1:27:30] Voice 16: feedback on. Are we actually making a plan that meets your expectations? And, you know, further

[1:27:37] Voice 16: down the line, it gets to the costs. But at that stage, you're actually asking people about the

[1:27:43] Voice 16: general strategic objectives and whether we are actually working towards those in a way that people

[1:27:50] Voice 16: appreciate thanks that's

[1:27:53] Trustee Bernardo: fair enough if we do adopt a corporate planning process a consultation

[1:27:56] Trustee Bernardo: it makes sense a consultation will take on a different character where we're at now is with

[1:28:01] Trustee Bernardo: this timeline uh and these benchmarks uh and uh realistically we're in staff's hands on this on

[1:28:08] Trustee Bernardo: this aspect we are in a transitional period um and as i mentioned before we will be in a different

[1:28:13] Trustee Bernardo: position than we were before um dealing with um this year's budget cycle so uh do we have a motion

[1:28:23] Trustee Bernardo: here uh from somebody that we approve this timeline so that staff actually has uh earlier

[1:28:31] Trustee Bernardo: than august it actually has a it has at least starting this month it'll

[1:28:36] Voice 6: have its roadmap

[1:28:36] Voice 6: I move that the business

[1:28:46] Voice 16: assumptions and principles as presented at this FPC meeting on the 25th date is today, the 30th of May.

[1:28:56] Voice 16: I

[1:28:57] Trustee Bernardo: don't think we're talking about assumptions and principles. I think we're talking about the budget cycle.

[1:29:00] Voice 16: The timeline, sorry, yes, yes, sorry, I beg your pardon, yeah.

[1:29:03] Voice 16: I move that the budget timeline as presented at this meeting, the FPC meeting on the, whatever date it is, the 30th of May, is, I move that that's, that

[1:29:19] Voice 6: we approve it.

[1:29:20] Voice 6: Okay.

[1:29:21] Voice 6: Do we have a seconder for that motion?

[1:29:27] Voice 6: Trustee Graham is seconding the motion, I believe.

[1:29:29] Voice 6: uh

[1:29:30] Voice 3: with that amendment it's actually the 31st but that's this morning

[1:29:33] Trustee Bernardo: thank

[1:29:34] Voice 16: you i can't see the

[1:29:36] Voice 16: calendar date on the bottom of my screen when i'm in zoom mode and i realize that

[1:29:41] Voice 16: i'm not capable of deciding on a date without that prompt thank you yes

[1:29:48] Trustee Bernardo: the language i see from uh

[1:29:51] Trustee Bernardo: yeah director mobs is uh basically saying uh that um let's see that

[1:30:00] Trustee Bernardo: uh that the mo that the motion is that fbc approved the 24 25 budget cycle timeline as presented

[1:30:07] Trustee Bernardo: which i think is exactly pretty much what people said what trustee graham has seconded do we have

[1:30:13] Trustee Bernardo: any just further discussion on that motion seeing

[1:30:18] Voice 6: none i'm calling a vote all in favor raise your

[1:30:20] Voice 6: hands all right please lower your hands any folks

[1:30:30] Trustee Bernardo: who wish to register any opposition please raise

[1:30:32] Trustee Bernardo: raise your hands. Motion carries. Moving on to the next item on the agenda. We need an update

[1:30:41] Trustee Bernardo: on the corporate planning process. That's next. But before we get into that, I'm going to propose

[1:30:48] Trustee Bernardo: that we recess for 10 minutes. And we're making good progress here, but everybody needs a break

[1:30:55] Trustee Bernardo: from time to time. So we will return at

[1:30:57] Voice 6: 1142. Thank you. I see by my clock it is 1142. I'm now

[1:41:38] Trustee Bernardo: calling the meeting back in order. The next item on our agenda is to get a report, an oral report

[1:41:47] Trustee Bernardo: from the working group in terms of progress to date on the corporate planning process and next

[1:41:54] Trustee Bernardo: steps. So who is going to speak on behalf

[1:42:00] Voice 6: of the working group to provide the update?

[1:42:02] Voice 6: update.

[1:42:06] Voice 7: That's a good question. I don't think we ever agreed. Fellow working group members,

[1:42:12] Voice 7: who's going to do that? I would defer

[1:42:19] Voice 6: to trustees or the governance committee who have recently

[1:42:22] Voice 6: reviewed the report. Well, I'm on the governance

[1:42:30] Trustee Bernardo: committee, as is Trustee Patrick, but

[1:42:35] Trustee Bernardo: considering Trustee Patrick is in the engine room on this thing, I think we'll ask her to provide

[1:42:41] Trustee Bernardo: the update and uh i can i can weigh in later with some comments about where the governance committee

[1:42:46] Trustee Bernardo: is uh is at on this uh on this thing

[1:42:50] Trustee Patrick: well thank

[1:42:51] Trustee Bernardo: you thank

[1:42:52] Trustee Patrick: you chair i'll be i'll be trying to be

[1:42:54] Trustee Patrick: quick i really want to thank uh the the working group that was uh set up by this committee and

[1:43:00] Trustee Patrick: that in in includes uh trustee evans uh trustee bolin myself um uh director mobs and cio hudson

[1:43:10] Trustee Patrick: pillar. We've met a few times and we've made very good progress on drafting the process for

[1:43:21] Trustee Patrick: corporate planning. And we reviewed in detail in the governance committee that met earlier this

[1:43:28] Trustee Patrick: week. And I think generally I won't put words in their mouth. I'll let

[1:43:33] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Bernardo speak about that. But I thought generally it was well received. It was

[1:43:37] Trustee Patrick: well questioned. So I'm very pleased that we are making good progress as this process is

[1:43:46] Trustee Patrick: an outcome from the recommendation from the governance report that was received last term

[1:43:53] Trustee Patrick: about developing a corporate plan. It is goal-driven about really working to assure that

[1:44:00] Trustee Patrick: that our process is well aligned

[1:44:04] Trustee Patrick: with the annual and five-year financial planning process.

[1:44:10] Trustee Patrick: And it's dealt, involves the monitoring and feedback loop.

[1:44:15] Trustee Patrick: It was developed very much looking

[1:44:18] Trustee Patrick: to the District of Saanich as a model.

[1:44:21] Trustee Patrick: I encourage any of you to go and look

[1:44:23] Trustee Patrick: at the District of Saanich,

[1:44:25] Trustee Patrick: their strategic plan from last term

[1:44:30] Trustee Patrick: is still available online.

[1:44:32] Trustee Patrick: Their new one is not up,

[1:44:34] Trustee Patrick: but it is very much a model and was in our mind

[1:44:38] Trustee Patrick: as we were working on this process.

[1:44:40] Trustee Patrick: So with that, I'll just leave it there

[1:44:46] Trustee Patrick: and leave it open to questions.

[1:44:50] Trustee Bernardo: Before we get into the questions,

[1:44:51] Trustee Bernardo: I might as well report on the state of play

[1:44:53] Trustee Bernardo: at the governance committee,

[1:44:54] Trustee Bernardo: as Chrissy Patrick pointed out,

[1:44:58] Trustee Bernardo: presentation there was well received the substance of the presentation

[1:45:01] Trustee Bernardo: by the working group to the governance committee was more or less the same as

[1:45:08] Trustee Bernardo: the previous presentation that had been made to us at fbc

[1:45:13] Trustee Bernardo: but it had been refined the working group had more time to work through details and

[1:45:19] Trustee Bernardo: presentation was a bit more polished because people were more comfortable with what they

[1:45:23] Trustee Bernardo: were talking about and how they it was more structured in terms a little bit more structured

[1:45:27] Trustee Bernardo: in terms of going through the details but the substance of the planning process that was as

[1:45:31] Trustee Bernardo: it was explained to corporate or sorry the governance committee was um was largely the same

[1:45:38] Trustee Bernardo: prior to that meeting a briefing document essentially a draft outline of what this

[1:45:45] Trustee Bernardo: process would look like uh was circulated amongst the governance committee and i asked the working

[1:45:50] Trustee Bernardo: group to circulate the same thing after this meeting just for the information of this

[1:45:57] Trustee Bernardo: committee's members, because that will be a handy reference document. It's accessible.

[1:46:04] Trustee Bernardo: It's easy enough to read. And it, in a sense, represents the best documentation to date of

[1:46:14] Trustee Bernardo: where we're at. And if it's possible to circulate some of those visual aids that were presented at

[1:46:20] Trustee Bernardo: at the meeting, that also would be helpful, I think.

[1:46:24] Trustee Bernardo: With the proviso that the document that was circulated

[1:46:28] Trustee Bernardo: to governance committee working group is very clear

[1:46:31] Trustee Bernardo: to point out that this was at the draft stage,

[1:46:34] Trustee Bernardo: that there were things that are missing in it

[1:46:36] Trustee Bernardo: that still need to be worked up.

[1:46:38] Trustee Bernardo: There are concepts that need to be elaborated.

[1:46:40] Trustee Bernardo: There are many important concepts that are touched on

[1:46:44] Trustee Bernardo: that really do need to be filled out.

[1:46:46] Trustee Bernardo: but I think it's fair to say at the outset of this process,

[1:46:53] Trustee Bernardo: the working group FPC was asked to develop

[1:46:57] Trustee Bernardo: and we created a working group for this purpose

[1:47:00] Trustee Bernardo: to develop an outline of a corporate planning process.

[1:47:04] Trustee Bernardo: And I think we've done that,

[1:47:05] Trustee Bernardo: that the working groups delivered that.

[1:47:09] Trustee Bernardo: So as trustee Patrick said,

[1:47:12] Trustee Bernardo: it was well received by the governance committee.

[1:47:14] Trustee Bernardo: And although there was no formal resolution

[1:47:15] Trustee Bernardo: resolution along these lines the tenor of the meeting was carry on keep doing it and staff and

[1:47:21] Trustee Bernardo: working group are encouraged and expected to keep running this forward and governance committee will

[1:47:29] Trustee Bernardo: be reporting on this at the trust council meeting and i think fbc will have a component i think in

[1:47:36] Trustee Bernardo: the reporting exercise this is effectively a joint effort it's initiated by governance committee but

[1:47:42] Trustee Bernardo: that's being executed by FPC, basically.

[1:47:48] Trustee Bernardo: And along those lines, I'm anticipating

[1:47:52] Trustee Bernardo: when we get to the discussion of item 10,

[1:47:54] Trustee Bernardo: which is the work program,

[1:47:56] Trustee Bernardo: which will be put up for approval by this committee.

[1:47:59] Trustee Bernardo: And then I believe it's gonna be handed over

[1:48:03] Trustee Bernardo: to the trust committee council for its approval

[1:48:06] Trustee Bernardo: about our ongoing work.

[1:48:09] Trustee Bernardo: I think the development of the corporate planning process

[1:48:11] Trustee Bernardo: needs to be included.

[1:48:12] Trustee Bernardo: I may have missed it, I don't think I did.

[1:48:15] Trustee Bernardo: I went through the work program listing

[1:48:17] Trustee Bernardo: and I didn't see it in there,

[1:48:19] Trustee Bernardo: but I think it does belong in there.

[1:48:21] Trustee Bernardo: This thing has got legs, we're moving forward with it.

[1:48:26] Trustee Bernardo: And we have orally reported to trust counsel before

[1:48:30] Trustee Bernardo: that this is what we're up to,

[1:48:32] Trustee Bernardo: but putting it into the work program for approval,

[1:48:37] Trustee Bernardo: I think is the next step, which is okay,

[1:48:40] Trustee Bernardo: we're gonna report to trust counsel

[1:48:41] Trustee Bernardo: about what we're doing with this thing where it's going we want that work formally recognized in

[1:48:47] Trustee Bernardo: work program at least that's my thought on this we can defer that specific discussion until when

[1:48:55] Trustee Bernardo: we get to item 10 if people want now uh that's me hugging some air time to to report uh the

[1:49:03] Trustee Bernardo: perspective from governance committee do we have any questions uh comments coming from the trustees

[1:49:10] Trustee Bernardo: about from what you've heard from Trustee Patrick

[1:49:13] Voice 6: or from myself.

[1:49:20] Voice 6: Hearing none, everybody's happy.

[1:49:21] Voice 6: That's great.

[1:49:22] Trustee Bernardo: Oh, hang on.

[1:49:22] Trustee Bernardo: I see Trustee Elliott's raised her hand.

[1:49:24] Trustee Elliott: I always have questions.

[1:49:26] Trustee Elliott: I'm just not as quick on the button sometimes.

[1:49:29] Trustee Elliott: Would you, just for the benefit of the Financial Planning Committee,

[1:49:32] Trustee Elliott: give us a very brief summary of how, well,

[1:49:37] Trustee Elliott: Financial Planning Committee fits into the corporate planning process,

[1:49:42] Trustee Elliott: process just sort of having that lens um and I will go back to the government the presentation

[1:49:48] Trustee Elliott: the governance committee I'm definitely interested to see how the whole plan looks but um what from

[1:49:54] Trustee Elliott: your perspective will change in terms of fpc's role or responsibility or involvement so you're

[1:50:02] Trustee Bernardo: not asking about the current role in terms of development you're saying like assuming this

[1:50:07] Trustee Bernardo: corporate planning process is developed and adopted, what changes on the FPC side? Is that

[1:50:13] Trustee Elliott: the question? What is the vision for FPC in the corporate planning process that's being drafted

[1:50:19] Trustee Elliott: and worked on?

[1:50:21] Trustee Bernardo: Well, I'm going to take the coward's way out and refer to Trustee Patrick

[1:50:24] Trustee Bernardo: to answer that question.

[1:50:26] Trustee Patrick: Well, I think I'd also look to Trustee Moffs. In some ways subtle,

[1:50:31] Trustee Patrick: in some ways profound. How does that answer your question? There are some pieces that still need

[1:50:36] Trustee Patrick: need to be built. The big difference is that we have this five-year financial plan that gets

[1:50:41] Trustee Patrick: produced every year, and it has been a less important tool. Through the corporate planning,

[1:50:46] Trustee Patrick: this is going to become a more important tool because we understand that decisions we're making

[1:50:51] Trustee Patrick: in one year affect decisions coming down the road in future years. And so it's going to help us look

[1:50:58] Trustee Patrick: not just short-term in the one-year annual budget, but to really be looking forward as to the

[1:51:02] Trustee Patrick: implications of our decisions in a far more robust way so there's a few sections right now we know

[1:51:08] Trustee Patrick: the the the we talked extensively about the business cases and things of that nature there

[1:51:15] Trustee Patrick: are some aspects of development planning that will be on the staff side that would be built better in

[1:51:22] Trustee Patrick: in parallel with the financial so that there's there's really a backup robust system to not just

[1:51:29] Trustee Patrick: when we make a financial decision that we really have the system in place to see it through.

[1:51:35] Trustee Patrick: And so, like I said, so I don't see

[1:51:38] Trustee Patrick: big changes. We're still going to see decisions in ways that

[1:51:41] Trustee Patrick: we've seen them. We may be thinking of them more differently in terms of space and time and the

[1:51:47] Trustee Patrick: tools that we see that bring them to us.

[1:51:51] Trustee Bernardo: And if I can weigh in here, I think it's fair to say

[1:51:57] Trustee Bernardo: we're not entirely sure uh what the day-to-day more practical responsibilities will be i think

[1:52:03] Trustee Bernardo: the budgetary process and i will ask you know i see a comment from trustee evans but after that

[1:52:10] Trustee Bernardo: i will ask director mobs to comment on that on this issue but from my perspective i think

[1:52:17] Trustee Bernardo: the budgetary in terms of the budgetary um development and approval process there will

[1:52:23] Trustee Bernardo: be some similarities at the back end but at the front end uh the way it's conceived of and this

[1:52:29] Trustee Bernardo: will be clearer when you look at the the briefing document uh i think it's fair to say that there is

[1:52:35] Trustee Bernardo: going to be an expansion of active trustee involvement in identifying the values and

[1:52:41] Trustee Bernardo: purposes and goals of that we're trying to achieve and and tying those goals to implementation

[1:52:47] Trustee Bernardo: i think early on trustees are going to have more of a say into frankly what projects that

[1:52:53] Trustee Bernardo: they want to support and and they will do some thinking up front about which projects uh are

[1:53:01] Trustee Bernardo: are more likely to fulfill the trust object and related to that

[1:53:07] Trustee Bernardo: and trying to move things over to this more principled values oriented approach here that

[1:53:11] Trustee Bernardo: in parallel with this exercise governance committee is working to develop

[1:53:18] Trustee Bernardo: a process for the trustees to finally get to a working definition of the trust mandate that we

[1:53:29] Trustee Bernardo: can all just notwithstanding that people have different perspectives and different ambitions

[1:53:33] Trustee Bernardo: for the islands trust uh a trust mandate interpretation that we can all get behind

[1:53:41] Trustee Bernardo: they can be supported by everybody notwithstanding that they have different perspectives you know

[1:53:46] Trustee Bernardo: know, about which values they want to emphasize. We have diverse values in the trust. Where we're

[1:53:53] Trustee Bernardo: getting to at the governance committee is a recognition that the trust mandate has diverse

[1:54:00] Trustee Bernardo: values. It's promoting diverse values, and we need to identify that, and that, at the end of

[1:54:08] Trustee Bernardo: the day, will become the centerpiece, actually, of the corporate planning process. Everything links

[1:54:13] Trustee Bernardo: up to the mission and we and we need to have something clearly articulated that

[1:54:19] Trustee Bernardo: we all agree with so that that then becomes the doorway to reaching

[1:54:24] Trustee Bernardo: consensus all right so that's I can see that you know that that's all very high

[1:54:29] Trustee Bernardo: level and abstract sounding I appreciate that it might make more sense to you

[1:54:35] Trustee Bernardo: after you read the briefing document trustee Evans before we get the CEO and

[1:54:40] Trustee Bernardo: and Director Mobs, I trust the evidence has been waiting patiently.

[1:54:45] Voice 15: Thank you. Really, what I was going to say is there are going to be some changes in how we

[1:54:51] Voice 15: are proceeding as the Financial Planning Committee as far as how things are coming to us,

[1:54:58] Voice 15: the clarity and detail that we're going to be seeing within the requests for projects. At the

[1:55:05] Voice 15: back end, there is going to be some changes with regards to how those projects are managed.

[1:55:11] Voice 15: So that will also have a clear financial impact.

[1:55:15] Voice 15: So for the Financial Planning Committee, the impacts of this document will be the ease in which we're able to look at the information and make better decisions is primarily the purpose that

[1:55:28] Voice 6: we're trying to achieve here.

[1:55:32] Voice 6: Thank you for that.

[1:55:33] Voice 6: C.A.O.?

[1:55:35] Voice 6: Yes, Mr.

[1:55:37] Voice 13: Chair, I asked Julia to put this on your agenda simply so that the subgroup could tell the rest of FPC, give it an update.

[1:55:47] Voice 13: The FPC, I don't think has, you know, an active role right this second with regards to this.

[1:55:52] Voice 13: You've nobly tasked some of your members to go and assist the Governance Committee.

[1:55:58] Voice 13: I believe the Governance Committee itself will be reporting out to Trust Council on the progress associated with the corporate plan.

[1:56:03] Voice 13: plan they'll lean on the the subgroup for some maybe a brief presentation or somewhat but I don't

[1:56:10] Voice 13: think you're having to take this on this was just to keep you informed as a body and that basically

[1:56:19] Voice 13: it's kind of thumbs up so far and I'm looking forward to some of the outcomes so thanks and

[1:56:26] Trustee Bernardo: and finally director mobs perhaps you could uh uh throw in some comments regarding uh

[1:56:32] Trustee Bernardo: how you anticipate the fpc's role continuing changing adapting uh under the new process

[1:56:39] Trustee Bernardo: if and when we adopt it

[1:56:41] Voice 9: um sure so i i agree with i think it was your comment chair bernardo

[1:56:46] Voice 9: that there won't be a significant adjustment in the work that fpc is responsible for or the

[1:56:52] Voice 9: process that they're undertaking. The Corporate Working Group is looking to apply some timelines

[1:56:59] Voice 9: into the corporate plan, which I think will dovetail quite nicely with the conversation that

[1:57:04] Voice 9: we had earlier around budget cycle. So we might start to see the timing of work shift within

[1:57:09] Voice 9: Financial Planning Committee. I would agree that the primary difference is going to be in the data

[1:57:15] Voice 9: and the supporting documents and information that Financial Planning Committee will have

[1:57:19] Voice 9: to lean into when they are making their recommendations around the budget.

[1:57:24] Voice 9: So the goal of a corporate plan is to help us more deeply understand our context,

[1:57:28] Voice 9: to set a strategic plan that has clear goals and clear initiatives to undertake to achieve those goals,

[1:57:35] Voice 9: and then flow that through into departmental work plans and then into financials.

[1:57:40] Voice 9: So there's going to be a lot more information and robust data for financial planning committee to look to

[1:57:48] Voice 9: and making decisions, if we have a really solid strategic plan, financial planning committee,

[1:57:52] Voice 9: when they have a business case before them, can look to the strategic plan and say, does this

[1:57:57] Voice 9: project align with what's in the strategic plan? Does it further the goals that Trust Council has

[1:58:02] Voice 9: set for the organization? So it'll facilitate ease of decision making.

[1:58:08] Trustee Bernardo: And we'll know the process is

[1:58:09] Trustee Bernardo: working when we have budgets that are actually reasonably accurate in terms of what they project.

[1:58:16] Trustee Bernardo: like we won't be underspending by half a million.

[1:58:19] Trustee Bernardo: We won't be overspending by a hundred thousand.

[1:58:22] Trustee Bernardo: We'll be coming in pretty close on target.

[1:58:25] Trustee Bernardo: At least that's the hope.

[1:58:27] Trustee Bernardo: Do we have any further questions

[1:58:29] Trustee Bernardo: in terms of this report or update?

[1:58:35] Voice 6: All right,

[1:58:36] Trustee Bernardo: thank you, everybody.

[1:58:36] Trustee Bernardo: Moving on to the other business.

[1:58:39] Trustee Bernardo: Item 8.1, we're being asked to approve some texts

[1:58:43] Trustee Bernardo: for inclusion in the upcoming annual report.

[1:58:47] Trustee Bernardo: and I have and I think we do have you know I hope everybody's read it and they need to because you

[1:58:54] Trustee Bernardo: know you need to read it before you approve it I read it looks okay to me except for one

[1:58:57] Trustee Bernardo: glaring omission which is we have trustee Harris has joined the committee welcome trustee Harris

[1:59:06] Trustee Bernardo: and his I think he should be named in the financial

[1:59:12] Voice 6: planning committee listing director

[1:59:16] Voice 6: So

[1:59:18] Voice 9: absolutely, Trustee Harris will be included in next year's annual report section.

[1:59:23] Voice 9: So the annual report that's being drafted right now reflects activities from last fiscal year.

[1:59:28] Voice 9: So because Trustee Harris has only been added in the current fiscal year, he's not reflected on last year's list.

[1:59:37] Trustee Bernardo: So when it says members currently serving for the 22-26 term, that is as of the year end. Is that correct?

[1:59:48] Voice 9: Yes, all the information is as of year end.

[1:59:52] Trustee Bernardo: We

[1:59:52] Voice 9: had that conversation internally, it was a

[1:59:54] Voice 9: bit of a...

[1:59:55] Trustee Bernardo: Okay, I'll take your word for it.

[2:00:00] Trustee Bernardo: process with the process as uh as designed do we have any comments or discussion about the inclusion

[2:00:06] Trustee Bernardo: of this um

[2:00:07] Voice 6: squib in the annual report i'm gonna ask somebody to move uh to make the motion here

[2:00:17] Trustee Bernardo: that we include it or i imagine the motion is written up someplace does it i'm

[2:00:25] Voice 1: i'm moves that

[2:00:26] Voice 1: the financial planning committee approved the attached text for inclusion in the 2022-23 annual

[2:00:31] Voice 1: report for approval by trust council and submission to the municipal minister of municipal affairs

[2:00:37] Voice 1: do

[2:00:37] Voice 6: we have a seconder second trustee graham the second

[2:00:42] Trustee Bernardo: of the motion do we have any discussion

[2:00:43] Trustee Bernardo: on the motion seeing none i shall now ask uh the trustees to raise their hands if they approve

[2:00:53] Trustee Bernardo: as far as i can tell that well i'm going to be careful here

[2:00:57] Trustee Bernardo: i see trustee harris does not have his hand up

[2:01:03] Trustee Bernardo: I hope that's not hard feelings uh I'm gonna ask everybody to lower their hands

[2:01:07] Trustee Bernardo: and anybody who's in opposition uh to the inclusion please raise your hand now

[2:01:12] Trustee Bernardo: the motion passes unanimously on to the next item um

[2:01:19] Voice 14: just trustee Bernardo was your hand up for

[2:01:22] Voice 14: opposition because it's still up oh

[2:01:24] Trustee Bernardo: rats uh no sorry

[2:01:26] Voice 6: thank you um the next item on our agenda

[2:01:35] Voice 6: I believe 8.2 is

[2:01:39] Trustee Bernardo: the appointment of Trustee Harris

[2:01:42] Trustee Bernardo: to the Audit Committee for the 22 and 26 term.

[2:01:45] Trustee Bernardo: Background to this is Chair Getty of the,

[2:01:49] Trustee Bernardo: as of right, I believe can sit on the Audit Committee

[2:01:52] Trustee Bernardo: and she is handing off that responsibility

[2:01:56] Trustee Bernardo: to our Vice Chair, who is Trustee Harris.

[2:02:02] Trustee Bernardo: Could I please have a motion

[2:02:03] Trustee Bernardo: and then if there's any discussion about that,

[2:02:05] Trustee Bernardo: we can have it after the motion's on the floor.

[2:02:08] Trustee Bernardo: so could somebody please move that the put the motion i

[2:02:11] Voice 16: move that the financial planning

[2:02:13] Voice 16: committee appoint trustee harris to the audit committee for the 2022-2026 term thank you

[2:02:21] Voice 6: may i have a seconder second pressing graham has seconded the motion is any discussion necessary

[2:02:31] Voice 6: for this motion if so now's the time seeing no hands i'm not going to call for a vote on the

[2:02:40] Voice 6: motion all in favor please raise your hands thank you uh please lower your hands did anybody who

[2:02:49] Voice 6: wishes to oppose the motion please raise your hand seeing none the motion carries do we have

[2:03:01] Voice 6: any new business anybody wants

[2:03:04] Trustee Bernardo: to raise at this point trustee evans uh

[2:03:08] Voice 15: not necessarily new business

[2:03:09] Voice 15: but i would like to ask that within the work program request for decision that the um the work

[2:03:17] Voice 15: for the corporate planning process be added as a project item

[2:03:22] Trustee Bernardo: right that's the

[2:03:24] Trustee Bernardo: point I was making before let's uh if that's the only item then we can just

[2:03:27] Trustee Bernardo: hop directly into item 10 and by the way I at the rate we're going here I'm

[2:03:33] Trustee Bernardo: anticipating we will not have a lunch break and I'm just gonna try to run this

[2:03:37] Trustee Bernardo: to conclusion we don't have very much left and happily I think we're gonna

[2:03:42] Trustee Bernardo: finish this meeting early so going to item 10 and having looking at the uh the work program that we

[2:03:48] Trustee Bernardo: have here some action happening on the screen if

[2:03:53] Voice 6: we could go to the work program which is attached

[2:03:56] Voice 6: to the agenda there here we go um first of all the last page of the agenda nancy that's the old one

[2:04:14] Voice 6: sorry chair okay that's helpful thank you so this is the proposed work program going forward

[2:04:21] Trustee Bernardo: And before we get into the business of making amendments

[2:04:31] Trustee Bernardo: and specifically the amendment with a view

[2:04:32] Trustee Bernardo: to including the work of the corporate planning subgroup

[2:04:36] Trustee Bernardo: or working group and staff in here,

[2:04:39] Trustee Bernardo: I'm gonna ask Director Mobs to review

[2:04:42] Trustee Bernardo: the current proposed work program

[2:04:44] Trustee Bernardo: and provide whatever explanation is required.

[2:04:48] Voice 9: Happy to, Chair.

[2:04:49] Voice 9: So FPC's work program usually includes the standard items

[2:04:54] Voice 9: that financial planning committee works on each year so the other council committees are slightly

[2:04:58] Voice 9: different as they don't have annual recurring tasks but fpc does so the number one task that's

[2:05:04] Voice 9: on the work program is of course preparation of the annual financial statements and the audit

[2:05:09] Voice 9: package and of course completion of the audit field work with our auditors so that's timing

[2:05:14] Voice 9: has been scheduled this year for july and we anticipate completion of that working time for

[2:05:19] Voice 9: deadline by trust council september meeting second on the list is the draft budget assumptions

[2:05:24] Voice 9: principles and guidelines as uh trustee and chair luckham mentioned this is an important undertaking

[2:05:30] Voice 9: it helps us set the stage for budget time and so that's included on here as a project

[2:05:35] Voice 9: and also financial policy review that i mentioned previously has been delayed uh continues to sit on

[2:05:40] Voice 9: the work program as it did previously and

[2:05:44] Trustee Bernardo: those are the basically uh three prominent uh

[2:05:49] Voice 6: continuing

[2:05:52] Trustee Bernardo: continuing work items that we more or less annually have to deal with. Is that right?

[2:05:58] Voice 9: That's correct, with the exception of the policy review. So that's something that's

[2:06:02] Voice 9: been specifically directed. It doesn't happen annually. Certainly, that policy review could

[2:06:08] Voice 9: be removed from the projects list with the addition of the corporate plan, or they can both

[2:06:13] Voice 9: stay on the list.

[2:06:16] Trustee Bernardo: Well, perhaps we should have a certain amount of explanation as to,

[2:06:22] Trustee Bernardo: you know, I see that it was the direction was received in February 22 that precedes our tenure.

[2:06:30] Trustee Bernardo: So there's some background to this. So perhaps you could fill in what that actually means and

[2:06:34] Trustee Bernardo: what was contemplated by that direction that the committee, the previous committee provided to

[2:06:40] Trustee Bernardo: staff. What's this all about the financial policy review? What is the concern that we're attempting

[2:06:46] Trustee Bernardo: to address with this?

[2:06:48] Voice 9: So I think it's different for each policy.

[2:06:52] Voice 9: The first policy on the list

[2:06:53] Voice 9: related to special property tax requisitions

[2:06:55] Voice 9: came up in a former budget cycle discussion,

[2:06:58] Voice 9: specifically around the special property tax requisition

[2:07:01] Voice 9: being proposed for Salt Spring Island

[2:07:03] Voice 9: Local Trust Committee or Local Trust Area.

[2:07:06] Voice 9: So there is some ambiguity in the current policy

[2:07:09] Voice 9: around whether or not special property tax money

[2:07:14] Voice 9: that's not spent in a year

[2:07:16] Voice 9: must be first used to offset the next year's requisition or if it can be directed towards

[2:07:22] Voice 9: other project work that the local trust committee is undertaking so that does potentially have an

[2:07:28] Voice 9: impact on the amount of special requisition money that comes forward each year and so there was a

[2:07:31] Voice 9: request for that policy to be reviewed with the intent to make it clearer in the policy around

[2:07:38] Voice 9: that specific item and also take advantage of the amendment opportunity to clarify some other

[2:07:44] Voice 9: pieces of the policy is it's not super clear in all spaces when

[2:07:48] Trustee Bernardo: you think make

[2:07:48] Trustee Bernardo: it clear make it clear that what that the any leftover money from a special

[2:07:53] Trustee Bernardo: requisition can be used generally by the local trust committee or they must be

[2:07:57] Trustee Bernardo: directed to the original special purpose so

[2:08:01] Voice 9: legislatively special property tax

[2:08:03] Voice 9: money has to be used for the purpose that it was requisitioned for our policy

[2:08:09] Voice 9: does indicate that the funds could also be directed to other projects of the LTC.

[2:08:18] Voice 9: It's not so clear in there that generally that permission is when the work associated with the

[2:08:24] Voice 9: special requisition is completed. So if you special requisition for project A, project A is

[2:08:30] Voice 9: completed and you end up with $10,000 that you didn't spend, you're able to redirect that money

[2:08:36] Voice 9: to projects within the local trust area our policy is unclear about whether or not those monies can

[2:08:42] Voice 9: be redirected while project a is still ongoing so we need to bring clarity to that piece fair enough

[2:08:50] Trustee Bernardo: and the other items the budget control budget

[2:08:54] Voice 9: control and adjustment came from executive

[2:08:55] Voice 9: committee there's a desire for well i guess former executive committee there was a desire to

[2:09:00] Voice 9: to have I think some stronger reporting controls built in

[2:09:06] Voice 9: around project or reporting out on projects.

[2:09:11] Voice 9: So we've talked at length about strengthening

[2:09:14] Voice 9: project planning and reporting throughout the organization.

[2:09:18] Voice 9: And this is a piece of that conversation.

[2:09:19] Trustee Bernardo: So that overlaps with the discussion we just had today

[2:09:22] Trustee Bernardo: about beefing up business plans

[2:09:24] Trustee Bernardo: and also overlaps with the corporate planning process

[2:09:27] Trustee Bernardo: because it contemplates business plans

[2:09:29] Trustee Bernardo: lines with specific milestones and that kind of thing so there's some overlap there a little bit

[2:09:33] Voice 9: of overlap not so much in the planning stage as in the reporting stage primarily when there's

[2:09:38] Voice 9: overspending okay

[2:09:40] Trustee Bernardo: and finally the item of trustee remuneration what was the what was the drift there

[2:09:45] Trustee Bernardo: in terms of the previous committee what were they saying

[2:09:48] Voice 9: there was no concern with this policy but

[2:09:51] Voice 9: the UBCM produced a report that talked about some best practices about setting remuneration for

[2:09:58] Voice 9: for local elected officials.

[2:09:59] Voice 9: And so former FPC thought it would be wise

[2:10:02] Voice 9: just to review our current policy

[2:10:04] Voice 9: against those best practice recommendations

[2:10:06] Voice 9: to see if there's areas for improvement.

[2:10:08] Voice 9: So that has been reviewed once by former FPC

[2:10:12] Voice 9: and we need to wrap up the process.

[2:10:15] Trustee Bernardo: Thank you.

[2:10:16] Trustee Bernardo: Thank you for elaborating all that.

[2:10:18] Trustee Bernardo: I see we have some comments and questions.

[2:10:20] Trustee Bernardo: Trustee Boland.

[2:10:22] Voice 16: Just a quick one, Julia.

[2:10:23] Voice 16: So in the special property tax requisition,

[2:10:26] Voice 16: Is the update going to incorporate the difficulty that Piers Island had with the special property tax requisition, that they couldn't be excluded from it, even though the project had no value for them, and they were very vehement in their feedback?

[2:10:49] Voice 9: Unfortunately, we won't be addressing that in the policy because that is a legislative requirement.

[2:10:55] Voice 9: So legislatively, we are required to requisition special levies against all properties in a local trust area.

[2:11:02] Voice 9: And so we are not able to override legislation with policy.

[2:11:06] Voice 6: Thank you. Trustee Peterson.

[2:11:09] Voice 4: Yeah, as far as the remuneration bit, there was the UBCM guidelines that also it was also mentioned in the in the Great Northern Governance Report as something to look at as well.

[2:11:25] Voice 4: so i think i i think that is also part of why it landed up here okay thank

[2:11:31] Trustee Bernardo: you uh let's return now

[2:11:35] Trustee Bernardo: to the um the point that trustee evans made and i made before which is uh the proposal that we work

[2:11:43] Trustee Bernardo: in the corporate planning development uh process into the work program how do we want to do that

[2:11:52] Trustee Bernardo: And I'm going to throw that question out into,

[2:11:58] Trustee Bernardo: well, I guess from my perspective,

[2:12:00] Trustee Bernardo: it looks like a no brainer because we're like,

[2:12:01] Trustee Bernardo: that's we're committed.

[2:12:04] Trustee Bernardo: Governance committee wants us to carry on.

[2:12:05] Trustee Bernardo: This committee is doing the work.

[2:12:09] Trustee Bernardo: It seems to me we need to document that.

[2:12:12] Trustee Bernardo: Do we need, this is a question for staff.

[2:12:15] Trustee Bernardo: Do we need a motion for that to work that in?

[2:12:17] Trustee Bernardo: Or can we just put it in?

[2:12:19] Voice 9: A motion directing staff to add that

[2:12:21] Voice 9: that to the working program would be preferred.

[2:12:25] Trustee Bernardo: All right, let's call together some language here.

[2:12:32] Voice 6: I

[2:12:33] Voice 15: can maybe give it a crack.

[2:12:35] Voice 6: Go ahead, Trustee Evans.

[2:12:37] Voice 15: I move that the financial

[2:12:41] Voice 6: planning working group project,

[2:12:49] Voice 15: comma, corporate planning process be added to the,

[2:12:54] Voice 15: if you, let me just go back and see what it's called.

[2:12:57] Voice 15: be added to the proposed work program

[2:13:01] Voice 6: active projects report does that work could we have

[2:13:13] Voice 6: the text up on the on the screen as soon as it's typed up okay so be added to the proposed

[2:13:40] Voice 6: financial planning committee work program active projects list i think okay that the

[2:14:12] Voice 6: um okay

[2:14:12] Voice 15: so can we add in there so where you've got the you've got the financial planning committee

[2:14:16] Voice 15: committee, we need to put in that it's the working group, so

[2:14:21] Voice 6: add in the, okay, whatever.

[2:14:28] Trustee Bernardo: Well, the project, the working group's doing the work. I don't think we necessarily have

[2:14:33] Trustee Bernardo: to refer to the working group in the motion in that the work is being taken on by the

[2:14:39] Trustee Bernardo: FPC, and the three of you are actually doing all the heavy lifting, but it is an FPC initiative,

[2:14:44] Trustee Bernardo: So I think that does it, but I see Director of Legislative Services has a hand up, and it's prudent to hear him at this type of juncture.

[2:14:53] Trustee Bernardo: So over to you, David.

[2:14:55] Voice 10: Yeah, thank you.

[2:14:56] Voice 10: I just want to take a little bit of time just to chat a little bit about the work program.

[2:15:01] Voice 10: The way it's set up is the active items are actually numbered, indicating that they have priority order.

[2:15:09] Voice 10: And generally what staff will do is work on the first priority, then go down to the second, then third.

[2:15:13] Voice 10: then if you've got more than that they'll work on them as they come available so usually what we've

[2:15:18] Voice 10: done when adding things to top priorities is consider where in that priority list you would

[2:15:24] Voice 10: like this to be so without anything indication it's going to probably fall to number four because

[2:15:29] Voice 10: you've already got three there but you may want to move it up you may want to put this as number one

[2:15:33] Voice 10: and number two so you might want to consider how this um the importance of this particular

[2:15:40] Voice 10: a particular project in relation to the other work

[2:15:43] Voice 10: that you're asking staff to work on as well.

[2:15:46] Voice 10: So that's just my comments on this.

[2:15:50] Trustee Bernardo: Well, that's very helpful, thank you.

[2:15:52] Trustee Bernardo: I think we, and I'm speaking personally,

[2:15:57] Trustee Bernardo: it makes sense to put a number to it

[2:15:59] Trustee Bernardo: so they can recognize a priority given the urgency

[2:16:03] Trustee Bernardo: and the effort that we're putting into it.

[2:16:04] Trustee Bernardo: All the other work that's on the,

[2:16:05] Trustee Bernardo: certainly the first two items that are on the current

[2:16:08] Trustee Bernardo: proposed working list, they're important.

[2:16:12] Trustee Bernardo: there is in a sense they're also virtually obligatory i mean if they're not really elective

[2:16:18] Trustee Bernardo: this is elective work uh i'm gonna suggest that we and this is open for discussion obviously

[2:16:25] Trustee Bernardo: i'm gonna suggest we make this a number one priority uh for the working list or sorry in

[2:16:30] Trustee Bernardo: the uh work program list subject to of course uh this is the floors open for comment i see

[2:16:37] Trustee Bernardo: david marler you have your your

[2:16:38] Voice 6: hand up again i forgot to take you down thank you oh okay

[2:16:44] Trustee Bernardo: Okay. Director Mums?

[2:16:47] Voice 9: Thanks, Chair. So related to your comment about the item number one and two being obligatory,

[2:16:52] Voice 9: item number one is actually a legal requirement. So if there are pressure points, I would have to

[2:16:59] Voice 9: focus on this work. Staff would have to focus on this work over and above the corporate planning.

[2:17:04] Voice 9: So it may not make sense to put corporate planning above the audit.

[2:17:09] Trustee Bernardo: Number two, then?

[2:17:12] Voice 6: easier budget

[2:17:13] Voice 9: assumptions and principles is not legislated requirements so it's easier yeah fair

[2:17:17] Trustee Bernardo: enough i'm not sure anybody's actually like we're tinkering with this so uh i think that has to be

[2:17:24] Trustee Bernardo: on the assumption that nobody's actually made the motion we're playing with the language

[2:17:29] Trustee Bernardo: um trustee evans do you have any more comments about this or is this the motion you wish to

[2:17:34] Trustee Bernardo: put forward or hang on i see trustee bowen is her hand up no she does not i'm going to ask you

[2:17:39] Trustee Bernardo: trustee evans is this uh does this uh reflect your intention yes

[2:17:43] Voice 15: thank you very much do you

[2:17:45] Voice 15: want me to

[2:17:45] Trustee Bernardo: read it out

[2:17:46] Voice 15: again i

[2:17:47] Trustee Bernardo: don't think so i think we can all see it here uh is

[2:17:50] Voice 6: uh do we have

[2:17:50] Voice 6: a seconder for the motion second trustee graham has seconded the motion uh do we need to have any

[2:18:00] Voice 6: further discussion about this but the ball and now has her hand up yeah

[2:18:07] Voice 16: sorry i'd just like to say

[2:18:09] Voice 16: that um you know um i don't want to load up julia obviously but she's a key component of this

[2:18:17] Voice 16: But we can, well, certainly I can work under Julia's direction.

[2:18:23] Voice 16: So if we really make good use of the three members of the working group,

[2:18:29] Voice 16: then maybe we can share the load and make sure that she's not too overloaded.

[2:18:35] Voice 16: So please, Julia, use

[2:18:38] Voice 6: us as a resource.

[2:18:40] Voice 6: Thank you.

[2:18:43] Trustee Bernardo: Well, I'm taking it for granted that the working group, maybe I shouldn't,

[2:18:48] Trustee Bernardo: but I'm taking it for granted the working group is going to continue to plug away with staff on

[2:18:51] Trustee Bernardo: this thing and that this is really you know this is a big innovation uh it's it's not all

[2:18:58] Trustee Bernardo: implementation it's a combination of policy and implementation and makes terrific sense that

[2:19:03] Trustee Bernardo: you've got trustees and staff working together to develop the proposal so I've just taken it

[2:19:08] Trustee Bernardo: for granted the FPC through the working group is going to continue to work with staff so unless

[2:19:14] Trustee Bernardo: unless I'm wrong about that,

[2:19:17] Trustee Bernardo: I think we can work with that assumption.

[2:19:19] Trustee Bernardo: Trustee Peterson.

[2:19:23] Voice 4: Yeah, speaking of assumptions,

[2:19:26] Voice 4: just wanted to, in response to your comments earlier there,

[2:19:31] Voice 4: Chair Bernardo, that of course,

[2:19:34] Voice 4: this work on the corporate plan

[2:19:36] Voice 4: has yet to go through Trust Council

[2:19:38] Voice 4: and have it stamp of approval.

[2:19:40] Voice 4: So just lest we forget that is still part of the process

[2:19:43] Voice 4: coming ahead of us.

[2:19:45] Trustee Bernardo: That's understood.

[2:19:46] Trustee Bernardo: I mean, we are a committee and we're developing a thing.

[2:19:51] Trustee Bernardo: And at the end of the day, it will be for trust council

[2:19:53] Trustee Bernardo: to look at this marvelous thing that we've prepared.

[2:19:56] Trustee Bernardo: And then we're going to have a real debate

[2:19:57] Trustee Bernardo: and discussion on jazz, but no, this is all about work.

[2:20:01] Trustee Bernardo: It's not about conclusions, understood.

[2:20:03] Trustee Bernardo: Any further comments?

[2:20:07] Trustee Bernardo: Seeing none, I'm going to call for a vote.

[2:20:09] Trustee Bernardo: All those

[2:20:09] Voice 6: in favor of this motion, please raise your hand.

[2:20:16] Voice 6: All right, please lower your hands.

[2:20:18] Voice 6: anybody who opposes the motion please raise your hand now seeing none the motion carries

[2:20:31] Voice 6: so moving on to the next item or maybe there isn't the next item let me double check here

[2:20:43] Trustee Patrick: chair yes there

[2:20:44] Trustee Patrick: was one more motion that needed to be made i believe for the work program at some

[2:20:48] Trustee Patrick: item it's on the first page of the agenda for item 10.

[2:20:53] Voice 6: there is let's see could i uh

[2:20:57] Trustee Patrick: I'm I'm I'm happy to make that motion

[2:20:59] Trustee Bernardo: of course yes of course we of course we now actually have

[2:21:03] Trustee Bernardo: to approve the work process uh thank you for the trustee uh Patrick perhaps you could make the

[2:21:08] Trustee Bernardo: motion I

[2:21:09] Trustee Patrick: move that the financial planning committee approve the proposed amended work

[2:21:15] Trustee Patrick: program or the or the sorry proposed work program as amended and forward it to a trust council for

[2:21:21] Trustee Patrick: approval do

[2:21:24] Trustee Bernardo: we have a seconder for that motion i see trustee peterson has raised his hand uh is

[2:21:30] Trustee Bernardo: there any debate about that motion no

[2:21:34] Voice 6: comments those in favor please raise your hands please

[2:21:40] Voice 6: lower your hands anybody who

[2:21:42] Trustee Bernardo: wishes to express a contrary view please raise your hands now

[2:21:46] Trustee Bernardo: seeing none the motion carries next item is i guess for information because i think we've

[2:21:52] Trustee Bernardo: set these dates ahead of time but our next meeting is august 30th uh going to item 12

[2:21:59] Trustee Bernardo: Well, closed meeting, I don't think we have,

[2:22:00] Trustee Bernardo: unless I, I don't believe we have a reason

[2:22:02] Trustee Bernardo: of a closed meeting of any sort,

[2:22:04] Trustee Bernardo: but I should canvass a group.

[2:22:06] Trustee Bernardo: Is there any, anybody wants to make a,

[2:22:09] Trustee Bernardo: requires a closed meeting to address any issues?

[2:22:14] Trustee Bernardo: Nope, doesn't look like, oh, hang on.

[2:22:16] Trustee Bernardo: Trustee Peterson has raised his hand.

[2:22:19] Voice 4: Just as a point of process, Chair,

[2:22:23] Voice 4: I think both the new business piece and this piece

[2:22:28] Voice 4: should normally be addressed at the beginning

[2:22:30] Voice 4: of the approval of the agenda so uh you know i i would actually tend to object if somebody wanted

[2:22:37] Voice 4: to throw something at us at this point um you know if it wasn't already on the agenda if we didn't

[2:22:44] Voice 4: have a closed closed item or a new business item should be we should be doing that at the beginning

[2:22:50] Voice 4: of the agenda before we approve it uh fair

[2:22:55] Trustee Bernardo: enough and maybe uh when on that particular item when

[2:22:58] Trustee Bernardo: when on the approval of the agenda item at the beginning of the thing perhaps we could have a

[2:23:03] Trustee Bernardo: couple little sub paragraphs as a reminder to uh people like me that that's the time to canvas that

[2:23:09] Trustee Bernardo: stuff so thank

[2:23:10] Voice 6: you for that comment that's helpful um i think we're done uh

[2:23:17] Trustee Bernardo: there's nothing left to

[2:23:19] Trustee Bernardo: do uh we have remarkably for the fpc uh we've complete we've completed our work today um

[2:23:26] Trustee Bernardo: on time and in fact, before lunch.

[2:23:29] Trustee Bernardo: So thank you everybody.

[2:23:30] Trustee Bernardo: I think this was a very constructive and efficient meeting,

[2:23:32] Trustee Bernardo: very business-like.

[2:23:33] Trustee Bernardo: Thank you everybody and enjoy the rest of your days.

[2:23:37] Trustee Bernardo: Because-

[2:23:37] Trustee Bernardo: Thank

[2:23:37] Voice 16: you, Mr. Chairman.

[2:23:38] Voice 16: I think you did a good job.

[2:23:40] Voice 16: Thank you.