Islands Trust Financial Planning Committee regular meeting, August 30, 2023

[0:00:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): start due to some technical difficulties actually at my end. I won't bore you with the details.

[0:00:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I'm calling this meeting of the Financial Planning Committee to order and I'm going

[0:00:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to start off right off the bat by reviewing the agenda. And we are, I believe, and I can

[0:00:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): report actually that the audit committee just received and the audited financial statements

[0:00:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and report from KPMG had a small amount of discussion about that and has approved the

[0:00:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): forwarding of the financial statements audited financial statements to trust council for its

[0:00:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): final approval and that item it's also noted on the agenda as a late item I believe

[0:00:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): staff will have provided those audited financial statements and the audit report to the financial

[0:01:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): planning committee. There's nothing for us to do at this level for that. It's for your information.

[0:01:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So on to the agenda. Do we have any comments about the format of the agenda or any items

[0:01:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): on the agenda? Does anybody want to make any editorial remarks?

[0:01:22] Voice 2: I have one item of new

[0:01:24] Voice 2: new business. I don't know if that's next. So just as a heads up.

[0:01:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well, let's deal with that

[0:01:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): when we get to thank you, Trustee Boland. But we can deal with that when we get to the to the new

[0:01:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): business section. So there'll be a spot there for you to pipe up with your new item. So Trustee

[0:01:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Patrick, I see Trustee Patrick, I'm going to recognize her first, and then we'll proceed

[0:01:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): with Trustee Luckham.

[0:01:49] Trustee Patrick (probable): Well, the others are probably going to say the same. I have an item

[0:01:52] Trustee Patrick (probable): of new business as well, but I think that needs to be raised now from May Raid so that it can be

[0:01:56] Trustee Patrick (probable): on the agenda. So I can let her go first and then I can follow.

[0:02:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Oh, all right. All right.

[0:02:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Bowman, we'll return to you.

[0:02:07] Voice 4: Okay. We

[0:02:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): need to have you speak up with respect to the

[0:02:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): item of new business now so we can sort of address it later.

[0:02:14] Voice 2: Okay. I would like a brief discussion

[0:02:16] Voice 2: discussion on the request. I asked for business cases to be provided to the Financial Planning

[0:02:23] Voice 2: Committee, and I'd like to hear if that's possible or not, I think. Anyway, let's have a brief

[0:02:32] Voice 2: discussion about it, please. Thank you.

[0:02:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All right. We're going to add that item to the new business.

[0:02:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We'll discuss that when we get to that area. Trustee Patrick, your hand is still up. Do you

[0:02:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): have anything else to add to that?

[0:02:43] Trustee Patrick (probable): Yes. I don't know if it's a new business or where exactly,

[0:02:47] Trustee Patrick (probable): it fits is the budget business case format if we were going to add a discussion on the content of

[0:02:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): that form i

[0:02:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): don't believe when i look at the existing agenda that doesn't strike me as something

[0:03:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that hasn't that would naturally emerge from a discussion out of these items but perhaps i should

[0:03:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): double check here with director mobs director mobs i'm seeing mostly you know for a better term

[0:03:15] Trustee Bernardo (probable): technical items here for largely for discussion is there a natural place for trustee Patrick's

[0:03:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): point that she wants to discuss the format of business plans is there a natural place for that

[0:03:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in the existing agenda or should we treat this as a new business item well

[0:03:33] Voice 11: it would be considered

[0:03:34] Voice 11: new business item as it's coming forward now I would suggest slotting it in at 751 draft budget

[0:03:41] Voice 11: assumptions and principles that's when we'll be talking about budget related items so it could

[0:03:45] Voice 11: could make sense to talk about it there.

[0:03:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Is that satisfactory to you, Trustee Patrick,

[0:03:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that we discussed your point at that juncture?

[0:03:53] Voice 4: Yes.

[0:03:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All right, thank you.

[0:03:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do we have any other comments from the trustees

[0:03:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about the agenda?

[0:04:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Without further comment, I'm going to take it by consent

[0:04:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that the agenda as amended has been approved

[0:04:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): by this committee.

[0:04:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We move on now to the public comment period.

[0:04:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do we have any, Mr. Barlow, can you advise

[0:04:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): whether or not we have any members of the public

[0:04:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that have any comments they would like to make there

[0:04:22] Voice 12: are there are no members of the public

[0:04:24] Voice 12: present thank

[0:04:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you and uh before we proceed any further uh i am remiss in the sense that i uh

[0:04:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): failed to do something outside of the meeting in a sense and i apologize for that because a bit of

[0:04:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): a rush since we got this meeting started late late but uh i uh failed to acknowledge something

[0:04:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is quite important which is that we are privileged to live and work in lands and waters that have

[0:04:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): have been the traditional home of Indigenous peoples for as long as anybody can remember,

[0:04:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or frankly, as far as anybody can know. And our Indigenous peoples' fundamental part of

[0:05:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): their cultures has always, all of them, has been to recognize the sacredness of these lands and

[0:05:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): waters that we now call the island's trust area. And, you know, respecting the land,

[0:05:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and respecting the people within the land,

[0:05:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the worth of all the lives in the trust area.

[0:05:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): That's actually the mandate in section three

[0:05:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of the Islands Trust Act.

[0:05:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We have a lot to learn from our First Nations

[0:05:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and it's our duty and honor to work with them going forward

[0:05:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): as we together endeavor to protect the Islands Trust Area.

[0:05:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And with that acknowledgement,

[0:05:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We'll now return to the agenda as structured.

[0:05:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Delegations, I see we have none.

[0:05:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We also have no correspondence.

[0:05:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So we'll move on to item six and 6.1.

[0:06:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We have the minutes, draft minutes of the previous meeting,

[0:06:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): which took place on May 31st, 2023.

[0:06:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do we have any comments with respect to any items

[0:06:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): with respect to any

[0:06:13] Voice 4: corrections that might be required

[0:06:14] Voice 4: to the meeting minutes?

[0:06:15] Voice 4: I

[0:06:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): see no comments.

[0:06:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And since I don't see any comments,

[0:06:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I don't think we need a formal resolution.

[0:06:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I'm going to take it by consent that those minutes

[0:06:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): have been approved by this committee today.

[0:06:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Moving on to the next item.

[0:06:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We don't have any resolutions that meeting to discuss.

[0:06:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And then we now have our 6.3, the follow up action list.

[0:06:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Perhaps Director Mobs,

[0:06:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you could walk us briefly through that.

[0:06:45] Voice 11: Sure, so typically we ask responsible staff members

[0:06:50] Voice 11: to speak to items that are theirs.

[0:06:52] Voice 11: going in order from top to bottom. So we'd begin with the CAO.

[0:06:57] Voice 16: Good morning, committee. I have nothing to update you on on this matter or to certainly

[0:07:01] Voice 16: respond to any questions.

[0:07:08] Voice 4: Okay. Nothing there. Move on.

[0:07:18] Voice 4: And are we, well.

[0:07:22] Voice 11: I see Director Frater on screen.

[0:07:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Yes. Director Frater, could you please comment on your activity item on the follow-up action

[0:07:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): report?

[0:07:33] Voice 10: Yes, I have provided the request to provincial staff and followed up. They are

[0:07:38] Voice 10: doing some analysis around this, around the impact of special tax requisitions on associated islands

[0:07:44] Voice 10: and looking at the policy implications. The indications I'm getting is that there is unlikely

[0:07:50] Voice 10: to be a case for legislative change in this matter, but I've yet to get a formal reply from

[0:07:55] Voice 10: them. But that's sort of what's in motion right now. Understandably, their staff are certainly

[0:08:00] Voice 10: diverted at this time to other pressing welfare matters so um i'll come back to you once i have

[0:08:05] Voice 10: something in writing but we are in conversation and they're doing some work at their end well

[0:08:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it's gratifying to know that there's actually communication happening at that end so that's

[0:08:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): helpful so it's that's that's a form of progress thank you for that uh director mobs on the reserve

[0:08:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and surplus policy uh

[0:08:22] Voice 11: yes so most items assigned to me on the follow-up action list do relate to

[0:08:26] Voice 11: financial policies. Work on the financial policies has been deferred and pushed into

[0:08:34] Voice 11: later months in the year for a couple of reasons. The first reason being that Trust Council has yet

[0:08:39] Voice 11: to do an overall review of their policies. This review was set for September, didn't make it onto

[0:08:45] Voice 11: the agenda, and so will be happening in December. The results of that work may impact the financial

[0:08:53] Voice 11: policy work. And so we will be taking on this financial policy review subsequent to that.

[0:08:58] Voice 11: I have spaced out the timing or the planned timing of these reviews to acknowledge the fact that the

[0:09:03] Voice 11: budget cycle is very busy and my time is very stretched throughout the budget cycle. So you

[0:09:07] Voice 11: are seeing a fairly staggered approach for these policies as opposed to everything happening at

[0:09:11] Voice 11: once.

[0:09:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Fair enough. That's reasonable. And

[0:09:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): do we have anything else on the phone? Let's see.

[0:09:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): do we have any well i see we have a series of completed items so there's no need really to

[0:09:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): get into that uh so uh that would appear to take care of the follow-up action list we could return

[0:09:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to the agenda

[0:09:33] Voice 4: please and

[0:09:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we are now into the uh to the nuts and bolts of the the actual business uh

[0:09:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of the meeting here um first item is a discussion of the you know a briefing basically of the march

[0:09:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): March 31st, 2023 Audit Financial Statements.

[0:09:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Over to you, Director Motz.

[0:09:58] Voice 11: Thanks, Chair.

[0:09:59] Voice 11: So as the Chair had mentioned,

[0:10:00] Voice 11: the Audit Committee had just met a few moments ago

[0:10:03] Voice 11: to discuss the audited financial statements

[0:10:05] Voice 11: and the findings of the audit with the auditors, KPMG.

[0:10:09] Voice 11: Audit Committee has forwarded

[0:10:11] Voice 11: the audited financial statements and audit report

[0:10:14] Voice 11: to Financial Planning Committee for information.

[0:10:16] Voice 11: They have also forwarded those same statements directly

[0:10:19] Voice 11: to Trust Council for Trust Council's approval.

[0:10:21] Voice 11: And so those will be at the council table in September.

[0:10:25] Voice 11: The briefing that's before you speaks to a couple of items that were completed since

[0:10:31] Voice 11: financial planning committee looked at the draft year-end financial statements in May.

[0:10:35] Voice 11: So since May, staff did fully complete the financial statement package, which includes

[0:10:40] Voice 11: financial statement notes.

[0:10:42] Voice 11: We also completed our assessment over the new accounting standard related to asset retirement

[0:10:46] Voice 11: obligations.

[0:10:46] Voice 11: obligations and as a result of the work over that new standard there were no changes to the

[0:10:52] Voice 11: financial statement so no new liabilities or expenses were recognized from that new standard.

[0:10:56] Voice 11: We also completed our assessment over revenue recognition associated with the province's new

[0:11:01] Voice 11: climate action program. So that was something noted as outstanding in May. Completion of that

[0:11:07] Voice 11: work did see a change in the numbers that financial planning reviewed in May. We saw a reduction in

[0:11:12] Voice 11: deferred revenue of $38,000 and an equal and offsetting increase in revenue of $38,000 as a

[0:11:20] Voice 11: result of that assessment. We also just changed where some liabilities were classified on the

[0:11:27] Voice 11: statement of financial position, moving wages payable from accrued liabilities into the wages

[0:11:33] Voice 11: payable line. No changes in numbers, just simply in where they

[0:11:37] Voice 11: are classified. So those are just

[0:11:40] Voice 11: the updates from what you saw in may i'm happy to take questions i

[0:11:49] Voice 4: don't see any questions on that

[0:11:50] Voice 4: i see

[0:11:51] Voice 11: trustee boland has her hand raised

[0:11:54] Voice 4: apologies sorry

[0:11:55] Voice 2: i'm operating on quite a small screen so i'm flipping around missing out a bit

[0:12:00] Voice 2: um so i see uh under operating expenses there's a thing about office lease costs and um i can see

[0:12:11] Voice 2: you know, Saterna is honorably mentioned and Maine. Could you speak about those costs and

[0:12:16] Voice 2: what they represent? And are the offices in Victoria, for instance, covered there? I don't

[0:12:24] Voice 2: seem to see it elsewhere. Thank you.

[0:12:27] Voice 11: I think you may be looking at the allocated financial

[0:12:30] Voice 11: statements on page 16 of the agenda. Am I assuming that correctly? Okay, we're not there yet. We're

[0:12:39] Voice 11: are still on the audited financial statements. We'll get to your question when we look at the

[0:12:43] Voice 11: allocated.

[0:12:46] Voice 2: Sorry, jumping ahead.

[0:12:47] Voice 4: No problem. Thanks.

[0:12:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All right. Thank you for that. If we

[0:12:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): could now please return to the agenda. And before we move on to the next item,

[0:13:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I should comment that at the audit committee meeting, the representative KPMG was complementary

[0:13:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to both management and staff, senior management

[0:13:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and staff that worked on the financial statements

[0:13:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and announced that this was a particularly clean audit.

[0:13:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It was easy for them to deal with.

[0:13:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It's very transparent and they were very satisfied

[0:13:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): with that and just so that you know

[0:13:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that compliment was made.

[0:13:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So let's get that on the record.

[0:13:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All right, moving on to 7.2, we're receiving

[0:13:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for information allocated financial statements perhaps we could have a brief some reef remarks

[0:13:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about that

[0:13:43] Voice 11: happy to provide those chair so the allocated financial statements are these are not

[0:13:50] Voice 11: a legislatively required statement these are an internally generated financial statements

[0:13:57] Voice 11: based on the audited financial statements that seeks to allocate revenues and expenses out to

[0:14:05] Voice 11: to the various local trust areas.

[0:14:07] Voice 11: So historically there had been concern

[0:14:09] Voice 11: from local trust committees about how much resourcing

[0:14:12] Voice 11: was being applied to each local trust area.

[0:14:15] Voice 11: And so trust council had requested that finance come up

[0:14:18] Voice 11: with a methodology to assign revenues and assign expenses

[0:14:21] Voice 11: to various local trust areas to help understand

[0:14:24] Voice 11: where revenues were being generated

[0:14:26] Voice 11: and used throughout the trust area.

[0:14:29] Voice 11: So it is not a perfect allocation.

[0:14:32] Voice 11: Of course, it's just a methodology that's been designed

[0:14:35] Voice 11: and refined over the years the actual statement itself is on page 16 of the agenda package

[0:14:42] Voice 11: it starts with allocating direct revenues and direct expenses to various local trust areas

[0:14:49] Voice 11: so direct revenues are things like fees application fees that are received within a particular local

[0:14:56] Voice 11: trust area property tax levies that come from particular local trust areas as well as grant

[0:15:02] Voice 11: grant income that is awarded to specific LTCs. Those are revenue items that we can directly

[0:15:08] Voice 11: attribute to local trust areas. And so they are allocated as such. We also have expenses that can

[0:15:14] Voice 11: be directly attributed to local trust committees and local trust areas. So things like legal costs.

[0:15:20] Voice 11: So if we have a legal claim that relates to a particular LTC, we know the costs for that and

[0:15:26] Voice 11: and we can allocate it directly to that local trust area.

[0:15:29] Voice 11: LTC expenses are also very easy to directly attribute

[0:15:33] Voice 11: to local trust areas,

[0:15:34] Voice 11: and so they are allocated directly as well.

[0:15:37] Voice 11: And things like trustee remuneration, of course,

[0:15:39] Voice 11: we know where trustees reside and where they're elected,

[0:15:42] Voice 11: so we're able to directly allocate

[0:15:44] Voice 11: those types of expenses as well.

[0:15:47] Voice 11: We also are able to directly allocate

[0:15:51] Voice 11: local trust committee projects.

[0:15:53] Voice 11: So costs associated with those directly attributable

[0:15:55] Voice 11: to local trust areas and that's an easy allocation as well. Where we get into more of an indirect

[0:16:01] Voice 11: allocation, we're looking at things that relate to activities that impact the trust as a whole.

[0:16:08] Voice 11: So things like trust council expenses, the work of the Island Trust Conservancy and general

[0:16:13] Voice 11: administration, those are costs that need to be indirectly allocated. The primary methods of

[0:16:20] Voice 11: of allocation to various local trust areas for those indirect costs are either planning staff

[0:16:26] Voice 11: time or property values within local trust areas. So for allocating planning staff time, we do use

[0:16:34] Voice 11: time track, we use the Island Trust time tracking system. So planning staff and bylaw staff are

[0:16:40] Voice 11: putting their time into the time tracking system and they are telling us what they're working on

[0:16:45] Voice 11: and where they're spending their time and they're allocating it out by local trust area. And we use

[0:16:50] Voice 11: that information to allocate total planning staff expenses. So if we look in the time collection

[0:16:56] Voice 11: system and we see 10% of staff time has been allocated to Thetis Island, we would take 10%

[0:17:03] Voice 11: of planning staff cost overall and allocate that to Thetis Island local trust area.

[0:17:09] Voice 11: Trust council, conservancy and administration expenses allocated based on the property values

[0:17:15] Voice 11: within each local trust area. So the net converted assessment value, which is provided by

[0:17:20] Voice 11: BC assessment is what is used here. So if Salt Spring Island holds 35% of the property value

[0:17:27] Voice 11: within Islands Trust, we would allocate 35% of Trust Council conservancy and admin costs

[0:17:33] Voice 11: to that local trust area. The final line in the statement on page 16 is the net surplus or

[0:17:41] Voice 11: shortfall. And you'll see some numbers there that are a positive number and some numbers that are

[0:17:47] Voice 11: are in brackets, which is considered a negative number

[0:17:50] Voice 11: or a shortfall.

[0:17:52] Voice 11: So that indicates whether or not a local trust area

[0:17:55] Voice 11: is a net contributor to the operations of the trust

[0:17:58] Voice 11: or a net resource drawdown

[0:18:01] Voice 11: to the operations of the Islands Trust.

[0:18:04] Voice 11: We do see these values shift year over year,

[0:18:06] Voice 11: depending on the amount of work and the type of work

[0:18:09] Voice 11: that's being undertaken by local trust areas.

[0:18:12] Voice 11: The number that's highlighted in gray is $36,963.

[0:18:18] Voice 11: That is the annual deficit that agrees

[0:18:22] Voice 11: to the Islands Trust audited financial statements.

[0:18:25] Voice 11: So when we see that number agree

[0:18:27] Voice 11: to the financial statements,

[0:18:28] Voice 11: that's how we know that we have properly captured

[0:18:31] Voice 11: all of the revenues and expenses in the organization.

[0:18:35] Voice 11: So that's an overview.

[0:18:37] Voice 11: I think this might be the first time

[0:18:39] Voice 11: that committee is seeing these statements.

[0:18:40] Voice 11: so i'm happy to field questions um

[0:18:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): yes and uh before i open the floor to the question

[0:18:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to questions generally because this is an interesting document and it's certainly the

[0:18:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): first time i've seen such a thing um i gather the utility of this document is simply to help

[0:18:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): trustees get a sense of what the basically the revenues and expenditures um you know in the out

[0:19:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of our budget are directed to their particular local trust area it just gives them a sense of

[0:19:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of i mean the allocation is clear enough the way you've explained it but it's

[0:19:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): really seems to be a matter of simply a guide to to make trustees recognize what kind of uh

[0:19:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): what their trust areas are contributing to the piggy bank and what we're drawing out of it

[0:19:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is that fair enough uh

[0:19:30] Voice 11: that is certainly fair um it's important to recognize it's not an exact

[0:19:33] Voice 11: science. So this isn't going to be completely accurate. The information is also only as good

[0:19:38] Voice 11: as the data input. We have seen some challenges with time tracking over the years. We did have

[0:19:45] Voice 11: some improvements with that in the current year. So the reliability is slightly better. But again,

[0:19:50] Voice 11: it's methodology, not a perfect science. But yes, does represent usage and contribution by local

[0:19:56] Voice 11: trust area well

[0:19:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we won't accuse it of being a science then but it's the uh the uh the time

[0:20:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): tracking issue uh that sounds like something larger than this particular exercise uh trustee

[0:20:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): boland thanks

[0:20:13] Voice 2: uh julia i wonder if you know in the corporate planning exercise world we could

[0:20:20] Voice 2: together look at the um i forget what it's called in the in the financial world but the actual

[0:20:29] Voice 2: elements against which people time right because i think that would be incredibly helpful in

[0:20:34] Voice 2: understanding and perhaps you know seeing um you know opportunities and perhaps seeing things that

[0:20:43] Voice 2: could be done differently i think it would really help as we go forward into that corporate planning

[0:20:48] Voice 2: process just to see those time writing codes effectively that people are using what they

[0:20:55] Voice 2: represent thanks i

[0:20:58] Voice 11: can respond to that if i may mr chair

[0:21:01] Voice 2: the

[0:21:02] Voice 11: briefing that accompanies the statement

[0:21:04] Voice 11: does uh provide a summary breakdown of the types of time codes that are used um so on page 14 of

[0:21:14] Voice 11: the agenda package at the very top of that page we do give an indication of the various codes that

[0:21:21] Voice 11: are used. It's only planning and bylaw staff that are using the time tracking system it's the not

[0:21:28] Voice 11: the rest of the organization and so that's why you'll only see time codes related to those staff

[0:21:32] Voice 11: there.

[0:21:36] Voice 2: Yeah and this is quite broad in general is this the level at which the time tracking is done

[0:21:42] Voice 2: or have you rolled it up to a more generic level?

[0:21:47] Voice 11: This is the level that time tracking is captured.

[0:21:50] Voice 11: It does provide the information that's needed

[0:21:53] Voice 11: for the purposes of the allocated financial statement

[0:21:56] Voice 11: specifically, which is fairly high level.

[0:21:58] Voice 11: As part of the corporate planning process,

[0:22:00] Voice 11: if there's more detail that's required

[0:22:02] Voice 11: for specific parts of that process,

[0:22:05] Voice 11: this time tracking may not provide what's needed.

[0:22:08] Voice 11: And so we would need to examine that process.

[0:22:12] Voice 4: Thank you.

[0:22:13] Voice 4: Trustee Leckham?

[0:22:19] Voice 4: Audio. Thank you, Chair Bernardo. I

[0:22:24] Trustee Luckham (probable): just wanted to note, others may have heard me say this before,

[0:22:27] Trustee Luckham (probable): I'm particularly fond of this particular document, more specifically because it's a great tool for

[0:22:34] Trustee Luckham (probable): trustees to use to communicate with their community citizens about where the cost allocations are. It

[0:22:41] Trustee Luckham (probable): really demonstrates the financial structure of the federation and is a sufficient amount of detail

[0:22:49] Trustee Luckham (probable): for folks to understand the financial picture

[0:22:53] Trustee Luckham (probable): related to their particular community

[0:22:56] Trustee Luckham (probable): and where they're gaining, where their money is going.

[0:23:02] Trustee Luckham (probable): So

[0:23:02] Voice 4: I appreciate this document, thank you.

[0:23:08] Voice 4: Trustee Graham.

[0:23:09] Voice 6: Yes, thank you.

[0:23:11] Voice 6: So is this time tracking of planning staff

[0:23:14] Voice 6: and bylaw enforcement staff only used

[0:23:18] Voice 6: in the indirect allocation process

[0:23:21] Voice 6: Or is there any other reason why we're asking these professionals to be tracking every minute of their time?

[0:23:31] Voice 4: I

[0:23:31] Voice 11: can respond briefly to my knowledge.

[0:23:36] Voice 11: From the finance side of things, this is the only way that we use this information.

[0:23:42] Voice 11: I can't speak to whether or not regional planning managers or the director of planning is using this information to inform resource allocations or look at planning for future years.

[0:23:52] Voice 11: I'd have to lean into him for that information.

[0:23:55] Voice 11: From a finance perspective, that's the only way that we use it.

[0:24:00] Voice 6: Follow-up question, if I may, Chair?

[0:24:02] Voice 6: Go ahead.

[0:24:03] Voice 6: I know that this allocation or the time tracking is at least 10 years in the works.

[0:24:09] Voice 6: There's a tremendous amount of data available.

[0:24:11] Voice 6: Why don't we simply use an average and stop taxing these professionals to do this kind of tracking of their time for a simple process of allocating indirect costs?

[0:24:26] Voice 6: We're a federation. Can we not act more like a federation? Thank you.

[0:24:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I think there was a question in there somewhere. And I see CEO Hudson Pillar has got his hand up and I suspect he hasn't answered.

[0:24:42] Voice 15: thank you mr.

[0:24:43] Voice 15: chair good morning to a committee I usually don't even get to

[0:24:48] Voice 15: speak at FPC so this is a real treat you know absolutely time tracking and the

[0:24:56] Voice 15: questions here the spectrum of questions I think is going to be a moment of pause

[0:25:03] Voice 15: a moment of pause for the Allen's trust as we figure out what we want to do with

[0:25:08] Voice 15: this as we listen to trustee graham and then we listen to uh and his inquiries and then um frankly

[0:25:15] Voice 15: others wanting to utilize in a more direct way a lot more um hourly allocations so i as part of the

[0:25:24] Voice 15: corporate planning process we're going to find that we're going to have to sit and really think

[0:25:28] Voice 15: this part over to figure out which direction do we want to go um i can tell you that the planning

[0:25:36] Voice 15: staff, just in support of my colleague, Ms. Mobs, the planning staff do use this data in their

[0:25:41] Voice 15: professional capacities for resource allocations, whether it's the long-range planning team

[0:25:47] Voice 15: or working on various rezonings and files. So there is some utility associated with it.

[0:25:51] Voice 15: I don't think anyone would say it's been perfectly utilized. It's just anecdotally,

[0:25:59] Voice 15: it's a challenge to, you know, the planning world doesn't operate on a minute-to-minute,

[0:26:04] Voice 15: minute, 15 minute basis. So it ends up being, unlike other professions that use this, a rude

[0:26:10] Voice 15: measure, if I may, and we can certainly get into the details of that. But it is used. I don't think

[0:26:18] Voice 15: it's extremely specific, but it's enough to help management allocate some resources one way or

[0:26:24] Voice 15: another, and of course, to populate this database. And I look forward, this discussion is going on

[0:26:30] Voice 15: at the governance committee and at the fpc subgroup and that is how are we going to what

[0:26:35] Voice 15: degree are we using staff hourly allocations and directing them across the organization so it's a

[0:26:39] Voice 15: it's a timely discussion thanks very much uh

[0:26:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): thank you for that uh ceo and uh those points are well

[0:26:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): taken in that um and we are limited in time here we don't want to belabor and wander off this is

[0:26:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): really not a i mean it's useful and i think it's important that the issue has been raised and it's

[0:26:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you know now in our minds for consideration but the ceo's points i think are well taken in that

[0:27:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it's a lot more the time tracking aspect uh is um has significance for a lot more than this

[0:27:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): allocation exercise um there are questions about whether or not it is uh it can and should be used

[0:27:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to a greater degree for planning purposes as as he's mentioned uh so uh let's bring

[0:27:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the discussion of this particular point to an end but bear in mind as the cao has pointed out that

[0:27:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): this is a an issue that has to be still worked out as to the utility of time tracking and whether or

[0:27:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): not we have some opportunities there to improve our planning through using that but that's a

[0:27:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that's a live discussion no conclusions have been drawn on that and it's it's not something we're

[0:27:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to decide here today so if we could

[0:27:58] Voice 4: return to the agenda please we have a

[0:28:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i think our next item is

[0:28:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i believe the statement of financial information and we're actually i think believe i believe we're

[0:28:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): being presented with a request for decision before

[0:28:21] Voice 11: we move on mr chair may i interject

[0:28:25] Voice 11: historically financial planning committee has forwarded the allocated financial statements

[0:28:29] Voice 11: to council it's not required as it's not a legislative report i've made no assumptions

[0:28:33] Voice 11: about what the the current new financial planning committee will want to do with these

[0:28:38] Voice 11: but if you'd like to forward them to council a motion would be required

[0:28:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): well certainly there's no objection to continue with past practice um but do we uh i'll leave it

[0:28:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to the floor maybe we have a motion to forward these to trust council and if somebody can second

[0:28:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it then we can have a discussion as to whether or not people want to continue with the practice or

[0:28:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or not trustee Patrick I

[0:29:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): am happy to make a stab at it I move that the financial planning committee

[0:29:11] Trustee Patrick (probable): forward the is it 2022-23 allocated financial statements to trust counsel for information

[0:29:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and I see trustee Luckham has his hand up I assume you're seconding the motion

[0:29:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): yes do we have any discussion on the point

[0:29:29] Voice 4: trustee Boland I

[0:29:33] Voice 2: can wait until after we've

[0:29:35] Voice 2: forwarded it but there was my question from earlier about the um the office uh costs and

[0:29:43] Voice 2: how they were allocated thanks i can wait

[0:29:47] Voice 2: until after this is finished okay

[0:29:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): right oh all right

[0:29:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that's um that's tangential to the actual motion issue here so

[0:29:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh we have the motion any further discussion on the motion about just forwarding these statements

[0:30:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): as to trust council for information, no comments.

[0:30:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All right, I'm going to ask everybody

[0:30:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or put it up to vote everybody in favor

[0:30:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of forwarding it to trust council, please raise your hands.

[0:30:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I

[0:30:17] Voice 4: believe the motion passes unanimously, thank you.

[0:30:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And if we can now return to your question,

[0:30:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I take it Trustee Boland, you have a question

[0:30:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about an entry in those statements, allocation statements.

[0:30:38] Voice 2: uh yeah i just noticed the one about uh office lease lease costs and i didn't quite understand it

[0:30:45] Voice 2: and i just wanted an explanation and i thought um for instance is the what about the victoria office

[0:30:53] Voice 2: how is that captured in the allegation or is it or not i'm not sure director

[0:31:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): mobs do you have any

[0:31:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): comments about that

[0:31:02] Voice 11: um yeah certainly so all expenses are captured in the allocated statement

[0:31:06] Voice 11: So that includes the office leases, we do see in the direct expenses office lease costs associated with the smaller trustee offices that were leased on some islands.

[0:31:18] Voice 11: So you'll see a cost there for Saturna, for Main Island, Pender I believe, Galliano and that's because we had office spaces leased on those islands.

[0:31:30] Voice 11: So we did release most of those office spaces last budget cycle. And so we won't have those costs in the current year, but you will see a direct expense there. Staff costs are part of the indirect allocation, or staffed offices are part of the indirect allocation.

[0:31:49] Voice 2: So is the Victoria office cost here? I don't understand where it is in the allocated costs if it is here.

[0:31:59] Voice 11: Yes, it would be included in the indirect expenses that are allocated.

[0:32:05] Voice 11: So there's an allocate net administration cost near the end of the report.

[0:32:12] Voice 11: So under administrative expenses.

[0:32:16] Voice 2: Okay, is that not a bit strange?

[0:32:19] Voice 2: Would you not explicitly put the office lease costs in?

[0:32:24] Voice 2: Given that

[0:32:25] Voice 2: you have on the other, you know, higher up for the different islands.

[0:32:28] Voice 2: yeah

[0:32:30] Voice 11: it's this has been the standard presentation that was accepted by council when it was developed

[0:32:35] Voice 11: and so this is what's been followed my understanding is that the direct costs were

[0:32:42] Voice 11: more important to understand and the indirect costs were allocated on a more summary basis

[0:32:48] Voice 11: if we continue to present these statements for fpc and council moving forward and a change in

[0:32:55] Voice 11: format is desired, we could accommodate that.

[0:32:58] Voice 2: Yeah, I feel that the Victoria offices are a

[0:33:01] Voice 2: fixed cost. And, you know, you know, for instance, say you said, okay, we're not going to be in

[0:33:07] Voice 2: Victoria anymore, we'll be somewhere else, the staff salaries, etc, remain the same,

[0:33:12] Voice 2: and they get allocated. But that sort of lump sum fixed cost, it could be more visible here,

[0:33:20] Voice 2: I think, but that's fine for the moment. Thanks for the explanation.

[0:33:23] Voice 2: you're welcome all

[0:33:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): right thank you for that uh may we please return to the agenda thank you

[0:33:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): um returning to item uh statement seven point or item 7.3 please um the statement of financial

[0:33:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): information uh director mobs uh

[0:33:42] Voice 11: the statement of financial information how this might be the

[0:33:45] Voice 11: first time this is coming to fpc as well uh this is a legislatively required uh report it is what's

[0:33:53] Voice 11: considered an associated financial report to the audited financial statements it is not however

[0:33:59] Voice 11: included in the audit so the auditors do not review this report as part of their work the

[0:34:04] Voice 11: deadline for completion of this report is six months from year end so for the islands trust

[0:34:10] Voice 11: that's the end of september so we are happily going to meet that deadline this report will

[0:34:16] Voice 11: be approved by a trust council and subsequently submitted to the ministry of municipal affairs

[0:34:21] Voice 11: bearers, as is legislatively required. The statement of financial information seeks primarily

[0:34:28] Voice 11: to provide some additional information to the expenses that are seen in the audited financial

[0:34:33] Voice 11: statements. So I'll go through the report. I'll try to be brief, but provide key information pieces.

[0:34:42] Voice 11: Page 19 of the report is simply the approval page. So once Trust Council has approved the report,

[0:34:50] Voice 11: We'll have the chair's signature applied there before the report goes to the minister.

[0:34:54] Voice 11: Page 20 of the agenda package speaks to the responsibility for these statements belonging to management and also lets readers know that they are not audited.

[0:35:06] Voice 11: Page 21 of the report simply provides some information to readers to let them know that the Islands Trust has no schedules of guarantees or indemnities or severance agreements with departed staff in the year.

[0:35:21] Voice 11: so there's nothing to report there page 22 of the agenda package is the schedule of remuneration

[0:35:29] Voice 11: and expenses for trustees so this provides some information to readers about total remuneration

[0:35:36] Voice 11: and taxable benefits that are provided to our elected officials as well as expenses so this

[0:35:41] Voice 11: report is longer than usual as of course we had elections in the year and so we see former trustees

[0:35:46] Voice 11: and current trustees represented here.

[0:35:48] Voice 11: Important to notice that this is a remuneration

[0:35:51] Voice 11: for the year and so it's not the annual remuneration,

[0:35:55] Voice 11: it's the remuneration that was received in the fiscal year.

[0:35:59] Voice 11: The next page of the report is schedule of remuneration

[0:36:02] Voice 11: and expenses for employees.

[0:36:04] Voice 11: So it's the same information for staff.

[0:36:07] Voice 11: The regulation does require that we report this information

[0:36:10] Voice 11: for any staff person who is earning $75,000 or more

[0:36:15] Voice 11: in the year or who was paid $75,000 or more in the year. And so that's what this report represents.

[0:36:22] Voice 11: Again, this is not the base annual salary. So if we have a staff person who started partway through

[0:36:28] Voice 11: the year, we will see half of their remuneration reflected here because it's payments. It will not

[0:36:33] Voice 11: be sort of a standard annual remuneration. Page 24 in the report talks about why the employee

[0:36:43] Voice 11: remuneration and expenses schedule may not agree exactly to the audited financial statements

[0:36:48] Voice 11: so this reconciliation is required by the legislation so we provide it every year

[0:36:53] Voice 11: the primary reason for differences is due to what i've mentioned the financial statements are

[0:36:58] Voice 11: prepared on an accrual basis and this report is prepared on a cash basis we also see employer

[0:37:06] Voice 11: related payroll costs such as remittances for CPP, EI, employer health tax included as expenses in

[0:37:13] Voice 11: the audited financial statements but they are not included on this schedule as of course they are

[0:37:17] Voice 11: not paid to staff. Page 25 is a schedule of payments to suppliers. So suppliers that are paid

[0:37:26] Voice 11: more than $25,000 need to be listed in this report with the total amount paid to them in the year

[0:37:33] Voice 11: are reflected here. We normally include a bit of information for trustees supplementary to this

[0:37:39] Voice 11: report to indicate what each of these vendors is used for. So we do have that prepared. We did not

[0:37:46] Voice 11: include it in the agenda package. It was missed, but certainly we can respond to questions and we

[0:37:50] Voice 11: can also share that information. So for example, the first vendor there is listed as a numbered

[0:37:57] Voice 11: company. It would be very difficult for trustees to understand what that vendor is providing to

[0:38:02] Voice 11: Islands Trust in terms of services. So we can provide that document by email. It is not included

[0:38:09] Voice 11: with the legislated report. Can I take questions as I go through, Chair? I see Trustee Boland has

[0:38:16] Voice 11: her hand raised.

[0:38:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Yes, Trustee Boland, please proceed.

[0:38:20] Voice 2: Thank you. I'm looking at the young

[0:38:22] Voice 2: Anderson number, which is pretty startling. Tell me what that is in terms of, we had three buckets,

[0:38:32] Voice 2: You know, we had insurance, legal cost, and I can't remember what the other was.

[0:38:37] Voice 2: There were three elements to the legal cost, you know, budget reamounts.

[0:38:42] Voice 2: What is that $375,000 representing in terms of money to Young Anderson?

[0:38:48] Voice 11: That represents all dollars that were paid to Young Anderson for work in the year.

[0:38:53] Voice 11: So if they were working on a defense claim for us and we paid them, it's included there.

[0:38:57] Voice 11: If they were working on a bylaw enforcement issue for us, it would be included there.

[0:39:00] Voice 11: Our insurance costs are separate. So the second vendor listed in the line is Aon Reid Stenhouse.

[0:39:08] Voice 11: That is our

[0:39:08] Voice 11: insurance cost. Young Anderson is purely legal costs.

[0:39:13] Voice 2: And at some stage during this year and budget discussions, will we circle back and see the costs paid by our insurance company?

[0:39:25] Voice 2: So that 375 is money paid directly to young Anderson, but at some stage, money, you know, the insurance company starts to pay. So I'd really like to see that broken down. And even if we have to do it in camera, at some stage, I really want to see those numbers, if that's possible.

[0:39:47] Voice 2: We discussed it, I think, last year when we were talking about self-insuring, etc., getting an understanding of how those insurance costs, you know, how that system worked with some sort of, you know, wording, vocabulary that I wasn't familiar with, but that we could get a breakdown of exactly what was behind those numbers in terms of money that went out on our behalf.

[0:40:16] Voice 2: thank you just

[0:40:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to be clear just to clarify just to be sure i i understand your point and

[0:40:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): director mobs understands your point um i understand you to be asking for uh

[0:40:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): other information that isn't available here the line item we see for young anderson

[0:40:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): as i understand it represents the amount that we paid directly to young anderson and you would

[0:40:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): would like to see what amounts, if any, are paid by our insurers to legal counsel on our behalf

[0:40:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): pursuant to our policy. Is that right?

[0:40:51] Voice 2: Exactly. I'd like to see the total legal costs,

[0:40:54] Voice 2: not just what young Anderson got and our insurance, annual insurance policy cost.

[0:41:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Right. Thanks. And just a clarifying question for you, for me, Director Mobs, a young Anderson

[0:41:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): some number that we're looking at and i think we may have touched on this point at a previous time

[0:41:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and if so i apologize but is that number uh how does that number stack up relative to previous

[0:41:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): years in terms of legal expenditures is that higher or lower than we usually get if so by how

[0:41:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): much i

[0:41:29] Voice 11: would have to look that information up i do not know the answer to that off the top of my

[0:41:33] Voice 11: my head unfortunately okay

[0:41:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that's fine uh i see uh directors ceo had your hand up a moment ago

[0:41:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): yeah

[0:41:42] Voice 15: mr chair um um i believe you'd find these costs are a little bit higher we've got a new

[0:41:47] Voice 15: trust council we've sought a lot of legal opinions over the last say six eight seven

[0:41:52] Voice 15: months how many however many months uh being in place um but it wouldn't be inordinately larger

[0:41:58] Voice 15: And so these are, you know, we're reasonably within budget and we report out to you on those details. We don't have the actual budget number to put against this, but I do see that we have turned to them for a number of key questions early on in the term.

[0:42:17] Voice 15: I don't think that's unusual. It's just we have just so many jurisdictions and so many different bylaws that if there are inquiries and if they're written differently, that you end up in this kind of situation at the start of the turn.

[0:42:33] Voice 15: And I will commit to you that the insurance piece is we will bring that to a totality for for FPC and Trust Council.

[0:42:42] Voice 15: We've got these sort of three, the MIA question, self-insurance, and continuing on in the open marketplace.

[0:42:48] Voice 15: We'll bring you that in a comprehensive package as soon as we possibly can.

[0:42:54] Voice 15: That's ongoing work.

[0:42:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Thank you for that.

[0:42:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): That's certainly,

[0:42:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the insurance question is a very complex one.

[0:43:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And I appreciate the note that your staff is working through its complexities.

[0:43:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And we're going to get the complete package and complete analysis when it comes time to have the discussion.

[0:43:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): That's helpful.

[0:43:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All right. Thank you for that. Do we have any further comments about this? I see Director

[0:43:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Mobs. Yes, please step in.

[0:43:20] Voice 11: I did quickly look up our legal costs for the last couple of years. So

[0:43:24] Voice 11: last year, legal costs were reflected at $256,000. The year before, at $311,000. Last year, we may

[0:43:33] Voice 11: have had an offset in legal recovery costs. Nancy's memory will be better than mine when

[0:43:39] Voice 11: relates to that. But I think that's why last year's costs were slightly lower.

[0:43:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And is it fair to say that on a year-to-year basis, the bulk of the legal costs actually relate to ongoing active litigation?

[0:43:54] Voice 4: I believe that's accurate, yeah.

[0:43:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): As opposed to getting opinions, like that the real action is in suing or getting sued or prosecuting on an enforcement basis. Is that fair?

[0:44:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Correct.

[0:44:06] Voice 4: All right. Thank you. Trustee Harris? Audio? Yep. Thank you.

[0:44:13] Voice 4: Now, pardon me, I

[0:44:14] Voice 7: didn't have a question,

[0:44:15] Voice 7: but my hand was raised inadvertently.

[0:44:18] Voice 7: Okay, that's fine.

[0:44:20] Voice 7: All right.

[0:44:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And I believe director Mobs that you've got lurking

[0:44:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in the agenda and a motion that we forward this.

[0:44:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Is that right?

[0:44:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): To the minister?

[0:44:35] Voice 11: Yes, there is a recommended motion in the request

[0:44:38] Voice 11: for decision on page 17 of the agenda.

[0:44:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do we have any, before we get to that motion,

[0:44:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): do we have any further questions

[0:44:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or inquiries about this item.

[0:44:47] Voice 4: All right, let's go to the motion.

[0:44:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And I'm going to ask for a trustee to make that motion

[0:45:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and somebody to second it and then we can discuss it

[0:45:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): if necessary.

[0:45:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Graham.

[0:45:06] Voice 6: Happy to make that motion, Chair.

[0:45:07] Voice 6: I move that the Financial Planning Committee forward

[0:45:09] Voice 6: the 2022-23 Statement of Financial Information

[0:45:13] Voice 6: to Trust Council for approval.

[0:45:16] Voice 6: May I have a seconder?

[0:45:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Boland is seconding the motion.

[0:45:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do

[0:45:20] Voice 4: we require any further discussion on the motion?

[0:45:22] Voice 4: I don't see any of that.

[0:45:28] Voice 4: I'm going to put it to a vote.

[0:45:29] Voice 4: Everybody in favor of the motion, please raise your hands.

[0:45:38] Voice 4: And I see Trustee

[0:45:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Leckham is, okay, I shouldn't comment.

[0:45:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): The motion passes, thank you.

[0:45:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Returning to the agenda as we have a similar item here,

[0:45:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): which is the first quarter financial report.

[0:46:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and we're going to be asked to forward that also

[0:46:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to trust council for approval.

[0:46:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Keeping you busy today, Director Mobs,

[0:46:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): perhaps you can discuss this item for us as well.

[0:46:13] Voice 11: All right, I do know we're getting close to lunchtime,

[0:46:16] Voice 11: so I'll try to keep my comments succinct.

[0:46:20] Voice 11: So our June 30th, 2023 financial report reflects

[0:46:25] Voice 11: our spending in the first quarter of the fiscal year.

[0:46:28] Voice 11: So the benchmark for spending in the first quarter

[0:46:31] Voice 11: is approximately 25% of our budget.

[0:46:34] Voice 11: That's where we would expect to land at that time of year.

[0:46:36] Voice 11: At the end of June,

[0:46:38] Voice 11: Islands Trust had consumed a net 23% of its budget.

[0:46:42] Voice 11: And so that's tracking fairly well

[0:46:44] Voice 11: against the approved budget

[0:46:45] Voice 11: that is not significantly different

[0:46:47] Voice 11: from where we would expect to be.

[0:46:49] Voice 11: On the revenue side of things,

[0:46:51] Voice 11: we are slightly lower than where we would expect to be,

[0:46:53] Voice 11: or sorry, slightly lower than benchmark.

[0:46:55] Voice 11: And that is due primarily to the fact

[0:46:58] Voice 11: that property tax revenue is received

[0:47:00] Voice 11: in the second quarter of the fiscal year so in quarter one you will not see any property tax

[0:47:05] Voice 11: revenue reflected that is in accordance with standard timelines nothing unusual there when

[0:47:12] Voice 11: we look to expenses we've got our three areas of spending council services local trust committee

[0:47:18] Voice 11: services the conservancy and general administration council services is tracking at 23 percent of

[0:47:25] Voice 11: budget spent again that's very very close to the 25 benchmark that we would expect so there's

[0:47:30] Voice 11: nothing significant to report there local trust committee services also reporting at 23 percent

[0:47:38] Voice 11: of budget spent very close to the expected 25 benchmark the largest area within this category

[0:47:45] Voice 11: that is deviating from what we would expect is related to planning projects so that's pretty

[0:47:50] Voice 11: standard for the islands trust and also pretty standard for projects which don't always follow

[0:47:56] Voice 11: a linear format of spending throughout the year rather what we see is in the earlier parts of the

[0:48:01] Voice 11: year there's more planning for projects and we see more of the spending take place in later quarters

[0:48:07] Voice 11: of the year and that is the trend that we're seeing in the first quarter of the fiscal year

[0:48:11] Voice 11: so nothing concerning there. We do see slightly below benchmark spending in the area of planning

[0:48:18] Voice 11: staff by three percent not significant and that's due to some vacancies that we've had in quarter

[0:48:23] Voice 11: order one. Islands Trust Conservancy services is lower than benchmark by a mere 1%. So they are

[0:48:31] Voice 11: basically right on target. That's not considered significant at all in terms of where we would

[0:48:37] Voice 11: expect. And the primary reason for changes there is due to the timed planning of work. So some

[0:48:44] Voice 11: work takes place in the warmer months and other work takes place in the cooler months.

[0:48:48] Voice 11: So we see a distribution of work there in accordance with usual practice. Sorry, I should

[0:48:53] Voice 11: pause and take uh trustee boland's question yeah

[0:48:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i see trustee bull and you have your hand up sorry

[0:49:01] Voice 2: i'm in the same camp as jamie that was inadvertent i apologize okay

[0:49:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): thank you uh perhaps you could

[0:49:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): turn it off laura the hand oh there we go done back to you director mobs um

[0:49:16] Voice 11: okay so general

[0:49:18] Voice 11: administration also reporting very close to where we would expect at 24 of the budget spent um which

[0:49:25] Voice 11: which is only 1% lower than benchmark. So nothing unusual there. That is an area where we do expect

[0:49:31] Voice 11: costs to be incurred sort of on a more straight line basis throughout the year. So it's good that

[0:49:36] Voice 11: we are close to benchmark. We do provide the expenses consolidated by object on page 31 of

[0:49:45] Voice 11: the report. So this is the same expense information presented in a different format, which can be a

[0:49:50] Voice 11: a little easier to understand. So what

[0:49:53] Voice 11: we see is that most lines of spending are landing pretty

[0:49:56] Voice 11: close to that 25% benchmark, with the exception of legal costs and travel training and recruitment.

[0:50:04] Voice 11: So we have had a number of legal proceedings that have moved forward quite rapidly in the

[0:50:11] Voice 11: first quarter of the year. And so we've seen some increased spending in that area,

[0:50:14] Voice 11: as well as some new litigation against LTCs. Details of those, of course, can only be discussed

[0:50:20] Voice 11: in camera. We've also had, as our CAO mentioned, a number of legal opinions that have been sought

[0:50:28] Voice 11: related to various pieces of work, and so we've got some legal general costs that are higher than

[0:50:33] Voice 11: expected as a result of that. Travel training and recruitment is higher than benchmark primarily

[0:50:40] Voice 11: because more of new trustee training takes place in the earlier part of the year, as of course

[0:50:46] Voice 11: that's when trustees are newest so we would expect to see this number drop down as we move through

[0:50:52] Voice 11: the fiscal year I'm happy to take questions

[0:50:55] Voice 4: at this point trustee Patrick I

[0:51:02] Trustee Patrick (probable): have one noted

[0:51:03] Trustee Patrick (probable): correction I think in the report I'm on page 29 under the planning projects it says no spending

[0:51:10] Trustee Patrick (probable): on SWPA coordinator and that the Salt Spring LTC has not yet approved next steps I'm not sure what

[0:51:17] Trustee Patrick (probable): what the reason is for the delay, but there's no, there's no decision before the LTC has seen

[0:51:23] Trustee Patrick (probable): some things, but I think there needs to be some correction to that. I don't understand why there's

[0:51:28] Trustee Patrick (probable): been no spending.

[0:51:33] Voice 4: Okay. Do you, do

[0:51:36] Voice 11: you have a recommended correction?

[0:51:38] Trustee Patrick (probable): I would ask staff to,

[0:51:40] Trustee Patrick (probable): you know, if staff are saying it's because we're not approving, the LTC hasn't approved something,

[0:51:45] Trustee Patrick (probable): then the LTC doesn't know what staff is asking. So there's some uncertainty there is all I'm

[0:51:50] Trustee Patrick (probable): saying be nice if it's accurate and i don't know what the reason is okay

[0:51:57] Voice 11: so uh i could perhaps um

[0:51:59] Voice 11: amend that comment simply to indicate that uh work has not progressed i thought it might be general

[0:52:05] Voice 11: enough for these purposes and then uh you know it may be good for the salzburg and local trust

[0:52:10] Voice 11: committee to connect with staff on that topic directly does

[0:52:17] Voice 4: that address your concern trustee

[0:52:18] Voice 4: Patrick thank you do any further comments none I'm going to ask that we uh we return to the

[0:52:32] Voice 4: resolution here that comes with this where is it here we go

[0:52:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I'm asked for a motion and a seconder

[0:52:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that uh regarding the forwarding of these of this report to uh trust council for approval

[0:52:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): see trustee Patrick is uh prepared to make that motion I

[0:52:56] Trustee Patrick (probable): am I move that the financial planning

[0:52:58] Trustee Patrick (probable): planning committee forward the Q1, June 30, 2023

[0:53:03] Trustee Patrick (probable): financial report, is this, I was going to say,

[0:53:06] Trustee Patrick (probable): should it be as amended?

[0:53:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): Is this staff report go along with it?

[0:53:09] Trustee Patrick (probable): So I'll say as amended to trust council for approval.

[0:53:14] Voice 4: Do we have a seconder for that motion?

[0:53:20] Voice 4: Trustee Maud is seconding the motion.

[0:53:23] Voice 4: Do we need any further discussion on this item?

[0:53:27] Voice 5: I'm

[0:53:29] Voice 4: going to put the matter to a vote.

[0:53:30] Voice 4: All in favor, please raise your hands.

[0:53:34] Voice 4: The motion passes as far as I can tell unanimously.

[0:53:37] Voice 4: thank you if we could return to the agenda and uh director

[0:53:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): mobs i failed to uh do something

[0:53:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): incredibly important uh with respect to the expenses statement that we've uh you know the

[0:53:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): statement of financial information that we were going to um or that we've also previously approved

[0:54:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to send off to the minister or send off to trust council uh when you're in the shopping list of

[0:54:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): trustee expenses my name is misspelled so uh the

[0:54:14] Voice 11: worst of offenses my apologies we will fix that

[0:54:17] Voice 11: well

[0:54:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it's not the worst but it's pretty serious so tell me about it

[0:54:23] Voice 11: we will review all of those and make sure they are updated as needed thank you for that chair

[0:54:28] Voice 11: oh

[0:54:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): thank you so suddenly you know my the relief is incredible at my end um all right uh i see

[0:54:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we're almost at 12 uh 12 p.m uh and the next item on the agenda 7.5 i think we're that's um

[0:54:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): without diminishing the things that we've dealt with at this point i think it's fair to say

[0:54:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): they're largely housekeeping and we've had appropriate um examination and probing of

[0:54:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that but uh i think we're into a kind of more substantive and potentially policy

[0:55:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): policy thinking when we get into 7.5 it probably makes sense to defer that until after lunch

[0:55:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we did get a late start today but when I look at this item here after we take care of seven you

[0:55:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): know 7.5 and 7.6 we have the new business that we want to talk about and then I think between 7.5

[0:55:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and the new business at eight we should be able to deal with it I hope we'll be able to deal with

[0:55:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of that fairly efficiently after lunch.

[0:55:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But I'm going to suggest we have a short lunch

[0:55:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of a half hour and return at 1230.

[0:55:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And with a view to seeing if we can efficiently dispose

[0:55:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of these items at that time.

[0:55:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So with that, I'm going to recess the meeting

[0:55:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): until 1230 p.m.

[0:55:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Thank you.

[1:27:53] Voice 4: Well, I see it is now 1230. And I am now calling the meeting back to order. And can I have

[1:28:12] Voice 4: confirmation that live streaming is back up and running?

[1:28:18] Voice 12: Yes, the live streaming never stops.

[1:28:21] Voice 4: Oh,

[1:28:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): all right. Thank you. As I mentioned, the meeting is back. I'm calling the meeting back

[1:28:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in order. And where we left things for the break was at item 7.5 on the agenda. And we're now

[1:28:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): dealing with the draft 2024-25 budget information so we need to gear up ourselves in that direction

[1:28:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and we have some budget assumption principles and timelines proposed for discussion and

[1:28:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): back to that familiar face of Director Mobs.

[1:29:00] Voice 11: You must really get tired of listening to me at

[1:29:03] Voice 11: these meetings but I'm happy to walk us through this briefing. The budget assumptions and

[1:29:09] Voice 11: principles is something that is worked on each year at the start of the budget cycle so the

[1:29:15] Voice 11: Islands Trust Council budget process policy actually says that assumptions and principles

[1:29:20] Voice 11: go to council in December of each year. We have made it historical practice to develop these and

[1:29:25] Voice 11: take them to council in September as of course having this information in advance of the first

[1:29:30] Voice 11: draft of the budget makes a lot more sense than only receiving it part way through the budget

[1:29:34] Voice 11: cycle when we've already seen a couple of versions of the budget. So the assumptions document seeks

[1:29:41] Voice 11: to lay out the budget inputs that will be used to draft the upcoming budget for fiscal 2025.

[1:29:49] Voice 11: So there's some assumptions and principles that don't change significantly year over year.

[1:29:54] Voice 11: So things like making an assumption that there will be inflation. Some of those things are

[1:30:00] Voice 11: fairly standard and what we're seeing in today's draft is mostly those standard items so i'll walk

[1:30:06] Voice 11: us through those items just so the committee has an understanding of what they are and then we'll

[1:30:12] Voice 11: have an opportunity for the committee to provide feedback or additions or changes as they see fit

[1:30:17] Voice 11: before this goes to council for approval i'll try to keep an eye out for raised hands so i can field

[1:30:23] Voice 11: questions as we go through.

[1:30:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All right, please proceed.

[1:30:26] Voice 11: Page 36 of the agenda is where we

[1:30:29] Voice 11: start with the table. We look at revenue items first. So we take the assumption that fees and

[1:30:35] Voice 11: sales will continue, obviously, to be a revenue source for Islands Trust. The way that we estimate

[1:30:42] Voice 11: a budget for this amount is to look at historical application volumes and simply multiply that by

[1:30:48] Voice 11: application fees. So this work is largely done by the Director of Planning Services, who is

[1:30:53] Voice 11: maintaining all of the historical data. One correction to note, I indicate there the data

[1:31:00] Voice 11: source is historical application volume levels that are seen in pandemic years. That should be

[1:31:05] Voice 11: non-pandemic years. So we are seeing application volume trends geared more now towards what we

[1:31:11] Voice 11: were seeing pre-pandemic, and so we'll be looking at pre-pandemic years for volume trends. And at

[1:31:18] Voice 11: this stage I understand all local trust committees have adopted new fees in line with council's model

[1:31:24] Voice 11: fees with the exception of two local trust areas being Saturna and North Pender we do expect to

[1:31:32] Voice 11: have grant funding next year so the provincial grant funding which is our unrestricted operating

[1:31:37] Voice 11: fund we expect will receive that in line with historical values we do have a number of agreements

[1:31:44] Voice 11: already signed for restricted provincial grants.

[1:31:48] Voice 11: So the local government climate action program

[1:31:50] Voice 11: is an ongoing program,

[1:31:52] Voice 11: and we're expecting to receive $38,000 next year

[1:31:55] Voice 11: under that program.

[1:31:57] Voice 11: There are a number of projects in the current year

[1:32:00] Voice 11: funded by grant money that we expect will be complete

[1:32:04] Voice 11: at the end of this year.

[1:32:05] Voice 11: So the local government development

[1:32:07] Voice 11: applications approvals project,

[1:32:10] Voice 11: we expect that will be wrapped up.

[1:32:12] Voice 11: and so that's why there's an NA next to that one. That's an assumption we're making is that timelines

[1:32:16] Voice 11: will be met. We do have a signed agreement between the Conservancy Board and Environment Climate

[1:32:23] Voice 11: Change Canada for Species at Risk Works. So we are assuming that agreement will be implemented

[1:32:29] Voice 11: next year as signed and that will see $220,000 in the budget in grant revenue directed towards

[1:32:36] Voice 11: Conservancy work. We also make the assumption that property taxes are going to be required in

[1:32:43] Voice 11: in order to fund ongoing trust operations.

[1:32:46] Voice 11: It's a simple formula that's used every year,

[1:32:48] Voice 11: so no changes to that assumption or principle.

[1:32:52] Voice 11: We do also expect that there will be a natural lift

[1:32:55] Voice 11: in property taxation as a result of non-market change values

[1:32:58] Voice 11: within the Islands Trust.

[1:33:00] Voice 11: So as new properties are developed

[1:33:04] Voice 11: and that increases the property tax base

[1:33:06] Voice 11: within the Islands Trust area,

[1:33:08] Voice 11: we do expect that naturally there's a tax lift from that.

[1:33:12] Voice 11: We do use information from BC assessment for that number and we primarily rely on the December

[1:33:20] Voice 11: figure each year. So earlier versions of the budget use historical figures and then we update

[1:33:25] Voice 11: that in December.

[1:33:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): On that one point in terms of the property tax base increasing due to new

[1:33:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): construction basically new development are you in a position to say anything about the volume of new

[1:33:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): development activity and what we think that amount may be over the next year i

[1:33:59] Voice 11: don't know where it

[1:34:01] Voice 11: might land over the next year what we saw historically was as a result of the increase

[1:34:06] Voice 11: in construction activity during pandemic years, we did see a fairly significant percent value

[1:34:13] Voice 11: assigned to that non-market change. And so that was reflected in the last two years budgets. And

[1:34:19] Voice 11: what that means is there's more property value to share the tax burden. And so any increase in

[1:34:24] Voice 11: property taxes that we are requisitioning is less likely to land on existing taxpayers and

[1:34:31] Voice 11: and is more likely to be taxed against new properties.

[1:34:35] Voice 11: So because we are seeing application volume

[1:34:38] Voice 11: start to trend downwards towards pre-pandemic levels,

[1:34:42] Voice 11: I would expect to see a shift downwards

[1:34:44] Voice 11: in non-market change,

[1:34:45] Voice 11: but there's always a bit of a time lag

[1:34:48] Voice 11: in the assessment data catching up.

[1:34:49] Voice 11: So it probably wouldn't be a significant change.

[1:34:53] Voice 11: Historical levels for that figure

[1:34:55] Voice 11: were about one to one and a half percent

[1:34:58] Voice 11: until we hit the pandemic.

[1:34:59] Voice 11: and then it was I think it was around eight percent. It's quite significant change. Thank you.

[1:35:07] Voice 11: So at this point it's unknown whether or not we will have requests for special property tax

[1:35:12] Voice 11: requisitions from local trust committees. Historically we've seen a special tax requisition

[1:35:18] Voice 11: request come from the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee. At this point in the cycle we

[1:35:22] Voice 11: do not have a resolution to that effect but we expect if special requisitions are needed that

[1:35:27] Voice 11: that we would receive those requests by resolution

[1:35:30] Voice 11: from respective local trust committees.

[1:35:33] Voice 11: Our investment income, we make the assumption

[1:35:36] Voice 11: we will continue to invest in conservative investment

[1:35:39] Voice 11: vehicles as is required of us.

[1:35:42] Voice 11: So we take that assumption,

[1:35:44] Voice 11: which will keep our interest rates fairly stable.

[1:35:46] Voice 11: We do expect interest rates to remain relatively high

[1:35:50] Voice 11: compared to some historical years,

[1:35:52] Voice 11: though maybe not as high as the current year.

[1:35:54] Voice 11: And we'll be monitoring those and adjusting as needed

[1:35:57] Voice 11: throughout the budget cycle. And we also assume that we will continue to monitor for additional

[1:36:02] Voice 11: grant funding for local trust committee projects and Islands Trust work. And so we will continue

[1:36:09] Voice 11: to include a special line in the budget that will allow us to accommodate that revenue and those

[1:36:15] Voice 11: expenses as they are awarded to us throughout the year. Inflation, a standard item these days.

[1:36:23] Voice 11: we always expect there's going to be some inflation on a lot of our sort of general

[1:36:28] Voice 11: spending on things like office supplies so we've built that assumption into our assumptions

[1:36:34] Voice 11: document as well we do rely on the victoria consumer price index for that inflationary figure

[1:36:40] Voice 11: and again we're using the december information for that we are making the assumption that

[1:36:48] Voice 11: existing staffing levels will remain in next fiscal year with the potential for some requests

[1:36:54] Voice 11: for new staff to come forward at this point I have heard that there will be a request for a

[1:37:00] Voice 11: planning services co-op student as well as a freshwater co-op student which are becoming

[1:37:04] Voice 11: fairly standard requests at the Islands Trust there is an Islands Trust Conservancy board

[1:37:10] Voice 11: resolution that's been passed requesting staff to consider budget increases for property management

[1:37:16] Voice 11: at this point we don't know what that might be if that would be an increase in consultants that's

[1:37:22] Voice 11: used or potentially increases in staff so i've noted that as a conservancy request um and so we

[1:37:29] Voice 11: assume that will come forward and we'll just have to wait and see what the outcome is on that last

[1:37:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): point have we seen a business case that spells out uh the needs this

[1:37:43] Voice 11: committee has not the islands

[1:37:47] Voice 11: trust conservancy board would have received reporting from staff that would have led to

[1:37:53] Voice 11: this resolution um so likely there's a public meeting agenda that would be available um director

[1:38:00] Voice 11: freighter is on the line she may have more information related to that essentially this

[1:38:07] Voice 11: resolution

[1:38:08] Voice 10: is the conservancy board asking staff to prepare a business case and advice okay thank

[1:38:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you thanks um

[1:38:17] Voice 11: so we again take the assumption that islands trust will remain part of the public

[1:38:23] Voice 11: services act and therefore staff increases will be in line with union agreements and excluded

[1:38:30] Voice 11: staff increases in line with direction from the public service agency trustee remuneration we are

[1:38:36] Voice 11: assuming no changes to this policy for next budget cycle it is one of the policies that's on fpc's

[1:38:43] Voice 11: list of items to review the likelihood may

[1:38:48] Voice 2: i ask a question

[1:38:49] Voice 11: about the salary thing well let's just

[1:38:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): wait until director mobs is actually finished what she's saying about it but then okay ask a question

[1:38:56] Voice 11: um yeah so trustee remuneration policy is on the list of policies for review for financial

[1:39:02] Voice 11: planning committee um it's unknown at this point if that review would take place and be completed

[1:39:08] Voice 11: in time to incorporate into next year's budget so currently we're taking the assumption that

[1:39:13] Voice 11: the policy will be unchanged and if there's a change in that status throughout the budget

[1:39:17] Voice 11: cycle we will update.

[1:39:19] Voice 4: Thank you.

[1:39:20] Voice 11: I can take your question Trustee Boland.

[1:39:23] Voice 2: Sure thanks. So last year

[1:39:26] Voice 2: we were a bit taken by surprise by the increase that was awarded with respect to the salary

[1:39:34] Voice 2: increases although you know there were estimates out there because of inflation etc. What's your

[1:39:41] Voice 2: your view on that this year would we have a better handle on it or or what thank you so the union

[1:39:51] Voice 11: agreement that's in play currently does let us know what the increase will be for next year

[1:39:57] Voice 11: it sets it at a range which again doesn't give us certainty but does give us an idea

[1:40:02] Voice 11: the range will be anywhere from two percent to three percent increase for our union staff

[1:40:08] Voice 11: And that increase will be based on CPI. So I suspect it will land at the 3% range, just given inflation. But we won't have that information until further in the budget cycle, probably only at the

[1:40:23] Voice 4: start of March.

[1:40:29] Voice 4: Is that 3% number

[1:40:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): worked into our assumptions?

[1:40:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): functions?

[1:40:35] Voice 11: Yeah, so we assume that our increases will be in line with the union agreement. And

[1:40:40] Voice 11: that's what the union agreement does state. Okay.

[1:40:45] Voice 2: Sorry, do you pick the two or the 3%? Because

[1:40:48] Voice 2: last year, and I don't know whether it went to the top of the range or went beyond the top of

[1:40:54] Voice 2: the range. But when they came back with their final decision, it was higher than we had estimated

[1:41:02] Voice 2: or incorporated into our budget, I believe.

[1:41:06] Voice 11: That's right.

[1:41:07] Voice 11: So last year they gave us a range again,

[1:41:10] Voice 11: and our budget was based on the midpoint of that range.

[1:41:13] Voice 11: So when the actual percent came in,

[1:41:15] Voice 11: I think we were a quarter of a percent off from what had been decided,

[1:41:20] Voice 11: which was not significant, especially in our context

[1:41:23] Voice 11: where we tend to have staff vacancies,

[1:41:25] Voice 11: and so we were more than able to absorb that.

[1:41:27] Voice 11: that. For next year's draft budget, again, we need to make a decision around that. I'm leaning

[1:41:34] Voice 11: towards that 3%. Again, just because we know it's going to be based on inflation, we can have a look

[1:41:40] Voice 11: at what inflation is doing to make an educated guess there.

[1:41:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Is that something you need the FPC

[1:41:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to decide on that assumption, or is that something that you will do on your own,

[1:41:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): like the 2% and 3%?

[1:41:57] Voice 11: Historically, it's something that staff have taken on and reported to

[1:42:00] Voice 11: to financial planning committee

[1:42:01] Voice 11: with the first draft of the budget?

[1:42:03] Voice 11: Absolutely, if the committee wants something different,

[1:42:07] Voice 11: direction can be given today.

[1:42:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): No, I'm just inquiring about the process.

[1:42:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But frankly, staff's in a better position

[1:42:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to estimate what the increase is likely to be

[1:42:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): than trustees who are winging it.

[1:42:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, I imagine staff is keeping track

[1:42:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of salary increases and elsewhere.

[1:42:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and I mean, you're keeping track of the CPI.

[1:42:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, that makes a difference too.

[1:42:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Anyhow, please carry on.

[1:42:35] Voice 11: All right, so we've talked about trustee remuneration.

[1:42:38] Voice 11: Our office facilities this year, we are seeing a change.

[1:42:42] Voice 11: So we continue to make the assumption

[1:42:44] Voice 11: that we will have three staffed offices,

[1:42:47] Voice 11: Salt Spring Island, Gabriela and the Victoria office.

[1:42:52] Voice 11: We do know that we are going to have to relocate

[1:42:55] Voice 11: the office on Salt Spring.

[1:42:56] Voice 11: So our lease there is coming to an end. Our landlord is doing a renovation and is taking over the space.

[1:43:04] Voice 11: And so at this point, we know that for certain, we need to relocate that office.

[1:43:10] Voice 11: So we are planning to come up with a cost estimate for the office move to include in next year's budget.

[1:43:17] Voice 11: Based on our preliminary timeline of when the office move might take place,

[1:43:22] Voice 11: We do believe it will fall into next fiscal year, very early next fiscal year.

[1:43:27] Voice 11: And of course, you know, if things change there, we'll be updating figures in the budget for that.

[1:43:33] Voice 11: We did release the smaller trustee offices on the islands with the exception of our Galliano Island.

[1:43:42] Voice 11: So I will be surveying the Galliano Island trustees to see if that office is still of value to them to determine whether or not we'll continue to lease that space.

[1:43:51] Voice 11: on

[1:43:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that last point i can anticipate a discussion at fpc when we get closer to actually having

[1:43:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): budget numbers uh we did discuss this last year or in respect to the last budget uh whether the

[1:44:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): galliano office uh well frankly whether the expenditure was justifiable and we had some

[1:44:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): back and forth initially the trustees from galliano had indicated that they were fine

[1:44:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): was scrubbing the office and uh but then they changed their minds about it uh from the fpc

[1:44:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): side we're going to need i think from staff when that discussion happens not today i think we need

[1:44:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): some objective evidence and uh input on um what is the value for money uh on that office i can

[1:44:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): understand how it might well be convenient and helpful and useful for the folks in galliano

[1:44:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Mayor Mrakas, The trustees and galliano in particular meeting with constituents and that sort of thing, and those are all valid concerns, but I just think that, when we get to the discussing that particular budget item, I can anticipate that.

[1:45:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Mayor Mrakas, irrespective of that office having value there's going to be a discussion about whether or not objectively it's actually worth it overall.

[1:45:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): overall uh in terms of a carrying carrying on with that expense and of course the amount of

[1:45:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): expense you know uh uh would be relevant to that um are you able to recall that actually how much

[1:45:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we're paying for that particular lease annually oh

[1:45:28] Voice 11: i could look it up um well that's off the top

[1:45:32] Voice 11: of my head no

[1:45:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that's fine anyhow i'm just uh just making that point as just a that's information

[1:45:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we're likely to, I mean, it's not for staff to determine,

[1:45:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you know, money for value at that level,

[1:45:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but we're the trustees on this committee

[1:45:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): are going to need that information

[1:45:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): so that we can make that assessment.

[1:45:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And I see Trustee Peterson,

[1:45:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you had your hand up a moment ago.

[1:45:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I

[1:45:58] Voice 8: did, thank you, Chair Bernardo.

[1:45:59] Voice 8: I was actually just going to ask the question

[1:46:01] Voice 8: about what the value or the, you know,

[1:46:03] Voice 8: the cost of the lease was,

[1:46:04] Voice 8: but we'll get back to that at another time.

[1:46:07] Voice 8: Right.

[1:46:09] Voice 8: Anyhow, sorry for interrupting,

[1:46:10] Voice 8: Director Mobs, please continue.

[1:46:14] Voice 11: Okay, so we are at item number 16, planning services.

[1:46:19] Voice 11: So we do obviously take the assumption

[1:46:21] Voice 11: that council will continue to fund

[1:46:23] Voice 11: local trust committee activities.

[1:46:27] Voice 11: There are two trust council policies

[1:46:29] Voice 11: that guide the resourcing of planning services

[1:46:32] Voice 11: and planning service allocations.

[1:46:35] Voice 11: So there's links to those policies there.

[1:46:37] Voice 11: I have confirmed with the director of planning

[1:46:39] Voice 11: that the intent for next year's budget

[1:46:41] Voice 11: is to be following these policies for the budget year.

[1:46:46] Voice 11: Question from Trustee Boland.

[1:46:49] Voice 4: Please.

[1:46:51] Voice 2: Sure.

[1:46:52] Voice 2: These projects are primarily about OCP

[1:46:55] Voice 2: and land use by-law updates.

[1:46:58] Voice 2: And I've raised a question with CAO and Director Marler

[1:47:04] Voice 2: with respect to funding from the province

[1:47:06] Voice 2: and a mechanism that should be explored.

[1:47:09] Voice 2: And I'm thinking about how to bookmark it

[1:47:13] Voice 2: so that it moves forward or has a kind of profile.

[1:47:18] Voice 2: And maybe this is where it could be put.

[1:47:23] Voice 2: You know, there is an agreement with the province about funding

[1:47:26] Voice 2: and it is focused on the so-called growth management strategies.

[1:47:32] Voice 2: And there is an option to create a five-year plan

[1:47:36] Voice 2: and look for conditional funding and I look to advice like where are we going to actually

[1:47:44] Voice 2: discuss this and address it and could we put something in here that would give it a profile

[1:47:51] Voice 2: what

[1:47:56] Voice 4: do you think Julia oh

[1:47:58] Voice 11: apologies I thought you were directing your question to the CAO

[1:48:02] Voice 11: um I think I will let the CAO respond to that first and then I'll provide supplementary comments

[1:48:11] Voice 11: okay

[1:48:12] Voice 5: thank you i

[1:48:14] Voice 15: don't think this would be in your budget assumptions and principles at this point

[1:48:17] Voice 15: it's uh certainly a consideration it's a muscle that was exercised in the 90s

[1:48:22] Voice 15: um this did get to the ec tables we began talking about uh in the last month so um your note and

[1:48:30] Voice 15: some work by director marler has um informed the development of conversations around requesting um

[1:48:41] Voice 15: extra funding from the province so that piece is very much alive and well you can

[1:48:46] Voice 15: continue to inquire with me i i wouldn't recommend it's mature enough to be in this document and

[1:48:53] Voice 15: directing this document at this point but certainly it would be part of asking like it could be an

[1:48:58] Voice 15: avenue to asking for funding um in the future and just as you develop this document you know

[1:49:05] Voice 15: to what degree do you want to tie your budget assumptions and principles to another project

[1:49:10] Voice 15: that's going on will be just always a measure that you're you're keeping in mind yeah i suppose

[1:49:18] Voice 2: i'm reading the first paragraph here which is assumed that islands trust council will continue

[1:49:23] Voice 2: to provide sufficient funding and um i take your point that it's not mature but i i just feel like

[1:49:32] Voice 2: you know there could be an assumption that um in the future increased funding would be directly

[1:49:39] Voice 2: directly provided by the province for these kinds of activities building on what they did in the

[1:49:45] Voice 2: mid-late 90s um but i'll leave it there yeah

[1:49:49] Voice 15: no

[1:49:49] Voice 2: i think it's a

[1:49:50] Voice 15: really good point um yeah i just

[1:49:52] Voice 15: think if you're making an assumption then you're starting to get in well what like how do i feel

[1:49:57] Voice 15: an assumption means i feel pretty good about it so i just don't know whether you're feeling really

[1:50:02] Voice 15: good about it at this point but uh but

[1:50:04] Voice 5: at some point okay

[1:50:06] Voice 15: well there we go well

[1:50:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): okay okay i'm

[1:50:09] Voice 5: going

[1:50:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to interject here because i think we need to sharpen up the focus at least on this point and uh

[1:50:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): an assumption for budgetary purposes i mean that's that actually has real operational significance i

[1:50:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): mean we can only assume the things that we're actually confident that operationally are going

[1:50:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to happen and that we have a rational basis for believing they will happen we're not quite there

[1:50:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): yet with the supplementary funding and i can anticipate that that assumption may well get

[1:50:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): worked into it when we're on firmer ground with respect to that and the same might be said about

[1:50:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the corporate planning initiative once we've got that properly developed and adopted i certainly

[1:50:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): anticipate that some of the current assumptions will need to be amended changed indeed some may

[1:51:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): well be come uh less or not even relevant at all um and

[1:51:08] Voice 5: at

[1:51:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that point i think we at that point it's

[1:51:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): going to be incumbent i think on julia and her staff to come back to us say look we're changing

[1:51:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): operationally how we're proceeding with our planning functions therefore we need to change

[1:51:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): some of our assumptions but that's for another

[1:51:25] Voice 4: day i suspect trustee patrick yes

[1:51:31] Trustee Patrick (probable): i mean this

[1:51:33] Trustee Patrick (probable): i think this is an area we should we should spend a little bit more time thinking because i'm just

[1:51:39] Trustee Patrick (probable): you know moving forward in time to next i don't know when we get a draft budget and this committee

[1:51:44] Trustee Patrick (probable): will be see her suffering as to what we cut and what we what we keep to uh to affect the tax

[1:51:50] Trustee Patrick (probable): X amount. And I know, yes, perhaps when we get the corporate plan done, that that will solve

[1:51:57] Trustee Patrick (probable): the challenges that we're facing. But I think this is something, are there some interim steps

[1:52:04] Trustee Patrick (probable): that we could take to improve this? And what I'm thinking of, there's a couple of options.

[1:52:10] Trustee Patrick (probable): You could be dramatic and set a total and say, project funding will not exceed X. And

[1:52:14] Trustee Patrick (probable): And the battles will have to occur somewhere.

[1:52:19] Trustee Patrick (probable): And then the other possibility is that, you know, I look at the projects over $5,000 and they're all brought to us individually.

[1:52:28] Trustee Patrick (probable): I think there's an opportunity there for some lumping for efficiencies, so to speak.

[1:52:33] Trustee Patrick (probable): You know, if we have three OCP projects in three separate business cases, what would it look like if we had one OCP project in one business case that addressed three islands?

[1:52:43] Trustee Patrick (probable): So I think this is our chance to put some pushback. Yes, it's a challenge to staff, but it's to maybe think a little differently in the presentation of these items so that our job is a bit easier when we have to do all the cutting.

[1:53:00] Voice 4: Well, I'm having

[1:53:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): trouble following that point because what Director Mobs has been doing is

[1:53:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): telling us what our current budgetary assumptions are based on our current policies and our current

[1:53:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): operational and planning arrangements. What I'm hearing both you and Trustee Boland talking about

[1:53:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is basically we could have better arrangements. We could do better planning. We could do it and

[1:53:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And we need different policies about how we undertake those things.

[1:53:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And all that may be true, but right on the narrow issue that we're dealing right now

[1:53:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in terms of like what assumptions we need to have for the current budget year that we're

[1:53:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): planning for or the next budget year, I'm having trouble seeing how we use this exercise

[1:53:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): here on these specific assumptions that we're going through.

[1:54:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I'm not seeing I'm having trouble seeing how that's used as a mechanism for changing the

[1:54:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): policies along the lines that you're talking about perhaps you could explain that a bit more

[1:54:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): trustee Patrick I

[1:54:12] Trustee Patrick (probable): don't see this as changing policy but perhaps augmenting it last year for

[1:54:16] Trustee Patrick (probable): example we added a requirement here that all business cases have a line item for reconciliation

[1:54:22] Trustee Patrick (probable): and for public engagement so that those numbers were intended so that we could kind of see is

[1:54:27] Trustee Patrick (probable): is there a thread across all those projects that maybe we could lump that cost together

[1:54:33] Trustee Patrick (probable): and maybe be more efficient? So that was sort of a step in that direction. I don't know if it was

[1:54:37] Trustee Patrick (probable): efficient or if it worked or not, but we could drive kind of what we expect to see as these

[1:54:44] Trustee Patrick (probable): things go forward, kind of in addition to policy.

[1:54:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All right. So you're suggesting that we supplement

[1:54:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): perhaps some of these assumptions slash principles that we're talking about here.

[1:54:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Luckham?

[1:55:00] Voice 4: Yeah, I may

[1:55:02] Trustee Luckham (probable): be out of place here, although I think it's connected.

[1:55:08] Trustee Luckham (probable): You know, I think Trustee Patrick's insights are certainly, there's some wisdom there about trying to gain efficiencies.

[1:55:20] Trustee Luckham (probable): You're all well aware that Indeed Planning Services has been in a service review for some time.

[1:55:26] Trustee Luckham (probable): And the regional planning team has been created to realize some of those very efficiencies by indeed consolidating OCP work across the federation in a more efficient, cost-effective way.

[1:55:43] Trustee Luckham (probable): way. What we saw through the last budget was quite frankly LTCs that wanted to see their

[1:55:52] Trustee Luckham (probable): projects advancing sooner than what the review process and the regional planning process

[1:56:00] Trustee Luckham (probable): was perhaps with their impression able to meet. And so we had this sort of fragmentation

[1:56:11] Trustee Luckham (probable): for want of a better word where we had a plan to create some efficiencies and yet ltcs as is

[1:56:20] Trustee Luckham (probable): their right um to and want to advance projects in a different fashion and that was successful

[1:56:25] Trustee Luckham (probable): council council supported that so we need to consider that in the big picture as are we moving

[1:56:32] Trustee Luckham (probable): forward as a federation uh supporting ltcs or or ltcs continuing to go off and um and um

[1:56:42] Trustee Luckham (probable): creating their own projects that may or may not have some benefits

[1:56:46] Voice 4: broadly so there you go

[1:56:49] Voice 4: trustee bollock uh

[1:56:54] Voice 2: could we put in some language just to say something like um a single business

[1:57:00] Voice 2: case that integrates similar projects um you know with similar content is encouraged

[1:57:08] Voice 2: um because at the moment indeed they make a whole bunch of business cases and then we look across

[1:57:14] Voice 2: them and go gee these are all very similar and maybe we can pull them all back together but if

[1:57:20] Voice 2: we actually state it here that um single integrated projects with similar content across multiple

[1:57:31] Voice 2: islands is to be encouraged well

[1:57:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i i don't know if encouragement is belongs in a statement of

[1:57:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): budget principles um i i'm more inclined to think a principle would be that

[1:57:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the type of project you're thinking about it's it's the it would be more the language would be

[1:57:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): more prescriptive would need to be more prescriptive uh if we went down that path um

[1:58:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i'm struggling to understand i mean the general idea of having similar projects

[1:58:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): projects, you know, perhaps working under a similar or like one umbrella, when there's these

[1:58:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): points of similarity or commonality from island to island, that superficially seems attractive. But

[1:58:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, there's a

[1:58:25] Voice 4: real execution question there. CEO Hudson Peller.

[1:58:33] Voice 4: Thank you,

[1:58:33] Voice 15: Mr. Chair. So in a future state, we'll have a corporate plan that will likely have

[1:58:39] Voice 15: a little more rigor associated with providing criteria. At least there'll be a policy that

[1:58:45] Voice 15: establishes some criteria. But I think this is well within your right to ease your decision-making

[1:58:52] Voice 15: burden come next, when you recommend this budget after January, to include some specifics if you

[1:58:59] Voice 15: see that they're appropriate, whether it's to do with an overall tax increase or not,

[1:59:06] Voice 15: with regards programming you know we look at the cycle of the strategic plan

[1:59:13] Voice 15: you've essentially carried over the strategic plan it would be i think unusual to

[1:59:17] Voice 15: then get a bunch of projects that are you know require significant tax lift associated with those

[1:59:25] Voice 15: individual ones might but i do think you have the opportunity here to create your own guidelines

[1:59:31] Voice 15: guidelines um for just to help you make some decisions and then you get to test that out with

[1:59:36] Voice 15: trust council when we get there in september as these come up and that chat can happen they can

[1:59:40] Voice 15: be refined again and then when really i think that the rubber's going to hit the road when you have a

[1:59:46] Voice 15: request for equally funded things that are very different and there's there's no particular

[1:59:51] Voice 15: criteria to measure them against it's going to be tough to to pivot to a to a recommendation for

[1:59:57] Voice 15: March.

[1:59:58] Voice 15: So, those are some of the things that we're going to be talking about.

[2:00:00] Voice 15: some things to consider I think you could do you you could put some guidelines in as you see fit

[2:00:06] Voice 15: thank you thanks

[2:00:08] Voice 16: um director moms

[2:00:11] Voice 7: um

[2:00:13] Voice 11: thanks chair so one of the things that comes forward to FPC and

[2:00:16] Voice 11: council uh each year at least over the last few years is a planning project feasibility assessment

[2:00:22] Voice 11: that the director of planning uh puts together so each year he's looking at all of the planning

[2:00:29] Voice 11: projects that are coming forward for next fiscal and doing an assessment of planner staff time to

[2:00:33] Voice 11: see if it's feasible to achieve those. There could be in the assumptions and principles document

[2:00:39] Voice 11: a principle of efficiency such that as part of that feasibility assessment identification of

[2:00:46] Voice 11: like or similar projects could be identified as part of that to perhaps be consolidated or

[2:00:53] Voice 11: connected in some way um it might be a start it might be something that we could add um in that

[2:00:59] Voice 11: way to this document um

[2:01:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): related to that when you when you mention that um when you've got the

[2:01:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): director of planning is uh contemplating feasibility and you know working on in that

[2:01:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): direction to find efficiencies here uh since we're in this area talking about planning service is not

[2:01:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): not especially when we consider the direction we're going with the corporate planning project

[2:01:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is not feasibility uh based on available resources an assumption or a principle that

[2:01:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we ought to be working into directly uh with our budgeting assumptions in that you know

[2:01:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): this is kind of an old song but we have approved budgets in the past on the basis that there are

[2:01:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): these approved projects and the assumption is that we are going to continue provide sufficient

[2:02:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): funding for these different projects but it turns out that the funding's available the resources

[2:02:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): aren't and the project doesn't get done it's just not feasible so do we want to qualify this

[2:02:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): provide sufficient funding business by also saying provide sufficient funding assuming

[2:02:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we have resource feasibility in terms of staff resources to be able to do it yeah

[2:02:30] Voice 11: i think uh

[2:02:31] Voice 11: so there's there's different parts to planning services right there's your day-to-day processing

[2:02:36] Voice 11: of applications and then you've got your project work so the first assumption there talks about

[2:02:41] Voice 11: council providing funding for the ongoing operations and i think that

[2:02:45] Voice 11: that is reasonably stated,

[2:02:47] Voice 11: the assumption that planning activities will be funded

[2:02:51] Voice 11: or like planning application processing activities

[2:02:54] Voice 11: will be funded.

[2:02:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): The OCP

[2:02:56] Voice 11: and LTC project piece,

[2:02:58] Voice 11: that second component is what I think you're referring to.

[2:03:02] Voice 11: So certainly we can make tweaks to that

[2:03:05] Voice 11: for whatever the committee wishes.

[2:03:11] Voice 4: Trustee Patrick.

[2:03:13] Trustee Patrick (probable): No, just hearing the conversation there,

[2:03:17] Trustee Patrick (probable): I think there's two principles that sort of came to my mind.

[2:03:23] Trustee Patrick (probable): One would be saying similar projects will be consolidated for efficiencies, something along those lines.

[2:03:32] Trustee Patrick (probable): And another one, projects to be supported with existing staff resources or something of that nature.

[2:03:44] Trustee Patrick (probable): so it's basically saying we're not supporting um hiring more people to do lgc projects at this time

[2:03:51] Trustee Patrick (probable): or not and

[2:03:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): um if we wanted to change those assumptions uh this director this question

[2:04:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for you director mobs we're we've interrupted your review of these assumptions with this sort

[2:04:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of general discussion now about uh amending them in this specific area um what does staff need if

[2:04:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): if this committee decides that we need to do to make those changes do you need a resolution from

[2:04:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): us to do that or is this discussion sufficient for you to go off come back revise something

[2:04:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and then provide it to us for a review at another time or do we need to do it now

[2:04:36] Voice 11: uh now is the time to be making changes uh for sure because then this is will be forwarded to

[2:04:41] Voice 11: council um significant changes always best by resolution to make sure there's common

[2:04:45] Voice 11: and understanding and stuff know what exactly what you want if it's small changes we can take it by

[2:04:50] Voice 11: conversation well

[2:04:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): these don't sound like small changes to me they sound potentially significant

[2:04:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): um so uh since he trustee patrick was uh going in the direction of resolutions i'm going to go back

[2:05:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): back to her, do you want to, I'm going to suggest

[2:05:13] Trustee Patrick (probable): something

[2:05:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): here, which is Director

[2:05:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Mobs has still not completed her review of the existing assumptions. You have some thoughts

[2:05:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about planning services and the things that you had mentioned, Trustee Patrick, would

[2:05:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): seem to include the comments that Trustee Boland had brought up and also the feasibility

[2:05:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): resource-wise thing that I brought up. Perhaps you could craft some language while we review

[2:05:39] Trustee Bernardo (probable): view the rest of this and then we can come back to that point later trustee harris so just listening

[2:05:46] Voice 7: to the conversation it sounds as if there's talk of adding possible um costs in this section

[2:05:56] Voice 7: is that correct no

[2:06:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh i i think what the discussion is about is not about adding uh

[2:06:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): costs but uh qualifying um how we're going to be uh how we think about how we budget for these

[2:06:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): these different costs.

[2:06:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): The first item is in this thing that,

[2:06:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): first item that Director Mobs referred to

[2:06:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): was this assumption that Islands Trust

[2:06:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): will continue to provide sufficient funding

[2:06:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for LTCs to carry out their primary function

[2:06:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of land use policy or planning and so on.

[2:06:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): That's basically an assumption

[2:06:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that we're going to continue funding

[2:06:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the day-to-day work that needs to be done for LTCs.

[2:06:39] Trustee Bernardo (probable): The second part is figuring out how do we budget

[2:06:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for projects and that's that's really the um discussion we're having i guess i guess my

[2:06:51] Voice 7: question refers to what laura was saying trustee patrick was saying about possible

[2:06:58] Voice 7: further costs for ltcs if they have other projects that haven't been um you know put into this

[2:07:08] Voice 7: assumption here is that am i

[2:07:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): incorrect in that well i'm going to ask trustee patrick to address

[2:07:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): at that point since you've mentioned what what she was talking about i'm not going to say probably

[2:07:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): wise for me not to speak for exactly what she's thinking trustee patrick uh

[2:07:22] Trustee Patrick (probable): it's my understanding

[2:07:23] Trustee Patrick (probable): these assumptions drive the development of the project costs and the um the changes i'm looking

[2:07:30] Trustee Patrick (probable): at are to actually lower those costs by driving efficiencies or saying that there shouldn't be

[2:07:37] Trustee Patrick (probable): staff additional staff hired to do the project that you're asking for money great

[2:07:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): well thank you

[2:07:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and to that i would add the point not just hiring but that we ought not to be that we ought to be

[2:07:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): a principal ought to be that we ought not to be approving projects for which we don't have the

[2:07:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): resources that's just the

[2:07:57] Voice 7: other side of you know i'm happy for that clarification i was

[2:08:02] Voice 7: concerned so

[2:08:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): thank you thank you uh director mobs i'm going to ask you to continue going

[2:08:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): through this review uh while trustee patrick works on that language to amend item 16 all right

[2:08:13] Voice 11: Right, happy to. So I believe we're on number 18, which is strategic plan projects. So council

[2:08:20] Voice 11: strategic plan from 2018 to 2022 is still in play. We are taking the assumption that projects

[2:08:28] Voice 11: currently underway that were endorsed by Trust Council at their June meeting as part of the

[2:08:34] Voice 11: current strategic planning in the interim will be seen through to completion and therefore may

[2:08:39] Voice 11: require funding next fiscal uh so that's the assumption taken um if that's needs tweaking

[2:08:45] Voice 11: happy to take that direction number 19 talks about elections of course we have no elections next year

[2:08:51] Voice 11: so that will not be a budget item we then move into uh surplus related items so uh talking about

[2:09:00] Voice 11: how various surplus monies at the islands trust might be used or not used within the budget

[2:09:05] Voice 11: development cycle. So we're taking the assumption that there will need to be a draw from general

[2:09:12] Voice 11: surplus to balance the budget. This is something that has been required in Islands Trust budgets

[2:09:19] Voice 11: for as many years as I can see back in history with the exception of a few and so we're taking

[2:09:25] Voice 11: that assumption again. We are making the assumption that we will plan for a budget that will

[2:09:31] Voice 11: We'll not be drawing down that fund to its full completion,

[2:09:36] Voice 11: but instead we'll stay within the policy that Trust Council has,

[2:09:39] Voice 11: which makes sure we have a minimum balance in that fund.

[2:09:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And just a point of clarification,

[2:09:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that assumption is in part required because of the timing of when we receive

[2:09:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): our funds. Like we have to draw, you know,

[2:09:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): this dance that we do of having to draw on surplus in order to fund current operations and then we

[2:10:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): replenish the funds go back to surplus or I miss you're shaking your head so I'm getting that wrong

[2:10:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): please explain yeah

[2:10:15] Voice 11: so what you're referring to speaks to our cash flow needs which are

[2:10:20] Voice 11: completely separate from the budget so from a cash flow perspective there's times in history

[2:10:26] Voice 11: where we've needed to draw on the surplus fund before we receive our property tax revenue.

[2:10:32] Voice 11: When we're talking about the use of surplus in the budget, we're talking about where our budget

[2:10:39] Voice 11: plans for more spending than we have in revenues. So if we're bringing in 10 million in revenues,

[2:10:45] Voice 11: but we are planning for 11 million in expenses, we're a million dollars short. And then we would

[2:10:51] Voice 11: look to our surplus funds to provide that extra million dollars um and that is something that

[2:10:57] Voice 11: we've seen in historical budgets islands trust is the need to draw on surplus um to balance the

[2:11:02] Voice 11: budget that way

[2:11:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): okay but this point then it seems related to the the discussion we just had about

[2:11:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): planning services in that um you just mentioned uh it's uh we may need we need to draw on the surplus

[2:11:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): plus uh to to address projects for which we don't have sufficient revenue uh uh

[2:11:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): raise it begs the question is why we're approving projects when we can't afford them so there is

[2:11:38] Voice 11: and

[2:11:39] Trustee Bernardo (probable): my point here is do do we need or should we be considering a principle

[2:11:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or an assumption that there's going to be a limit to how how much over budget or sorry over revenue

[2:11:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we're going to allow ourselves to go like here it says we're assuming that we're going to use

[2:11:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): general surplus to reduce tax burden in respect of these expenditures of ours but shouldn't that

[2:12:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): companion element of that be that there's going to be I mean there's just an upper limit to that

[2:12:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): which is we're not going to take on expenditures that go above a certain amount that would get us

[2:12:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): into this position where we'd have to resort to general revenue sorry general the surplus?

[2:12:29] Voice 11: So that could be a revised assumption if the committee wanted to go there there is a limit

[2:12:35] Voice 11: on the amount we can draw in terms of impacting the balance of that fund so we do say you know

[2:12:42] Voice 11: we cannot draw down on that surplus fund beyond a certain amount that's a policy amount one of

[2:12:48] Voice 11: of the things about surplus in the public sector is that it is largely funded, typically, at least

[2:12:55] Voice 11: in our context, by monies that were collected in previous years, but not spent. So let's say this

[2:13:03] Voice 11: fiscal year, we plan to take on a project for $200,000. That project does not proceed for

[2:13:09] Voice 11: whatever reason. That $200,000 that we collected in taxation now flows into the surplus pool.

[2:13:15] Voice 11: so drawing on that money in a subsequent fiscal year may not be a poor practice because it's

[2:13:23] Voice 11: already collected money you could then apply it to spending in the next fiscal year um you know

[2:13:29] Voice 11: you that's why it's important it's important to monitor the balance in that fund which we do

[2:13:34] Voice 11: um but having draws on surplus to balance the budget um is is not always a bad thing it can

[2:13:41] Voice 11: be perfectly reasonable and it's seen um across the public sector fair

[2:13:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): enough and you know um

[2:13:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that you know as you can tell my remarks are directed towards having kind of greater discipline

[2:13:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in terms of budgeting at that level so we don't get into the situation where you have to draw on

[2:13:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the surplus too much but that doesn't necessarily have to be um injected via an assumption or a

[2:14:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): principle here and i'll just leave that comment for now please carry on so

[2:14:10] Voice 11: we're on item 21 which

[2:14:11] Voice 11: which is talking about the Local Trust Committee

[2:14:13] Voice 11: project specific reserve fund.

[2:14:15] Voice 11: So this assumption is simply that we will continue

[2:14:17] Voice 11: to use monies in that fund

[2:14:19] Voice 11: to pay for Local Trust Committee projects,

[2:14:21] Voice 11: which is the intention of the fund.

[2:14:24] Voice 11: Special property tax surplus fund,

[2:14:26] Voice 11: right now that's set up related to SWPA dollars

[2:14:29] Voice 11: that have been collected

[2:14:30] Voice 11: on Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee.

[2:14:33] Voice 11: So it's unknown at this point

[2:14:36] Voice 11: if there will be a request from the Local Trust Committee

[2:14:38] Voice 11: to draw down on monies in that surplus fund.

[2:14:41] Voice 11: so we'll await that. Item number 23, significant unusual circumstances. This was added when the

[2:14:50] Voice 11: pandemic became a reality for us. Of course, that had impacts on the budget. There's no unusual

[2:14:56] Voice 11: significant circumstances that we see impacting next year's budget cycle, but we leave that there

[2:15:00] Voice 11: so we can update throughout the budget cycle if things do come up. Trust Council did add two items

[2:15:06] Voice 11: to the assumptions document last year that were missed in the current budget assumptions document

[2:15:13] Voice 11: that's before you. One was related to First Nations engagement and reconciliation and the

[2:15:18] Voice 11: other was related to public engagement and communications. The assumption there was there

[2:15:25] Voice 11: the principle that was embraced in those lines was that both of those topics would be considered

[2:15:30] Voice 11: in all business cases that came forward for funding requests.

[2:15:34] Voice 11: If that is still something that the committee wishes to keep

[2:15:38] Voice 11: certainly staff can add that,

[2:15:40] Voice 11: that was simply an error that we missed

[2:15:42] Voice 11: including that this year.

[2:15:44] Voice 11: So I can take a resolution to that effect

[2:15:47] Voice 11: or if there's general acceptance, we can have thumbs up

[2:15:50] Voice 11: however you want to address that one chair.

[2:15:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Did I see the language of,

[2:15:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): can we see the language of those two resolutions

[2:15:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you're referring to that haven't actually carried forward

[2:15:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): into the into your grid of assumptions um

[2:16:04] Voice 11: i can post the language into the chat potentially

[2:16:11] Voice 11: just

[2:16:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): so that we know what we're being asked

[2:16:14] Voice 4: to uh the uh formatting's not great but i'll provide it

[2:16:21] Voice 4: anyway so what's in the chat

[2:16:28] Voice 11: first relates to first nations engagement and what's coming now

[2:16:32] Voice 11: relates to communications

[2:16:33] Voice 4: well you know i i i'm going to open this

[2:16:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): up to the trustees to comment

[2:16:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but i'm having um when you're dealing with like principles like guiding principles to do things

[2:16:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you know which is what we're talking about i look at this language and it's i don't know i actually

[2:17:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): don't know what it's saying because it says all business cases should include consideration of

[2:17:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): first agent's engagement needs i don't know what that consideration means like that's just hand

[2:17:15] Trustee Bernardo (probable): waving in the direction of of thinking about first agent engagement it's not specific enough

[2:17:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to tell us what we're actually doing in that direction that we need to assume that we're

[2:17:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): actually going to be doing this thing like you can consider a thing and do nothing if you get

[2:17:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): my point the same point with this considered public engagement communication needs should

[2:17:39] Trustee Bernardo (probable): be considered for all projects that's a kind of perspic prescriptive you know motherhood statement

[2:17:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): frankly is that properly speaking an assumption that goes into how we budget i i suppose one way

[2:17:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of putting this is i'm not entirely sure what what the language of those two resolutions um

[2:18:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): how that translates into an assumption or a principle for budgeting trustee patrick yeah

[2:18:08] Trustee Patrick (probable): Yeah, I was, this was from last year when we brought this forward.

[2:18:11] Trustee Patrick (probable): The intent was quite often we end up with a project

[2:18:14] Trustee Patrick (probable): and we have no money for communications.

[2:18:15] Trustee Patrick (probable): Like, oh, you can't have a community information meeting

[2:18:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): or you can't produce any communications for it.

[2:18:20] Trustee Patrick (probable): Or we find that our communications budget was always,

[2:18:23] Trustee Patrick (probable): we didn't have enough staff or resources to support the project.

[2:18:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): So it went kind of both ways.

[2:18:28] Trustee Patrick (probable): And so that was the attempt of this last year

[2:18:31] Trustee Patrick (probable): was just to make sure that we were planning for these expenses

[2:18:34] Trustee Patrick (probable): so that they could be rolled up to say,

[2:18:36] Trustee Patrick (probable): say, well, look, we need more communications resources at this time because it's a cost.

[2:18:44] Trustee Patrick (probable): So that's why we put that in last year was to really make sure we're covering the costs

[2:18:48] Trustee Patrick (probable): so that they're not doubly accounted for, but that they could support making sure we

[2:18:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): have the resources necessary to do the projects properly.

[2:18:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So was the intention of these resolutions then that when it comes to budgeting, we will

[2:19:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We'll assume that in every business case, there will be funding for First Nations engagement.

[2:19:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): That's what the intent was, yeah.

[2:19:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Because, like, not include consideration that we will actually do it and we'll fund it.

[2:19:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So that's that first one.

[2:19:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And then we have consideration of public engagement for all projects.

[2:19:38] Voice 16: What are these?

[2:19:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i have no idea what that means i i'm going to reach out to the ceo hudson pillar who apparently

[2:19:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): has something to say about it

[2:19:47] Voice 15: no i'm i'm lost uh mr chair where are the resolutions that you're

[2:19:52] Voice 15: they're not on the screen uh those

[2:19:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): were provided they're they're i'm sorry the director mobs put

[2:19:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): them in the chat so they'd be available oh lord okay

[2:20:02] Voice 17: oh sorry i opened the chat can you not see

[2:20:05] Voice 17: that well

[2:20:06] Voice 15: the chat is not available to the public so okay so you can't

[2:20:10] Voice 15: this isn't a yeah

[2:20:12] Voice 15: perhaps

[2:20:12] Voice 11: you can just copy them on screen that will solve everything and

[2:20:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): while that's happening

[2:20:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i see trustee harris has a comment thank

[2:20:22] Voice 7: you yes i can see the um resolutions in the chat

[2:20:27] Voice 7: my concern is that the wording and in the um section for speaking about is um is not precise

[2:20:37] Voice 7: precise enough or precise at all and it's very vague and it leaves it leaves things open in my

[2:20:47] Voice 7: mind to to just such a broad interpretation by whoever anyways I'll leave I would I think the

[2:20:58] Voice 7: wording needs to be much more precise for myself to be able to you know be in support of that

[2:21:04] Voice 7: i take

[2:21:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): your point um director mobs and then i will go to the ceo oh i see cal director

[2:21:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): okay thank

[2:21:14] Voice 15: you mr chair um i think the language frankly is practical and why i say that is the

[2:21:23] Voice 15: range of you know we are new if we are new to advancing our work with first nations partnering

[2:21:30] Voice 15: with them in advancing work with their participation throughout the trust area that's

[2:21:36] Voice 15: not news and we're developing a facility to be able to do that and this resolution was addressing

[2:21:44] Voice 15: a glaring scenario whereby regular everyday projects had no fundamental funding associated

[2:21:50] Voice 15: with first nations outreach communications or engagement in them but we might have 30 or 40

[2:21:56] Voice 15: different projects in a year some of which that would involve some some form of engagement not

[2:22:02] Voice 15: all of it at the same level some of which would be financial and some wouldn't so the intention

[2:22:08] Voice 15: i think of the language here was to say that the elected officials must consider that the the

[2:22:14] Voice 15: financial implications of this project with regards first nations budgeting whether it's a

[2:22:20] Voice 15: large project like that you're working on salt spring and you've got that many people in that

[2:22:25] Voice 15: that many nations, or you've got a smaller project that's maybe quicker and doesn't have as much of

[2:22:30] Voice 15: financial burden on the organization. So that's the driver to try and make sure that you, when

[2:22:37] Voice 15: you see stuff coming across your desks, go, is there First Nations funding associated with this

[2:22:42] Voice 15: project, and should there be for any given project? I think that's the background and the

[2:22:48] Voice 15: intention. Thank you.

[2:22:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well, if that's the case, then what I'm hearing is that Trust Council has

[2:22:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): directed that what it wants at least it did last year or last term that it wants all business like

[2:23:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): are dealing with the first element here that it wants all business cases uh will include funding

[2:23:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): consideration

[2:23:11] Voice 4: for first nations engagement uh and that would cover it like and when it comes

[2:23:20] Voice 4: to budgeting and when we've

[2:23:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): got these projects uh the budgeting process will assume that there's

[2:23:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): going to be some first nations engagement funding in there uh and that would do it and i i mean

[2:23:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i think that covers that intention the second one is is more problematic it's all just

[2:23:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i'll be honest it looks like just hand waving the idea of public engagement for all projects without

[2:23:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): much i mean yeah that's a first nation thing is like direct it's clear the other one is just very

[2:23:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): vague public engagement for what you know i mean we kind of do that already but anyhow i shouldn't

[2:23:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): comment

[2:23:57] Voice 4: any further uh director mobs uh audio i'm not i'm not getting

[2:24:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): your audio here

[2:24:08] Voice 11: thanks

[2:24:09] Voice 11: um just wanted to note it is possible that project or funding requests come forward that would not

[2:24:14] Voice 11: require uh you know first nations engagement or reconciliation funding uh examples of that are

[2:24:20] Voice 11: more your operational items we may have a business case for staffing or for several replacements or

[2:24:26] Voice 11: for something like that where it would not be required so there's potential you wouldn't see

[2:24:30] Voice 11: it in every business case but consideration of those activities for all work is a principle

[2:24:36] Voice 11: that council has formally embraced um and i think the language is is okay there so you're

[2:24:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): able to translate that language into an assumption for budgetary purposes i mean yeah

[2:24:50] Voice 11: so what this

[2:24:51] Voice 11: does essentially is tell staff that if you are preparing a business case you must consider

[2:24:56] Voice 11: first nations engagement reconciliation work and related costs in that project what we had seen

[2:25:02] Voice 11: historically was projects would come forward for funding and there would be no consideration of

[2:25:08] Voice 11: things like capacity funding for nations that we were engaging with and then what would happen is

[2:25:12] Voice 11: as the project would begin we would be tapping into the reconciliation action plan budget which

[2:25:19] Voice 11: had not been specifically geared for that work and so this forces staff and the organization to

[2:25:25] Voice 11: consider that on a project by project basis to make sure that we have appropriate funding built

[2:25:30] Voice 11: into the budget the same is true for public engagement and communication needs all right so

[2:25:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the assumption then what i'm hearing in both cases is uh that business cases will include

[2:25:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): consideration of first nations engagement needs etc etc and uh all business cases will include

[2:25:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): include consideration which is to take your point that it may not necessarily be required but will

[2:26:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): include consideration of public engagement needs right

[2:26:06] Voice 4: that's right

[2:26:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): okay well in order to work

[2:26:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): those into the grid that we have here it sounds like we need a resolution that has that language

[2:26:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in it so um just as we did with trustee patrick i'm wondering if we can have somebody craft that

[2:26:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that language so we can then have those resolutions

[2:26:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): on the floor so that we can then put them up for discussion

[2:26:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and if they pass, then they will be integrated

[2:26:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): into the grid as it seems that trust council

[2:26:39] Trustee Bernardo (probable): wanted us to do.

[2:26:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Does that sound reasonable?

[2:26:45] Voice 11: Perfectly reasonable.

[2:26:46] Voice 11: I do think chair now is the time to receive

[2:26:49] Voice 11: those resolutions as we've reached the end

[2:26:51] Voice 11: of my initial comments related to assumptions

[2:26:54] Voice 11: and principles, future conversation

[2:26:56] Voice 11: about guidelines

[2:26:57] Voice 11: might lead us in a different direction.

[2:26:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well, I was trying to avoid having to sort of craft

[2:27:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): this stuff on the fly here, but I see we don't have any choice. I'm going to propose some language

[2:27:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): here, not necessarily because I want to make a resolution. I just want to make clear what's

[2:27:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): before us here in terms of this outstanding question. What I'm hearing is a proposal that

[2:27:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we have an assumption that all business cases, and this is the language I think that would go

[2:27:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): into the resolution uh which is that all business cases will include consideration of first nations

[2:27:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): engagement needs and opportunities

[2:27:39] Voice 4: to advance reconciliation and you know that's how you

[2:27:50] Voice 4: identify the cost is

[2:27:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): through that through that process that's the first one does that make sense

[2:27:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i mean i'm asking you director mobs whether or not that that would be sufficient in your view

[2:28:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to capture the intention of what that past resolution is,

[2:28:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): as you understand it.

[2:28:10] Voice 11: Yep, absolutely.

[2:28:11] Voice 11: And I'll include examples as we had last year.

[2:28:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Okay.

[2:28:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And then the second one would be

[2:28:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that all business cases will include consideration

[2:28:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of public engagement and communication

[2:28:25] Voice 4: needs.

[2:28:45] Voice 4: So I'm thinking we could do a single resolution here

[2:28:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and maybe I should, if it's all right with everybody,

[2:28:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): as chair just to get this bit of housekeeping out of the way here oh hang on maybe trustee

[2:28:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): lectum will save me here um uh audio please oh

[2:29:05] Trustee Luckham (probable): yeah no i'm afraid not um i would just like to

[2:29:07] Trustee Luckham (probable): ask that the motions take up more space on the screen because i can barely read the print there

[2:29:12] Trustee Luckham (probable): at my full

[2:29:13] Voice 4: zoom thank

[2:29:15] Voice 4: you that's better and the resolution would be that you know resolve that

[2:29:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): um the assumptions and principles what are we calling this thing what is this

[2:29:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): document uh

[2:29:43] Voice 11: budget assumptions and principles right

[2:29:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh basically resolve that the budget

[2:29:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): assumptions and principles uh be

[2:29:53] Voice 4: amended to include the following

[2:30:02] Voice 4: And with those two items, and then that would be the resolution.

[2:30:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So I think that captures what we've been discussing.

[2:30:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I'm going to ask somebody to move that and second it so that we can discuss them.

[2:30:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And then we can find out whether or not they work or not.

[2:30:20] Voice 2: I can do it.

[2:30:21] Voice 2: All

[2:30:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): right.

[2:30:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Boland.

[2:30:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It's

[2:30:24] Voice 2: late in the evening here.

[2:30:25] Voice 2: I need to be kept alert.

[2:30:29] Voice 4: No,

[2:30:30] Voice 2: no, no problem.

[2:30:31] Voice 2: It's just a timing thing.

[2:30:32] Voice 2: It's nothing.

[2:30:33] Voice 2: So, I move that the FPC, no, I move that the budget assumptions and principles be amended to include the following.

[2:30:45] Voice 2: All business cases will include consideration of First Nations engagement needs and opportunities to advance First Nations reconciliation.

[2:30:55] Voice 2: And number two, all business cases will include consideration of public engagement and communication needs.

[2:31:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and we have a second i see

[2:31:08] Voice 4: trustee maude has raised his hand and

[2:31:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): now uh it's on the floor

[2:31:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for discussion and i see uh mr marler has a point he'd like to add to the discussion please proceed

[2:31:24] Voice 1: yeah thank you can you please add that the financial planning committee so we know which

[2:31:29] Voice 1: committee which public body is making the motion oh there it is okay you

[2:31:36] Voice 1: got it thank you yeah

[2:31:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So do we have any further,

[2:31:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): do we need further discussion on this?

[2:31:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We've been banging around for a bit

[2:31:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or should we put it up for a vote?

[2:31:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It's going up for votes.

[2:31:53] Voice 4: Everybody in favor of this motion, please raise your hands.

[2:31:57] Voice 4: The motion passes.

[2:32:03] Voice 4: Thank you.

[2:32:05] Voice 4: And

[2:32:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): now if we can go back to the discussion

[2:32:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or the agenda item here, we were discussing the,

[2:32:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is there any, should

[2:32:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we go back to the agenda here, sorry.

[2:32:16] Voice 4: oh just hang on okay i just want to catch up to where we're at here like we're working

[2:32:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh

[2:32:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): subject to dealing with the resolutions that trustee patrick was working on before

[2:32:39] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i think we've kind of more or less covered 7.5.1 or am i missing something here um

[2:32:49] Voice 11: we have covered

[2:32:50] Voice 11: the written material there are some um verbal updates from staff related to budget guidelines

[2:32:56] Voice 11: that I was going to present,

[2:32:57] Voice 11: but amendments to the existing content

[2:33:00] Voice 11: is best to complete first.

[2:33:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Right, okay, we'll get to that in a minute then.

[2:33:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Let's go back to the outstanding items that we have here.

[2:33:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And I see Trustee Patrick has her hand up.

[2:33:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So perhaps she has some further amendments

[2:33:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for us to think about it.

[2:33:15] Trustee Patrick (probable): I did send it out to a couple of staff.

[2:33:17] Trustee Patrick (probable): Nobody made any comments,

[2:33:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): but I did send it to Nancy and Robert.

[2:33:20] Trustee Patrick (probable): So somebody has a draft that could be put in there.

[2:33:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): could have the the text that trustee patrick has prepared if we could have that on the screen please

[2:33:30] Trustee Patrick (probable): this is i'm open to comments so this is uh please suggest wording improvements here

[2:33:38] Trustee Patrick (probable): once you

[2:33:39] Voice 4: see it once we see it and i think uh be helpful to have this yeah that's that's better

[2:34:02] Voice 4: thank you well you see the language that we have here um

[2:34:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and the the direction that trustee patrick

[2:34:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): has taken with this is is is not that she's necessarily moving this specific language but

[2:34:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): really throwing it up for collective discussions uh on the theory that people are generally in

[2:34:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): support of this idea but we want now want to collectively edit this at least that's what

[2:34:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): she's hoping for do we have any comments on language here i

[2:34:47] Voice 4: mean does this do the job

[2:34:54] Voice 4: director mobs um

[2:34:58] Voice 11: i would suggest um after uh talking about combining similar projects will

[2:35:04] Voice 11: be consolidated for efficiencies i would say where possible um you know i'm not an expert in the

[2:35:10] Voice 11: planning world but i suspect there may be instances where that's just not possible um i would suggest

[2:35:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i would suggest we use the language uh since we're on that point like quote similar assumptions by

[2:35:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): adding to item 16 planning some sorry similar projects will be consolidated for efficiencies

[2:35:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): where feasible okay

[2:35:35] Voice 4: I end

[2:35:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): quote okay and your other point

[2:35:41] Voice 11: the assumption that projects will

[2:35:44] Voice 11: be supported by existing staff resources just for my own clarity is that seeking to limit projects

[2:35:52] Voice 11: and not allow consultant time or that no new staff positions will be added to support projects

[2:36:01] Voice 11: I was talking about no new staff positions okay so it's not limiting um the use of contractors

[2:36:08] Voice 11: where needed okay thank you um but

[2:36:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): does that language capture the point that we ought not to

[2:36:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): be budgeting and uh for projects where we don't actually even have the resources the staff time

[2:36:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): by leaving the room in consultants I mean it's what I'm trying to do is get away from this thing

[2:36:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): what we we seem to be doing uh uh and this does tie in with corporate planning but this pattern

[2:36:39] Trustee Bernardo (probable): historical pattern of projects being approved funding being approved for them but they just

[2:36:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): don't get done because the resources aren't there and i'm not sure the specific language

[2:36:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): does the trick in terms of like imposing

[2:36:55] Voice 4: that level of discipline trustee graham yeah thank

[2:37:02] Voice 4: Thank you,

[2:37:03] Voice 6: Chair. So what goes through my mind when I read this idea of similar projects, i.e. OCPs,

[2:37:10] Voice 6: is what would the process be like for a couple of communities who are facing an OCP review to

[2:37:17] Voice 6: consider whether their OCP interests and desires align with another island's OCP interests and

[2:37:24] Voice 6: desires? And how long would that communication and consultation and process eat up valuable

[2:37:32] Voice 6: valuable staff time and community time, simply just trying to establish some commonality. I mean,

[2:37:38] Voice 6: I totally understand from a budgetary perspective, it would be wonderful if all OCPs look the same,

[2:37:44] Voice 6: but there's kind of an assumption that we live on our islands and we're all different and we

[2:37:53] Voice 6: celebrate that difference. And I'm just worried that trying to prove that my OCP is going to be

[2:38:00] Voice 6: the same as Hornby's or Laskydy's, is going to take up community time, staff time, reports,

[2:38:06] Voice 6: which could have been used to develop OCPs. Anyway, that's just my comments.

[2:38:13] Voice 6: Trustee Boland?

[2:38:15] Voice 2: Yeah, I don't read it like that, actually. I read it as there are certain project steps,

[2:38:22] Voice 2: consultation, for instance, making the project plan, assigning resources. At that level,

[2:38:28] Voice 2: some of the resources needed if you have to hire a consultant for instance and there's commonality

[2:38:35] Voice 2: you know um i don't see this as intending to say that the ocps internally become the same it's more

[2:38:44] Voice 2: about the project process to work through those um updates or whatever and the second point about

[2:38:54] Voice 2: about the projects, I'm thinking that what we intend to say here

[2:38:59] Voice 2: is that the existing staff resources will act as a constraint

[2:39:06] Voice 2: on the projects being approved, that we will confine ourselves

[2:39:14] Voice 2: to approving projects within the constraint of the available staff resources.

[2:39:21] Voice 2: resources so um i would change that second one to something like that an assumption

[2:39:28] Voice 2: that existing staff resources will constrain the number of projects that are approved

[2:39:34] Voice 2: or

[2:39:43] Voice 4: limit the the number of projects to be

[2:39:46] Voice 4: approved so

[2:39:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): what you're really saying is that

[2:39:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): projects will um uh the funding of projects will be limited uh by existing well sorry i'm bumbling

[2:40:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): around

[2:40:02] Voice 2: available availability let's say that let's say staff availability will be a constraint

[2:40:10] Voice 2: in the approval of projects are

[2:40:15] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you trying to say that projects will not be supported or will

[2:40:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): will not be funded unless they are capable of being carried out

[2:40:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): by existing staff resources?

[2:40:28] Voice 2: Yes, because there will always be some staff resources.

[2:40:32] Voice 2: Even if you have some funding to hire consultants,

[2:40:35] Voice 2: staff resources will be required, even if it's to manage that project,

[2:40:40] Voice 2: to hire the consultant, to tell the consultant what needs to be done.

[2:40:45] Voice 2: so um you know unless there are staff resources available to undertake that activity or the

[2:40:54] Voice 2: activity that is required by the project then it shouldn't be approved well

[2:40:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i just want to get the

[2:41:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i want to make sure i get the concept out here and like i i know and i see the ceo is squirming

[2:41:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uncomfortably over there you'll get your shot ceo i'm

[2:41:09] Voice 15: just i'm doing good i'm doing good

[2:41:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we'll kill you yet trust me oh it's gonna happen

[2:41:18] Voice 15: but not today

[2:41:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh i think what you're trying to say is projects will not be funded unless they can be supported

[2:41:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): by existing staff resources yes

[2:41:31] Voice 4: exactly all

[2:41:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): right let's let's put that language up there

[2:41:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): who knows whether it'll work or not but that's the that's the concept okay trustee patrick

[2:41:41] Trustee Patrick (probable): I wanted to respond to Trustee Graham. I said the intent that I was, what I was trying to reach at is not that there is one OCP project for Denman and Hornby. It's that the projects are coordinated in a way so that the staff are working together and using the shared elements that benefit and time it such that we're doing this on Denman and this is the time to do it.

[2:42:02] Trustee Patrick (probable): and it's the same material that might be shared

[2:42:05] Trustee Patrick (probable): or the process might be the same.

[2:42:06] Trustee Patrick (probable): It's to really put the process to say,

[2:42:08] Trustee Patrick (probable): we've got three OCP reviews to do.

[2:42:10] Trustee Patrick (probable): How can we make this work most efficiently

[2:42:13] Trustee Patrick (probable): so that we're not doing the same thing three times?

[2:42:16] Trustee Patrick (probable): But there'll be three separate outcomes.

[2:42:17] Trustee Patrick (probable): There'll be three separate reviews for each island.

[2:42:20] Trustee Patrick (probable): It's just how we get to the end

[2:42:22] Trustee Patrick (probable): that could be more efficient is what I'm imagining.

[2:42:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Okay.

[2:42:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Back to the language.

[2:42:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): What happened to me?

[2:42:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): You'll get there.

[2:42:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): You'll get there.

[2:42:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): just let's just put my hand down yeah let's just clarify this language i think it should say

[2:42:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): projects will not be funded unless there are sufficient there are sufficient

[2:42:41] Voice 4: staff resources

[2:42:43] Voice 4: to implement them that's the concept cao

[2:42:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you did have your hand up thank

[2:42:53] Voice 15: you mr chair a couple of

[2:42:55] Voice 15: things the first part of this uh i will tell you we've reorganized the land use planning function

[2:43:00] Voice 15: to create a regional planning service and a current planning service and this is why that

[2:43:07] Voice 15: similar projects be consolidated for efficiency so i think this is direction to staff um as much

[2:43:14] Voice 15: as it is a budget principle yeah i mean you're not going to turn it down because it's not linked

[2:43:20] Voice 15: to another and you might say hey you should link those two so i suggest that's kind of where this

[2:43:25] Voice 15: this is. The second part is, we have applied for $10 million in grants, and

[2:43:32] Voice 16: we're going to get

[2:43:33] Voice 16: some of it. So then

[2:43:36] Voice 15: we're either going to have a whole bunch of consultants, have to hire a whole

[2:43:41] Voice 15: bunch of staff, or something. So that's the back end. This rollout of funds associated with

[2:43:50] Voice 15: the accelerator fund and various other pieces, we've got three or four jurisdictions that have

[2:43:55] Voice 15: have dipped their toes in those those waters i'm pretty i'm almost can guarantee you're going to

[2:44:00] Voice 15: be positive on one that i know of already um and we probably don't have the staff to do that level

[2:44:07] Voice 15: of work so i don't know you don't want to be hoisted by your own petard kind of thing if you

[2:44:13] Voice 15: ended up getting with something that really advances um work that you're interested in

[2:44:19] Voice 15: and then have um well existing

[2:44:22] Voice 15: staff resources for it you could always work around it i guess but

[2:44:26] Voice 15: But I just thought, yeah,

[2:44:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): yeah, thank you for that.

[2:44:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, but I'm thinking they're still no matter what you do, there's only going to be X amount of staff resources, irrespective of how much money flows in from grants or whatever.

[2:44:39] Trustee Bernardo (probable): If it turns out that the grant funding is something that is we really want the money and we're really going to make use of it, then it's a question of allocating the staff resources.

[2:44:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It becomes it becomes a planning function.

[2:44:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It's like, yeah, we got this money.

[2:44:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We're going to spend it.

[2:44:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we're going to put the resources staff resources on that it may mean taking staff resources away

[2:44:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): from somewhere else in order to implement that thing it's it's gets it this does i think dovetail

[2:45:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): into the whole strategic planning

[2:45:06] Voice 4: aspect of it trustee peterson uh thank you mr chair

[2:45:15] Voice 8: uh the cao

[2:45:17] Voice 8: uh mentioned the first part of the comment which was that my you know my understanding of the whole

[2:45:22] Voice 8: regional uh planning team is about the you know the first part of of this so i'm not sure that

[2:45:29] Voice 8: to me it just feels a little bit redundant and i'm just i'm a little concerned about the the

[2:45:37] Voice 8: law of unintended consequences here and um and sort of the the struggling or or or the uh the

[2:45:48] Voice 8: The salesmanship, you know, when we get into these A, B, or C projects and, you know, whose project is going to get, it's only going to get funded if it's got the staff resources, but then we're back to staff resource allocation.

[2:46:07] Voice 8: So, just a word of caution.

[2:46:12] Voice 8: I'm feeling a little cautious about advancing this without a bit more analysis myself.

[2:46:17] Voice 8: so well

[2:46:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i'm not sure a terrific amount of analysis required it means it's going to amp up

[2:46:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and it's going to require a debate and i think he used the right word of on the allocation it

[2:46:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): becomes a priority thing it's like you've only got x amount of staff resources you have to prioritize

[2:46:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): where they're going to go uh and this is a component of that it doesn't dictate where it

[2:46:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it goes it just says it basically says you have to make a decision if

[2:46:46] Voice 8: i might just add uh chair

[2:46:47] Voice 8: so my my main my main concern here is that um is that the process be equitable to you know

[2:46:58] Voice 8: across the organization to local trust committees etc so and how we achieve that

[2:47:02] Voice 8: a little bit unclear at this moment that's my caution uh

[2:47:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that's a fair point uh the equity

[2:47:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): aspect of it and I'm not sure how that gets done operationally either um director

[2:47:16] Voice 4: mobs audio please

[2:47:21] Voice 4: thanks

[2:47:24] Voice 11: my comment's not related to the equity piece but uh simply to the last piece their

[2:47:29] Voice 11: projects will not be funded unless there's sufficient staff resources to implement them

[2:47:33] Voice 11: um I'm not too concerned about the wordsmithing here this is something planning services already

[2:47:38] Voice 11: does so the director of planning does prepare a report that comes to financial planning committee

[2:47:44] Voice 11: and to trust council with the budget

[2:47:46] Voice 11: that does take a look at all of the projects

[2:47:49] Voice 11: that are on the docket and analyzes

[2:47:50] Voice 11: if there is available staff resources

[2:47:52] Voice 11: to take on all of that work.

[2:47:54] Voice 11: If there's not, he will let you know

[2:47:56] Voice 11: and it will become the job of this committee and council

[2:47:59] Voice 11: to determine which projects they will and will not fund.

[2:48:02] Voice 11: So I wouldn't spend too much time wordsmithing

[2:48:05] Voice 11: as this is something we already do that piece.

[2:48:08] Voice 11: And we do have director Cermak on the line now

[2:48:11] Voice 11: with his hand raised.

[2:48:12] Voice 11: so he may have supplementary comments i

[2:48:14] Voice 4: see that uh director cermak audio good afternoon everybody

[2:48:27] Voice 3: um fascinating discussion i wanted to echo uh director mobs really that uh you get a feast

[2:48:32] Voice 3: i've heard it a few times um i present a feasibility assessment of the resources

[2:48:38] Voice 3: available to do the projects so you'll be getting that already so it makes that half

[2:48:43] Voice 3: of this resolution redundant and i really wanted to remind you about uh how i had reminded trust

[2:48:48] Voice 3: Council about the amended recent policies to policy 5.6, which directs staff work and

[2:48:56] Voice 3: planning resources, which only took effect this April, and that is in creating the regional

[2:49:01] Voice 3: planning team and similar, and that we're seeing in comparison over the years, great

[2:49:07] Voice 3: improved efficiencies about getting projects done and not taking on, I guess, more than

[2:49:12] Voice 3: we can chew.

[2:49:12] Voice 3: And I think by sort of trying to shoehorn us into consolidating projects for efficiencies, I think that, you know, a little bit more latitude to not try to merge projects because each elected body has different timelines, different issues, different processes.

[2:49:28] Voice 3: It's more looking for efficiencies in things, as you've talked about, First Nations consultation and hiring a public engagement specialist or something like that.

[2:49:40] Voice 3: Wherever the projects have efficiencies that can be merged, but I'd be really cautious about trying to consolidate projects because I just don't see that as feasible.

[2:49:51] Voice 3: I don't see how one LTC is going to work with another LTC on a similar timeline in any sort of consolidated manner.

[2:49:57] Voice 3: So I just want to be clear that we're talking about efficiencies that come through the business cases and some of the processes, but not the projects themselves.

[2:50:05] Voice 3: Well,

[2:50:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): if I understand Trustee Patrick, where she's going from this is she's actually directing staff to try, you know, consolidate them for efficiencies where it's feasible.

[2:50:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And it's an assumption that that that'll happen. Same with the other thing.

[2:50:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh from what i'm hearing it seems like you're all ceo hudson pillar saying that you're already

[2:50:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): trying to do some of this consolidation uh and we've already heard from both you and director

[2:50:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): mobs that projects now uh are being assessed for feasibility according to existing staff resources

[2:50:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and then it becomes a decision for fpc and trust council if they if they want to go outside of

[2:50:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): those margins so we've gotten to the point from what i've heard from everybody today or from the

[2:50:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): staff side that adding these two assumptions to the grid documents something that things that are

[2:51:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): already happening and they have sufficient leeway within the language to give staff flexibility to

[2:51:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): work with it i mean the feasibility language is in there you know if it turns out that you can't do

[2:51:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it well you can't do it you know so i i don't see any big threat here to anybody it's like

[2:51:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh what i'm hearing certainly from uh the ceo and staff is we're essentially documenting something

[2:51:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we're already doing here but we're just making sure they're in the assumptions uh at least that's

[2:51:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): what

[2:51:38] Voice 4: i'm hearing do you have any further comments i want to go back to trustee patrick uh you had

[2:51:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that got us down this path.

[2:51:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I think we've got, if we look at the language

[2:51:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of the draft motion that you have here,

[2:51:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and you are the, the reason I'm going to you

[2:52:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is that you started this thing.

[2:52:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So we're gonna make you the final editor of your motion.

[2:52:05] Trustee Patrick (probable): Sure, no, I'll pull it together

[2:52:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): and I'm gonna take that last just to give,

[2:52:09] Trustee Patrick (probable): I think it's Robert that's got the pen,

[2:52:11] Trustee Patrick (probable): take that last projects will not be funded

[2:52:14] Trustee Patrick (probable): and switch that with the one that says

[2:52:16] Trustee Patrick (probable): projects will be supported.

[2:52:17] Trustee Patrick (probable): I just wanted to say as well to all the comments I think where we're headed hopefully through the

[2:52:23] Trustee Patrick (probable): corporate planning is that there would be project or department plans that would be done probably

[2:52:28] Trustee Patrick (probable): before if you look at district of Saanich that happens before the budget's approved

[2:52:33] Trustee Patrick (probable): so that you're approving budgets that already are planned that how the department how the work is

[2:52:39] Trustee Patrick (probable): going to be all aligned to get the work done that we're putting in place we're just not there yet

[2:52:44] Trustee Patrick (probable): yet. So that's why I'm putting this motion forward, is to basically make sure we're thinking

[2:52:50] Trustee Patrick (probable): along these lines, and it sounds like we are. So I'm going to move that the Financial Planning

[2:52:56] Trustee Patrick (probable): Committee amend the budget principles and assumptions document by adding to item number

[2:53:00] Trustee Patrick (probable): 16, planning services, an assumption that similar projects, for example, OCPs will be

[2:53:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): be consolidated for efficiencies, where feasible, end quote, and an assumption that projects will

[2:53:15] Trustee Patrick (probable): not be funded unless there are sufficient staff resources to implement them.

[2:53:20] Voice 4: Do I have a seconder for this? Well, Trustee

[2:53:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Mott has stepped up and seconded the motion.

[2:53:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We've discussed it, so I'm going to put it up to a vote.

[2:53:34] Voice 4: All in favor, please raise your hands.

[2:53:36] Voice 4: the motion passes now

[2:53:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): director mobs you had some oral uh points that you wanted to make about this

[2:53:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): particular agenda item we're at right now uh

[2:53:56] Voice 11: yeah it's simply a verbal update for our financial

[2:53:59] Voice 11: planning committee um one of the things that's being contemplated as part of the new corporate

[2:54:04] Voice 11: planning process is an amendment to pieces of the budget cycle so one of the changes contemplated

[2:54:11] Voice 11: is not simply having budget assumptions and principles go to Trust Council, but also have

[2:54:17] Voice 11: budget guidelines. So assumptions and principles are primarily inputs into the budget. What do we

[2:54:25] Voice 11: think inflation is going to do? What do we think property or interest revenue is going to do, etc.

[2:54:32] Voice 11: Budget guidelines would be tied to budget outputs. So this would be a chance where Trust Council

[2:54:39] Voice 11: Council could provide parameters for what they want the budget to look like.

[2:54:43] Voice 11: For example, they could give direction that operational or departmental budgets

[2:54:49] Voice 11: should have no increase over the previous year, with the exception of non

[2:54:54] Voice 11: discretionary costs and staffing costs. They could also give guidelines as to

[2:55:00] Voice 11: where funding should be prioritized in the event that funding cuts are required.

[2:55:04] Voice 11: required. This is something that is provided at other public sector entities so the district of

[2:55:10] Voice 11: Saanich has been the primary organization that the corporate planning group has been looking towards

[2:55:15] Voice 11: as an example and their council does provide these types of guidelines to staff for development of

[2:55:23] Voice 11: the budget. It's something that we could look to incorporate in the current budget cycle if

[2:55:30] Voice 11: financial planning committee thinks those types of guidelines would be helpful for them when they

[2:55:35] Voice 11: are reviewing the budget drafts throughout the budget cycle. If there is a desire for that,

[2:55:42] Voice 11: certainly they could ask Trust Council for those types of guidelines in September,

[2:55:47] Voice 11: or we could leave it with the corporate planning group and implement those things

[2:55:50] Voice 11: when the corporate planning process is rolled out.

[2:55:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So the idea here is

[2:55:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): because Trust Council will be consulted as part of the planning process up front

[2:56:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): before we really get the budget underway and asked to provide us with some guidelines about

[2:56:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): where it wants to go in terms of the budgeting process. Is that right?

[2:56:17] Voice 11: That's right. What we

[2:56:18] Voice 11: see in the current budget process at Islands Trust is Trust Council sees the first draft of the budget

[2:56:24] Voice 11: in December and at that point they may say nope this tax increase is too high go away and lower

[2:56:31] Voice 11: it by three percent if that kind of direction is received earlier on in the budget cycle it helps

[2:56:37] Voice 11: financial planning committee and staff to create a budget that might be more palatable for trust

[2:56:41] Voice 11: for trust council when they actually see it you know guidelines do have to be sort of reasonable

[2:56:48] Voice 11: and achievable um so there would need to be some probably some training around what those types of

[2:56:56] Voice 11: things are or some examples provided from other entities um but i just wanted to raise it here

[2:57:01] Voice 11: in case that's something the committee wishes to pursue well

[2:57:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you know it would be you know uh you

[2:57:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): talk about training maybe training but also uh that's what debates for uh what we need what we

[2:57:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): would need a trust council sufficient time for people a to propose what they think would be

[2:57:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): appropriate guidelines and then for the trustees to hash them out amongst themselves and you know

[2:57:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): ideally within that sort of back and forth you end up with like reasonable guidelines

[2:57:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): um that's the idea um the idea as i understand it is to go back go to trust council

[2:57:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): ask for guidance essentially in terms of the direction the budget should go

[2:57:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh i'm going to throw that open for discussion does anybody have comments about this

[2:57:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about this idea trustee bowman i

[2:57:48] Voice 2: really like the idea so i'm thinking that at the june trust council

[2:57:53] Voice 2: and before the budget cycle kicks off and those kind of guidelines could be agreed

[2:58:00] Voice 2: and i think would be really powerful because you know at the moment all of these business cases

[2:58:08] Voice 2: in isolation are being prepared and presented to different committees who have no real

[2:58:16] Voice 2: guidance on what the coming budget should look like. So they have no reason to challenge

[2:58:26] Voice 2: anything, pretty much, that's put in front of them, given that they requested and approved

[2:58:32] Voice 2: that those business cases would be created so I really really support an effort to

[2:58:40] Voice 2: get ahead on that and to set some conditions or constraints early on and it would be really

[2:58:49] Voice 2: helpful to the financial planning committee we would not be out on a limb desperately trying to

[2:58:55] Voice 2: pedal backwards and we would have some constraints given to us and we would feel supported by trust

[2:59:04] Voice 2: council in our efforts so yeah if it's possible to do something like that i would really support it

[2:59:12] Voice 2: thank you julian uh

[2:59:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you mentioned the june trust council um i think what i'm hearing from

[2:59:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): from Director Mobs, is to go to this September meeting

[2:59:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for the purposes of this budget cycle, raise the guidelines issue.

[2:59:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But I can see your point that in the future,

[2:59:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): if we did go down the direction, June, probably earlier than that,

[2:59:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): June would probably make sense.

[2:59:37] Voice 2: Well, yeah, to

[2:59:38] Voice 2: discuss it in September,

[2:59:39] Voice 2: but I feel like it's possibly a little too late at this stage.

[2:59:43] Voice 2: I don't know.

[2:59:44] Voice 2: But certainly in future, doing it, like you approve a budget

[2:59:49] Voice 2: it and then you could immediately say here's a deal for next year so yeah either way I think

[2:59:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it's a

[2:59:58] Voice 2: fantastic idea I really

[3:00:00] Voice 2: Okay,

[3:00:03] Voice 7: thank you. Trustee Harris.

[3:00:05] Voice 7: I hope I'm not speaking in the wrong area here on the wrong topic, but I like this conversation and where it's going.

[3:00:14] Voice 7: As to next year's budget, and for what I've seen here today, I see the cost related to staff being $6.2 million is what I'm understanding, what I've seen.

[3:00:30] Voice 7: and which is sort of the lion's share of um of the the budget um and i'm wondering clearly you

[3:00:43] Voice 7: know myself and i know others are you know optimistic that we may be able to cut um some

[3:00:51] Voice 7: cost um in the future and it would be helpful i know to myself to sort of wrap my mind around

[3:01:00] Voice 7: um where this money is going um to have a more of a breakdown of how many staff are um currently

[3:01:12] Voice 7: employed um that fall under the staff category what the 6.2 million dollars is and um what the

[3:01:20] Voice 7: positions are how many um clearly you know i have ideas on where um money could possibly be saved

[3:01:29] Voice 7: but I'd love to hear any feedback on that.

[3:01:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well, Trustee Harris, I think that's probably a discussion

[3:01:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that more likely if since we're talking about the guidelines

[3:01:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or this guideline concept here,

[3:01:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it sounds like the point you've just brought up there

[3:01:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in terms of where to look at in terms of fiscal discipline,

[3:01:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): sounds like that's something that would come up

[3:01:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for discussion at Trust Council,

[3:01:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): if and when we're discussing what guidelines if any we want to sort of inject into the budgetary

[3:02:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): process for example you know your concern is you know getting control of salary increases and

[3:02:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): staffing increases you can see how that would be something that would be worked into a guideline

[3:02:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for the budgeting process for example it's you're not going to have staffing increases above a

[3:02:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): certain percentage or whatever i'm just pulling that out of the air but i see that discussion

[3:02:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): happening at Trust Council as guidelines are developed.

[3:02:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But do we have any further comments from trustees

[3:02:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about the idea of, I mean, it's pretty hard to argue

[3:02:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): with the idea of consulting with Trust Council

[3:02:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to get its guidance as to how it wants to see

[3:02:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): its upcoming budget.

[3:02:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, it seems frankly respectful of reality

[3:02:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): concerning Trust Council as the body

[3:02:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that ultimately decides everything anyhow.

[3:02:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do we have any further comments about that?

[3:02:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And if we were about, if we were going to implement this,

[3:02:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): if I go back, I see Trustee Luckham as a comment here,

[3:03:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): before we go there, I want to go back to Director Moms.

[3:03:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): If we decided to do that, how do we go about doing that?

[3:03:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Is that something that requires a resolution

[3:03:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or is that just some direction for staff

[3:03:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to work that into the agenda for the September meeting?

[3:03:20] Voice 4: I do, oh.

[3:03:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I see the CAO has got his hand up,

[3:03:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): so perhaps I'll get him to answer the question.

[3:03:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i

[3:03:32] Voice 15: could this is really a question for the chair of the trust um the scheduling of the

[3:03:39] Voice 15: trust council session is 95 complete at this point um uh appreciating uh director mobb's

[3:03:47] Voice 15: suggestion for a session on this um i believe that the budget assumptions and principles document

[3:03:53] Voice 15: will be um on the agenda um perhaps that's time i don't know whether you've got if there's two

[3:04:01] Voice 15: to go over this or or not um but that could be in that conversation could actually um spike interest

[3:04:08] Voice 15: in the uh the budget assumptions and principles document that perhaps in the past it had you know

[3:04:13] Voice 15: it's been more just a um a received document but um i just don't know how much time like we've got

[3:04:22] Voice 15: some free-flowing debate organized for for this upcoming trust council um yeah i'd leave my

[3:04:30] Voice 15: comments there but that's where i'd suggest it would occur maybe a question posed as

[3:04:35] Voice 15: if it's formulated by the director to trustees to consider these things well

[3:04:39] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it certainly is

[3:04:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): related to the uh assumptions and principles i mean it's a component of it um about timing

[3:04:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i don't know uh trustee like him

[3:04:50] Trustee Luckham (probable): yeah i wasn't anticipating um part of this being lobbed over

[3:04:56] Trustee Luckham (probable): under my court but i appreciate and thank the ceo for raising the the subject that um and that's not

[3:05:05] Trustee Luckham (probable): what i was going to talk about but um and of course i would only end up making it more complex anyway

[3:05:10] Trustee Luckham (probable): but um uh there isn't any time for another full-ranging conversation at council unless

[3:05:17] Trustee Luckham (probable): you want to expand the number of days and number of hours that we're going to have conversations on

[3:05:23] Trustee Luckham (probable): We've already got at least one or maybe more new business items.

[3:05:29] Trustee Luckham (probable): I think we're still waiting for the final request for new business items to come together to determine what that agenda looks like.

[3:05:39] Trustee Luckham (probable): So we've already shuffled things around quite a bit in order to be able to just accomplish the business that's at hand.

[3:05:46] Trustee Luckham (probable): So another item of this nature, other than what naturally occurs, is that, if I'm not mistaken, the budget and assumptions and principles document, although drafted and created by financial planning committee, does need to be endorsed by council because you're asking them to apply this criteria to their process, if I'm not mistaken, or at least have to be advised so that they understand.

[3:06:11] Trustee Luckham (probable): understand. So certainly, historically, I'm actually very excited that there's so much

[3:06:19] Trustee Luckham (probable): attention has been applied to this document, because I think this is the most important

[3:06:23] Trustee Luckham (probable): document that we, one of the most important documents that we have that we need to reflect

[3:06:27] Trustee Luckham (probable): upon in all the work that we do, but particularly, of course, with financial planning. So I'm really

[3:06:33] Trustee Luckham (probable): pleased that it's had this much attention. Typically, it has not had a lot of attention,

[3:06:36] Trustee Luckham (probable): and it just kind of we just move through it so if there's a bigger discussion around this at

[3:06:42] Trustee Luckham (probable): council and especially again considering some of the amendments here then i'm not at this point in

[3:06:48] Trustee Luckham (probable): time i'm i'm not sure i would need to know the clear question i would ask is how much time does

[3:06:53] Trustee Luckham (probable): this need um uh for a conversation because of course if even if not two-thirds of council

[3:07:01] Trustee Luckham (probable): choose to chime in on it, and it goes around a couple of times. One, it doesn't seem like a

[3:07:06] Trustee Luckham (probable): satisfying conversation, because you've just gone around the room without discussion, but consumes

[3:07:11] Trustee Luckham (probable): an hour to two hours without even thinking about it. So on that note, if I might just double back

[3:07:19] Trustee Luckham (probable): a bit to what I put my hand up for originally, I can't help but think that there's a lot of

[3:07:27] Trustee Luckham (probable): of elements to this. And in my mind, a lot of this circles back to the vision statement. What's

[3:07:35] Trustee Luckham (probable): the vision of the Islanders Trust? And these assumptions and principles need to dovetail

[3:07:40] Trustee Luckham (probable): into that, those values that the Islanders Trust Council holds, and that indeed First Nations

[3:07:48] Trustee Luckham (probable): reconciliation, being fiscally responsible, meeting and achieving their community's needs,

[3:07:55] Trustee Luckham (probable): needs all those sorts of things somehow need to be woven into that and indeed we're having that

[3:08:00] Trustee Luckham (probable): discussion at this council which could consume all of council in fact the time we have allotted

[3:08:07] Trustee Luckham (probable): and so wonder about how the chicken and the egg kind of a thing come into play with respect to

[3:08:17] Trustee Luckham (probable): a vision statement and principles and assumptions and what are the principles and assumptions based

[3:08:21] Trustee Luckham (probable): based upon in the delivery of the important work that we do

[3:08:27] Trustee Luckham (probable): on the preserve and protect mandate of the Adams Trust.

[3:08:32] Trustee Luckham (probable): I've said way more than you wanted to probably hear.

[3:08:34] Trustee Luckham (probable): So there you go.

[3:08:35] Trustee Luckham (probable): Thank you.

[3:08:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Thank you.

[3:08:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I think the guidelines, I'm going to weigh in here.

[3:08:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): This discussion of this, first of all, the timing stuff,

[3:08:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I think we have to be sensitive to that.

[3:08:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But the guidelines concept does dovetail, to use your word, kind of perfectly with budget

[3:08:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): assumptions and principles, but also the values that Trustee Luckham was just talking about.

[3:09:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, we have had some discussion today, really.

[3:09:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, just that resolution we passed a little while ago about working in First Nations

[3:09:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): reconciliation uh as an assumption uh that needs to be considered when we're doing budgeting and

[3:09:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): funding and that sort of thing um that's going down the path of trying to align our more mechanical

[3:09:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): budget assumptions with our larger principles that we're trying to you know carry forward with

[3:09:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the guidelines is a piece of going down this guidelines i don't know i'm you know consulting

[3:09:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about the direction it wants to go with with respect

[3:09:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to a budget is of a piece with that.

[3:09:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And I would think that it would come out naturally

[3:09:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): as it does that it fits in naturally with the discussion

[3:09:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of values, discussion of vision, and also discussion

[3:09:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of, you know, more mundane, the assumptions

[3:09:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and mechanical principles we're following

[3:09:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in the budgetary process.

[3:10:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So it may be that we may not have a discussion

[3:10:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): if it goes forward that in that direction,

[3:10:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it may be that we may not have as complete a discussion

[3:10:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about guidelines as we would like,

[3:10:15] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but we are getting into the nitty gritty of budgeting

[3:10:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and it might well be helpful

[3:10:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): as Trustee Boland had pointed out before,

[3:10:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): helpful to staff members and trustees

[3:10:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): when they're considering things that they're asking for

[3:10:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in budgetary terms,

[3:10:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): having those guidelines from trust council about,

[3:10:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you know these are the things we care about more than these things and these are the limits that

[3:10:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we're working within even general language like that might be very helpful so i would certainly

[3:10:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): be supportive of the idea of at least consulting trust counsel i mean it's it's it's kind of hard

[3:10:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to argue against the idea of asking trust counsel for its opinion about how we ought to be budgeting

[3:10:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in the larger sense so trustee boland uh was enthusiastic about this and i you know like i

[3:11:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I asked before and didn't get an answer

[3:11:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about how are we going to do this mechanically,

[3:11:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but I get the feeling this is something

[3:11:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that we need another resolution for,

[3:11:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): which is if there's enough support for it,

[3:11:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for this idea of director moms,

[3:11:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that we need a resolution from a trustee

[3:11:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to the effect that FPC will at the next trust council

[3:11:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): meeting ask trust council to provide guidelines

[3:11:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh with respect to the budgeting process you know uh i'm not going to make that motion but

[3:11:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): if if there's enough enthusiasm for this idea out there i'm assuming somebody out there will

[3:11:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and this committee will make the resolution somebody will second it and then we can

[3:11:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): have the vote and discuss if we want to do it i see trustee bullen has her hand up there

[3:11:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): she picked up on the clue

[3:12:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): yeah

[3:12:02] Voice 2: um yeah so i moved that at trust council in september fpc asked trust council to consider

[3:12:12] Voice 2: offering or creating guidelines as to the um no guideline guidelines on the budget

[3:12:23] Voice 2: budget early in the budget cycle um so that fpc can act under those guidelines i've made it a bit

[3:12:34] Voice 2: long-winded but if i tidy that up julia is that anywhere near what you think you you were thinking

[3:12:41] Voice 2: about um

[3:12:44] Voice 11: yeah i think uh just limiting it to the upcoming budget cycle um is fine we'll be looking

[3:12:50] Voice 11: at earlier in the budget cycle as part of the corporate planning process so requesting that

[3:12:55] Voice 11: Trust Council provide budget guidelines for the fiscal 2025 budget I think would be sufficient.

[3:13:02] Voice 2: Okay, fair enough. So I move that FPC request Trust Council at the Trust Council meeting in

[3:13:09] Voice 2: september to provide guidelines uh on the um 2020 425 24 25 i know i think he like oh my god okay

[3:13:24] Voice 2: 24 25 budget um that's in preparation right now yeah

[3:13:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): okay that's the motion it's up there on the

[3:13:33] Voice 4: screen uh do we have a seconder trustee mod is seconding the motion we've discussed it

[3:13:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it uh but i will canvas if there's any further comments that people want to make i see trustee

[3:13:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): has his

[3:13:51] Voice 4: hand up um i you know just from a practice

[3:14:00] Trustee Luckham (probable): principally sure great idea practically

[3:14:06] Trustee Luckham (probable): uh honestly um the you've opened the barn doors and you haven't just opened one barn door you've

[3:14:12] Trustee Luckham (probable): opened both barn doors and my question initially was is how much time you want to allocate a

[3:14:18] Trustee Luckham (probable): counsel for this to to consider creating guidelines that's not a 20-minute conversation it's not even

[3:14:27] Trustee Luckham (probable): an hour conversation it's much longer i'm not sure that we can accommodate that in september's

[3:14:33] Trustee Luckham (probable): agenda i've already actually defer asked that a new business item be talked about in uh higher

[3:14:41] Trustee Luckham (probable): level terms in september and be brought back in december um to facilitate the amount of time

[3:14:48] Trustee Luckham (probable): that's already allocated at that meeting so i would uh it's going to be a real struggle for ec

[3:14:55] Trustee Luckham (probable): to look at the agenda uh in two weeks time and determine how we're going to squeeze that in

[3:15:00] Trustee Luckham (probable): other than expanding the time that we have available but we're up we're often restricted

[3:15:07] Trustee Luckham (probable): by the time available because we've already booked the venue from between a and b and there's no

[3:15:13] Trustee Luckham (probable): very little leeway we've had trouble in the past with that so there you go

[3:15:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well,

[3:15:20] Voice 4: it is a question of priorities, I suppose.

[3:15:22] Voice 4: Trustee Harris?

[3:15:25] Voice 7: I was just going to say, yes, this is very important.

[3:15:29] Voice 7: We do need to talk about this, and 2024, 2025 is creeping up.

[3:15:33] Voice 7: Maybe the language could be changed to a degree, you know, in light of Chair Lockham's, you know, comments,

[3:15:45] Voice 7: changing it to something along the lines of trust council

[3:15:49] Voice 7: to start a conversation or to start a conversation

[3:15:55] Voice 7: on creating guidelines for the 2024, 25.

[3:15:59] Voice 7: So clearly we'll speak, it's talk about it as you know,

[3:16:02] Voice 7: to however long we can talk about it in September

[3:16:07] Voice 7: and then clearly carry it on to the next trust council

[3:16:11] Voice 7: meeting and in between, if that makes any sense.

[3:16:13] Voice 7: thank

[3:16:16] Voice 4: you uh ceo hudson peller uh well mr chair i think you're

[3:16:21] Voice 16: the motion

[3:16:22] Voice 15: is that you're referring

[3:16:25] Voice 15: this to ec to schedule this i don't know whether you have a direct avenue directly to trust trust

[3:16:32] Voice 15: council because ec's tasked with doing it that being said so i think that makes things procedurally

[3:16:40] Voice 15: sequential um i'm looking at the tentative schedule 3 15 on the wednesday administrative

[3:16:47] Voice 15: services for an hour so there's a chance there if some of the other issues that julia's addressing

[3:16:54] Voice 15: you know maybe that could go over a little bit of time um you could put something in there um i

[3:17:00] Voice 15: believe this is would this be the most significant piece you're bringing julia to this trust council

[3:17:06] Voice 15: um along with everything

[3:17:10] Voice 11: else from this meeting that's going to council the audited statements

[3:17:13] Voice 15: audited statements don't get a lot of um airtime like traditionally so i think we might be okay

[3:17:19] Voice 15: there i agree

[3:17:20] Voice 15: um same with the first quarter report it doesn't

[3:17:23] Voice 15: you know a few questions

[3:17:24] Voice 15: so i think you could get a solid hour and maybe introducing the concept and getting people used

[3:17:30] Voice 15: to it you know maybe there'd be value in that just as uh um trustee harris is talking about

[3:17:36] Voice 15: instead of maybe assuming you get to a whole fait accompli you might get a couple things out there

[3:17:40] Voice 15: but i think that's the timing that's available right now thanks well

[3:17:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that's that's helpful if

[3:17:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i can pipe in at this juncture and let the other trustees step in but i think that's very helpful

[3:17:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): because um we've spent a fair bit of time going through you know these various items that will

[3:17:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): go before trust council and we pass our various resolutions but we've done a certain amount of the

[3:18:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the heavy lifting of the discussion of them.

[3:18:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And I think it may be possible to orchestrate

[3:18:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the presentation of those items as you know,

[3:18:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): traditionally Julia leads the discussion

[3:18:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of all those different items,

[3:18:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but it might be feasible for FPC.

[3:18:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, as chair of SPC,

[3:18:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I could just try to briskly move those items along

[3:18:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and say, look, we've discussed these things,

[3:18:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we need your approval for them.

[3:18:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): If you want to talk about them, that's fine,

[3:18:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but let's just move it along and without belaboring the item,

[3:18:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Just try to squeeze out a bit more time so that, you know, that hour that we have, we can spend as much of it as reasonably possible on introducing this concept.

[3:18:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do

[3:18:42] Voice 15: you want new staff reporting or do you want to just introduce it or just have Julia introduce it just like she just did?

[3:18:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Whatever works in the most efficient fashion to sort of preserve as much time as possible for the guidelines discussion.

[3:19:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we don't really have to have a tremendous amount of discussion at the trust council level unless

[3:19:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): people have specific questions i think with respect to the other items you know right um but

[3:19:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh i'm really in your hands at that level you know and staff i'll

[3:19:16] Voice 15: talk it over with julia and figure

[3:19:17] Voice 15: yeah please we don't want an exhaustive

[3:19:19] Voice 16: report either so no uh trustee grant

[3:19:22] Voice 4: um

[3:19:25] Voice 6: thank you chair

[3:19:26] Voice 6: just um listening and really hearing the depth of uh chair luckham's comments that both barn doors

[3:19:36] Voice 6: could possibly be open i i totally agree i i would feel really uncomfortable not giving

[3:19:44] Voice 6: an enormous amount of time for this subject and my suggestion it's not going to be a popular one

[3:19:49] Voice 6: but i would suggest that we perhaps introduce the idea but let's aim for 2024 no i'm sorry

[3:19:57] Voice 6: 2025-26 budget to have these guidelines complete because 2024 is just around the corner and we're

[3:20:05] Voice 6: not going to to do something poorly is always not a good idea and to to rush things is not a good

[3:20:12] Voice 6: idea and to take our time and do the best work that we can is always the best way to go so I

[3:20:18] Voice 6: don't want to rush this I want this to be a really fully engaged conversation amongst trustees given

[3:20:25] Voice 6: given lots of time to really think about this because this is huge these guidelines could

[3:20:28] Voice 6: could really flavor the work of the trust council for many years to come so that's my suggestion

[3:20:35] Voice 6: let's let's slow down introduce the idea but let's aim for 2025-26 budget to actually have

[3:20:42] Voice 6: the guidelines in place for their use thank you trustee patrick hopefully

[3:20:50] Trustee Patrick (probable): i can offer some

[3:20:51] Trustee Patrick (probable): some middle ground there. In the September budget, we will be introducing the budget assumptions and

[3:20:57] Trustee Patrick (probable): principles that we just spent quite a bit of time talking to. And the concept behind that really is

[3:21:01] Trustee Patrick (probable): about shaping the budget. It might be missing a couple of things. And I think if this was

[3:21:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): introduced as creating high level guidelines, so that we're not trying to get into total details,

[3:21:14] Trustee Patrick (probable): but realizing the next step is you're going to have a draft budget in front of you. And if you

[3:21:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): you have some, you know, really, if you have some assumptions that what you think you're expecting,

[3:21:22] Trustee Patrick (probable): you should be saying it now. And I think that's, I think what it can do is help shape that

[3:21:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): conversation in regard to the assumptions and principles, sort of augment that. And I think

[3:21:32] Trustee Patrick (probable): it would be helpful if staff in a staff report brought some relevant examples from perhaps some

[3:21:37] Trustee Patrick (probable): of the other areas that are using guidelines for developing their budgets, so that it gives some

[3:21:41] Trustee Patrick (probable): people some examples of kind of what you're talking about. So I think it could be done in

[3:21:46] Trustee Patrick (probable): in the context of the assumptions and principles,

[3:21:48] Trustee Patrick (probable): just maybe amend this motion

[3:21:50] Trustee Patrick (probable): to see creating high level guidelines.

[3:21:52] Trustee Patrick (probable): So we're not looking at,

[3:21:53] Trustee Patrick (probable): this is a chance to really put your mark

[3:21:55] Trustee Patrick (probable): on what you're expecting,

[3:21:57] Trustee Patrick (probable): because otherwise we're gonna have that long discussion

[3:21:59] Trustee Patrick (probable): in December when they see a draft budget

[3:22:00] Trustee Patrick (probable): and the panic strikes when they see the numbers

[3:22:03] Trustee Patrick (probable): that are associated with it.

[3:22:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Thank you.

[3:22:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Boland.

[3:22:10] Voice 2: Yeah, I'm sort of in support of what Laura has said,

[3:22:14] Voice 2: because I just read what I proposed there.

[3:22:17] Voice 2: early in the budget cycle well for 2024-25 we're actually kind of not early in the budget cycle

[3:22:26] Voice 2: in you know early in the budget cycle would have been April, May, June for people to really think

[3:22:33] Voice 2: about it so I agree that what we could do is just have a general discussion maybe based on the

[3:22:42] Voice 2: the changes we've made to the budget assumptions and principles those are sort of like training

[3:22:49] Voice 2: wheels to take people on to a more kind of advanced level of really thinking about shaping

[3:22:58] Voice 2: the budget and so this year you know in September realistically I mean correct me if I'm wrong Julie

[3:23:06] Voice 2: But our September Trust Council is the end of September. And I believe that around the second week in October, we'll be presented with a consolidated budget based on the work that's ongoing at the moment.

[3:23:20] Voice 2: and so it's a little bit late to be actually offering guidelines but to discuss the concept

[3:23:29] Voice 2: and to look at examples from elsewhere and to just get people's heads around what they're going to be

[3:23:36] Voice 2: asked to do in December I think that would be very helpful so I suppose we're thinking about

[3:23:42] Voice 2: a conversation around the changes we've made to the budget assumptions and principles

[3:23:47] Voice 2: principles and the ideas that Julia has proposed with examples from other jurisdictions I think

[3:23:54] Voice 2: that would really help it would help this year and it would help to set the foundation for the

[3:24:00] Voice 2: following year yeah

[3:24:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and I just as an editorial comment um when if we're going to talk about

[3:24:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): guidelines I mean in a one way of looking at it is that's a discussion that ends up happening

[3:24:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): happening anyhow at the back end when trust council is presented with a budget and people

[3:24:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): start carping about things that they don't like and gen in general philosophical terms

[3:24:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about how they you know they wish the budget had gone in this direction as opposed to that

[3:24:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): direction and there's this ongoing frustration the trustees have about feeling like they're

[3:24:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): not consulted about stuff and this is fundamental and this is i mean we had a fair bit of drama

[3:24:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): last time around with the budget we might be able to foreclose some of that by consulting with

[3:24:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): people and actually you know peter mentions about opening the barn door you know that's an

[3:24:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): interesting image you know maybe some of those animals need to be free you know maybe they maybe

[3:24:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): they don't belong in a barn have we thought about that maybe we need to have that consultation

[3:25:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we don't get to decide trust council decides now we have more comments we have hands up i'm

[3:25:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I'm actually, we have a limited amount of time here.

[3:25:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I'm going to bring this discussion to an end.

[3:25:15] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I know Trustee Harris has his hand up

[3:25:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and so does Trustee Luckham,

[3:25:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but I think we've heard enough

[3:25:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and we're at risk of going in circles here.

[3:25:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): The motion has been moved, it's been seconded.

[3:25:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I'm going to put it up for a vote.

[3:25:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All of

[3:25:30] Voice 4: those in favor of this motion,

[3:25:31] Voice 4: please raise your hands.

[3:25:37] Voice 4: All right, how many votes do we have here?

[3:25:42] Voice 4: Five so far, Mr. Chair.

[3:25:45] Voice 4: Okay, all right.

[3:25:52] Voice 4: and where does that leave us in terms

[3:25:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of a call for the no votes as well please

[3:25:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): okay that's right sorry those were opposed to the motion

[3:26:02] Voice 4: please raise your

[3:26:03] Voice 4: hands I don't see any three opposed okay

[3:26:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): where am I what am I missing oh I see

[3:26:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): right okay so the motion passes five to three correct thank you let's return to

[3:26:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to the agenda because we still have business to carry out now at the outset trustee patrick

[3:26:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you had mentioned something about um i'm going to confuse you the content of business plans

[3:26:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and business

[3:26:38] Trustee Patrick (probable): cases business

[3:26:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): cases and uh i think we were going to discuss it in the framework of

[3:26:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): 7.5

[3:26:46] Voice 4: is that right or not that was my understanding okay um do you want to raise that issue do you

[3:27:00] Voice 4: want to

[3:27:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): um sure

[3:27:02] Trustee Patrick (probable): i'll throw it out there i mean um i know we were asked to give some thought to

[3:27:05] Trustee Patrick (probable): any changes to the business cases a change that came to me that would be useful after spending

[3:27:12] Trustee Patrick (probable): quite a bit of time analyzing sort of salt spring over the last

[3:27:15] Voice 5: five

[3:27:16] Trustee Patrick (probable): six years um is that a business

[3:27:20] Trustee Patrick (probable): business case, hardly very few of these major projects can be done in one year. And our process

[3:27:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): is designed that we have this business case that shows up for a one-year cost. And I think staff

[3:27:30] Trustee Patrick (probable): do their best to try to figure out how much it's going to cost. And they're thinking of total

[3:27:34] Trustee Patrick (probable): project, even though it might take longer than a year. I think we should add to the business case

[3:27:40] Trustee Patrick (probable): form, if this is an ongoing project, it should have the previous expense costs up to, I don't

[3:27:49] Trustee Patrick (probable): know if it's five years before and because we do a five-year financial plan I think the business

[3:27:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): case should include estimated costs for five years going forward so that you know the ask is for this

[3:28:02] Trustee Patrick (probable): annual year but I think we should understand that this is a project that could could carry on or

[3:28:06] Trustee Patrick (probable): could you know could take multiple years to to do and so it just puts that frame on the business

[3:28:13] Trustee Patrick (probable): business case and that's what I would recommend for a change so

[3:28:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you want business cases to uh

[3:28:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): be for the life of the project is that

[3:28:22] Trustee Patrick (probable): correct it sort of includes sort of past expenditures

[3:28:25] Trustee Patrick (probable): of where they are what they have spent and what they project as well as the annual the one year

[3:28:32] Trustee Patrick (probable): request so

[3:28:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but if you were starting a brand new project you would want that project the business

[3:28:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): case to spell out, say, if it's anticipated as a three-year project, you'd want it budgeted

[3:28:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and planned and all worked out with thresholds and benchmarks, including pricing.

[3:28:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I

[3:28:52] Trustee Patrick (probable): didn't get that far for benchmarks, but it should include estimates for the next years

[3:28:58] Trustee Patrick (probable): or however long it's projected to last.

[3:29:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Okay.

[3:29:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): That's the concept.

[3:29:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Okay.

[3:29:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Director Mops.

[3:29:07] Voice 11: So that is something that has been added to the template for business cases in the current year.

[3:29:12] Voice 11: It is now specifically asking that if a project is multi-year to please provide the costs for all years to clearly indicate the cost by year for all the years that the project will be in play.

[3:29:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So we've already got it in place.

[3:29:29] Voice 11: That's right. It's in the template this year.

[3:29:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): That's great. Thank you.

[3:29:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Moving on to item 7.6, the budget consultation plan.

[3:29:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I

[3:29:38] Voice 4: believe Director Frater's addressing this.

[3:29:44] Voice 4: Yes, hello committee.

[3:29:47] Voice 10: Thank you and hard to come at the end of a long day here,

[3:29:49] Voice 10: but let's chat about how you want to talk to the public

[3:29:52] Voice 10: about your budget.

[3:29:53] Voice 10: So what you have in front of you here

[3:29:54] Voice 10: is a request for decision seeking the committee's direction

[3:29:58] Voice 10: on how you'd like to conduct.

[3:30:00] Voice 10: public engagement on your proposed budget this year. What's being proposed is essentially a

[3:30:05] Voice 10: status quo approach to what's been done in the past. And laying out the particular timelines

[3:30:11] Voice 10: and methods by which we might do it. You'll see in the main briefing, we've sort of highlighted

[3:30:16] Voice 10: the ways in which we've done this historically, the kinds of results we've had, and the promotion

[3:30:21] Voice 10: methods that are used to seek public input. I would just ask that we that the committee consider

[3:30:29] Voice 10: consider how it might like to do this. There is an opportunity to do things differently.

[3:30:33] Voice 10: Last year, this committee considered a shift in timing, but recognized that trying to get earlier

[3:30:39] Voice 10: input did mean undertaking engagement during the winter holiday period, when typically our offices

[3:30:46] Voice 10: are closed and people are often involved in festivities. So I'm certainly happy to take

[3:30:51] Voice 10: questions. I've got a budget process graphic we can bring on screen if needed, and happy to take

[3:30:57] Voice 10: questions and support this conversation i will note that all materials that are to be made public

[3:31:03] Voice 10: including the proposed survey um do come back to this committee for a review and comment um prior

[3:31:09] Voice 10: to being made public so you have full oversight over all products that would be used in the

[3:31:13] Voice 10: engagement so with that i'm happy to take any questions well

[3:31:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i'm going to open the floor for

[3:31:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for discussion on this item i hope we can deal with it efficiently but i'm going to open

[3:31:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and the discussion with a repeat of a comment I made last time when this issue came up when we

[3:31:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): were dealing with the budget for this year and I remain skeptical about the value of budget

[3:31:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): consultation at all at this level because from everything I've heard and I remember asking

[3:31:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): asking Director Frey to this question some months ago.

[3:31:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It appears we do this consultation,

[3:31:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but it doesn't really translate

[3:31:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): into meaningful changes to the budget.

[3:32:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So the value of this, and I'm throwing in my card in here,

[3:32:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it seems exceedingly uncertain to me,

[3:32:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but that's just one person's view.

[3:32:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It's open to the trustees to comment

[3:32:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and throw in their two bits worth on this point.

[3:32:15] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So can we have comments please on the,

[3:32:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): oh, here we go, Trustee Boland.

[3:32:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): um

[3:32:21] Voice 2: i too have reservations about the status quo i don't think the status quo worked very well

[3:32:29] Voice 2: both the timing was too late and the content i mean ideally i would like to see a consultation

[3:32:38] Voice 2: more about um the the the activities that are undertaken rather than just the cost

[3:32:47] Voice 2: trust and I don't know when the timing would be I'd love to see a new proposal an entirely new

[3:32:54] Voice 2: proposal um because the one that's on the table hasn't worked very well for several years I mean

[3:33:03] Voice 2: I you know I certainly was one of the things that triggered me to um become a trustee was my

[3:33:11] Voice 2: frustration with it um you know it actually it has no impact on the budget so maybe even calling

[3:33:20] Voice 2: it a budget consultation or a budget feedback public feedback on the budget if it was called

[3:33:26] Voice 2: something else it might work better but I really really I really am reluctant to undertake the same

[3:33:36] Voice 2: same process again. I'd like to see it change.

[3:33:42] Voice 4: Thank you

[3:33:47] Trustee Luckham (probable): very much. And thank you to Trustee Boland for her remarks as well. You know,

[3:33:53] Trustee Luckham (probable): this has evolved quite a bit over the years that I've been a trustee. And if I'm not mistaken,

[3:33:59] Trustee Luckham (probable): was much more values and sort of principles of governance and what's important and what's not

[3:34:06] Trustee Luckham (probable): um than it is presently where it has become more about what areas of the work that we do do you

[3:34:16] Trustee Luckham (probable): want to spend money in and of course a budget consultation in other levels of government is

[3:34:21] Trustee Luckham (probable): about swimming pools and parks and um you know upgrading the the beauty of the town and all

[3:34:28] Trustee Luckham (probable): those sorts of infrastructure things that we're not asking people to make those value judgments

[3:34:33] Trustee Luckham (probable): and decisions upon those kinds of assets that is much more meaningful to community.

[3:34:39] Trustee Luckham (probable): I will say that it's taken quite a long time to build the momentum where we're actually

[3:34:47] Trustee Luckham (probable): seeing more people participating, because what we were getting in previous iterations

[3:34:53] Trustee Luckham (probable): of the budget was very little participation, not statistically reliable as it goes.

[3:34:59] Trustee Luckham (probable): And we've been following this process and getting a lot more input from it. But I do agree, I think it's not necessarily satisfying. And I think what would be more helpful is indeed earlier on somehow, I don't really know how that part works, but earlier on somehow actually getting support for values that the work that we undertake supports the values that are supported by the community,

[3:35:28] Trustee Luckham (probable): which you know it does end up being um the work that we actually do so um i think there's room

[3:35:37] Trustee Luckham (probable): for improvement and um and uh it'd be great if we had some more solid ideas right at this present

[3:35:44] Trustee Luckham (probable): moment in time about how to proceed at this point in time because i think being silent about it or

[3:35:49] Trustee Luckham (probable): not doing it also sets up uh a bit of optics that we don't really care and of course we do um so

[3:35:57] Trustee Luckham (probable): But we're trying to find a way to make that more respectful of everybody's participation.

[3:36:02] Trustee Luckham (probable): Thank you.

[3:36:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well, we certainly care.

[3:36:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Otherwise, we wouldn't be beating our heads against this work that we do with these committee meetings.

[3:36:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But, you know, I was just looking at the chart there.

[3:36:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, the last time we did this, we did what survey, you know, it's true, we're getting increased survey responses.

[3:36:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But it's not a terrific volume when you consider the overall population.

[3:36:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but uh in any event trustee harris i

[3:36:34] Voice 4: too am um you

[3:36:37] Voice 7: know clearly not happy with the status quo

[3:36:39] Voice 7: um not just about anything actually yeah not because that's my personal opinion but

[3:36:47] Voice 7: i haven't heard i haven't had any feedback from people in the public um any positive feedback

[3:36:54] Voice 7: back about you know the budget so yeah clearly I'm for a change I'll

[3:37:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): leave it at that well we

[3:37:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): have this in front of us we have this request for decision oh sorry trustee Patrick I

[3:37:10] Trustee Patrick (probable): was just still

[3:37:11] Trustee Patrick (probable): thinking you know it we we could value a survey I know as as chair Luckin said we don't we don't

[3:37:23] Trustee Patrick (probable): build swimming pools and things, but we do have service levels. We review applications. We

[3:37:29] Trustee Patrick (probable): communicate. We do bylaw enforcement. We do have a lot of services that do touch on people. And I

[3:37:35] Trustee Patrick (probable): think if there was a way to construct a survey such that you're hearing from people, where do

[3:37:39] Trustee Patrick (probable): they want more? I mean, of course, they're going to say, no, I don't want more taxes. We know that

[3:37:44] Trustee Patrick (probable): answer. Who's going to say yes? But if it was constructed in such a way that it gave us some

[3:37:49] Trustee Patrick (probable): feedback that helped us make those decisions. Do we, you know, direct more resources at

[3:37:53] Trustee Patrick (probable): communications or change something because of the feedback that's out there? I think just putting

[3:38:00] Trustee Patrick (probable): the same survey about the budget, it's we're going to get the negative response and we're

[3:38:04] Trustee Patrick (probable): seeing a growing number because it's a greater frustration. But how can we get feedback that's

[3:38:09] Trustee Patrick (probable): helpful in making us make some choices?

[3:38:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well, you know, asking people their opinion about numbers

[3:38:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is rarely fruitful um you know it's it's kind of a backdoor way of getting their opinions about

[3:38:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): policy and what i'm hearing almost uniformly from people is we ought to be asking them directly

[3:38:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): about policy about what they would like i mean trustee patrick mentioned service levels i mean

[3:38:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): would you you know maybe that's we need surveys that ask what kind of services or energy or

[3:38:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or how much emphasis Islands Trust ought to be putting

[3:38:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): in this or that direction of the work it's already doing,

[3:38:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that would be guidance that would help us

[3:38:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): on the budgeting side.

[3:38:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It's less helpful to simply throw numbers at people

[3:38:54] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and say, what do you think?

[3:38:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, you're just not gonna get useful information there.

[3:39:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): In any event, let's not belabor it.

[3:39:02] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, it's been a long day

[3:39:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and we're scheduled to go to three o'clock here.

[3:39:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We've got about another 20 minutes left.

[3:39:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We have this before us, it's a request for decision.

[3:39:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Nothing happens unless somebody passes it

[3:39:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or unless somebody moves that we vote on this thing.

[3:39:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It just dies on the order paper, so to speak.

[3:39:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So I see Trustee Graham has his hand up,

[3:39:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): but let's make a decision one way or the other here.

[3:39:32] Voice 4: Trustee Graham, audio.

[3:39:37] Voice 4: Trustee.

[3:39:37] Voice 4: Thank you, Chair.

[3:39:39] Voice 6: Sorry, I wanted to make a suggestion.

[3:39:43] Voice 6: we're going to develop these guidelines for our budget what an interesting question to ask the

[3:39:49] Voice 6: people who live on the islands what guidelines would you like to see us consider when we're

[3:39:54] Voice 6: looking at budget and i just put that out there as a suggestion that's all actually

[3:39:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it's a very

[3:39:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): interesting suggestion because it um that's the direction the other comments were going is like

[3:40:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you know you go to the public to get guidance uh and and uh the guidelines or the guidance that

[3:40:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that we're looking to get from a trust council

[3:40:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is might well be similar guidance

[3:40:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): getting it from the public.

[3:40:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Harris, you have a point to make.

[3:40:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): You've raised your hand.

[3:40:22] Voice 7: Yeah, I was just going to say that would be a great idea.

[3:40:26] Voice 7: I'm sure many trustees have already heard from the public.

[3:40:32] Voice 7: Probably all of the trustees.

[3:40:34] Voice 7: I know I have certainly have and given me motivation

[3:40:38] Voice 7: and ideas on how I would like to see,

[3:40:40] Voice 7: you know how try and help craft policies but anyways I'll leave it at that all right well

[3:40:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): let's end this particular discussion do we have a motion from anybody to do anything with this

[3:40:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): request trustee Boland so

[3:40:58] Voice 2: if at the bottom actually one of the alternatives offered

[3:41:03] Voice 2: was requested staff develop a revised project chart with a different activity budget and

[3:41:10] Voice 2: If we were to take what David just offered, which is a great idea, which is instead of saying, here's the budget, what do you think?

[3:41:22] Voice 2: Using that approach of what are the guidelines that you think that we should use to develop this budget?

[3:41:31] Voice 2: it. I mean, now, I don't know, Claire, if Morgana can help as well in putting something together

[3:41:39] Voice 2: that just turns the whole thing on its head. Now, the downside is that we potentially lose any value

[3:41:46] Voice 2: of being able to track from year to year. Having said that, it made for very sorry reading for the

[3:41:53] Voice 2: last few years. So maybe we should actually just abandon that, put it to bed and try a different

[3:41:59] Voice 2: I mean, you might get a lot more engagement if you ask some open questions and, you know, asking people how they would like us to approach it.

[3:42:11] Voice 2: I really so I would go for option two, given that we've had this discussion and we've changed the budget assumptions and principles and we're asking Trust Council to look at earlier advice.

[3:42:24] Voice 2: advice, I would go for option two, request that staff develop a revised project charter with the

[3:42:30] Voice 2: different activities and budget.

[3:42:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Are you making that, are you putting that forward as a motion?

[3:42:35] Voice 2: I will, if you want me to, yeah.

[3:42:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well, no, it's not that I want you to or not want you to.

[3:42:41] Voice 2: If

[3:42:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you

[3:42:43] Voice 2: suggest that that's a reasonable thing to do.

[3:42:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We need to have an outcome here and we're

[3:42:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): running out of time really and so if you're making that motion then we need a second or if you're not

[3:42:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): making the motion that's fine too

[3:42:56] Voice 2: um claire has just put her hand up so maybe we could i see that

[3:43:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): director director freighter yeah

[3:43:02] Voice 10: um i think staff would be looking for more specific direction than

[3:43:05] Voice 10: just different activities or budget i think you would want we would ask that you be specific

[3:43:10] Voice 10: around what you want us to bring back to you as well as i'm considering your next meeting is not

[3:43:15] Voice 10: not until I believe October, I think it's October, November, Julia could correct me,

[3:43:22] Voice 10: what specific deliverables do you want beyond a project charter? Of course, Council's going to

[3:43:26] Voice 10: be talking in September about guidelines, so we may be able to build off that conversation,

[3:43:31] Voice 10: but I'd like more specific direction around exactly what the project would be

[3:43:36] Voice 10: in the resolution, if I could ask for that, please.

[3:43:39] Voice 4: I note with interest, though, that

[3:43:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): what trustee bulland is is an option that was presented to us by staff item two uh whether

[3:43:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it's specific or general i mean that's the language we were given uh if we wanted to bounce

[3:44:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it back but i hear you it's not that helpful to be given really general language trustee harris

[3:44:07] Voice 7: i would be just as happy to let this die on the vine at this point i think um trustees have been

[3:44:12] Voice 7: and given a lot of direction just in our general election.

[3:44:18] Voice 7: And I'd be happy to leave it at that

[3:44:19] Voice 7: and wait for trust council to talk about guidelines.

[3:44:22] Voice 7: Again, happy to stay on the line.

[3:44:24] Voice 7: Thank you.

[3:44:24] Voice 7: Well,

[3:44:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): whether we approve it, ask for something different

[3:44:28] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or just spike the thing,

[3:44:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we need a resolution to decide this thing

[3:44:32] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and it's not for me to decide it.

[3:44:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Leckham.

[3:44:35] Trustee Luckham (probable): I will move that the financial planning committee

[3:44:39] Trustee Luckham (probable): recommend that they not proceed with public engagement

[3:44:45] Trustee Luckham (probable): on the proposed 2024-25 budget?

[3:44:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do we have a seconder?

[3:44:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I see Trustee Maud has a seconder.

[3:44:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): He is seconding the motion.

[3:44:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): We've discussed this thing.

[3:44:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Everybody

[3:44:57] Voice 4: in favor of the motion, please raise your hand.

[3:45:08] Voice 4: Okay, and the motion passes.

[3:45:13] Voice 4: We're turning to the agenda.

[3:45:16] Voice 4: We're getting there.

[3:45:19] Voice 4: New business.

[3:45:20] Voice 4: we

[3:45:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): had the new business that was proposed by trustee boland which was wants to talk about

[3:45:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): getting copies of those those exciting business plans that's the one item we have a new business

[3:45:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): so over to you trustee boland so you can elaborate on your proposal um

[3:45:44] Voice 2: i just asked you know we

[3:45:46] Voice 2: discussed this early in the budget cycle and i do have a request going forward to have access to

[3:45:53] Voice 2: certain key documents standalone and a reasonable amount of support for that but in advance of that

[3:46:01] Voice 2: but based on conversations we had you know last March and I asked that we would see the business

[3:46:09] Voice 2: cases as they are being approved right now by the different committees otherwise we're going to see

[3:46:16] Voice 2: them in the middle of October bundled into the FPC agenda. And, you know, yes, they are in agendas

[3:46:26] Voice 2: out there, but I don't know how I know which agenda has a business case in it. And that would

[3:46:32] Voice 2: be helpful even, you know, if I'm not actually on that committee, how do I know that they are

[3:46:38] Voice 2: approving business cases and and what those are and what were requested so i would just ask for

[3:46:46] Voice 2: some help so that the financial planning committee has an early heads up view of business cases that

[3:46:56] Voice 2: are going forward so

[3:46:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): what i hear you're asking for is as business plans are prepared by various

[3:47:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): committees uh that they simply be provided to the members of the fbc on a real-time basis

[3:47:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh like once once a business plan has been approved by this or that body

[3:47:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): like it not only does it go to julia's staff for working with but it will simply be forwarded to

[3:47:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the members of the fpc so they can review and assess this stuff well ahead of time before the

[3:47:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the item ends up on an agenda that we have to deal with formally.

[3:47:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So that way we've got many weeks to look at these things.

[3:47:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Is that the point?

[3:47:40] Voice 2: Yes, that's the point.

[3:47:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): So we don't have a resolution along those lines.

[3:47:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I'm not sure we necessarily need one.

[3:47:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do we have, I'm going to call, well, I was going to call on staff

[3:47:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and conveniently CAO has got his hand up.

[3:47:56] Voice 15: Yeah, Mr. Chair, this is a process question.

[3:47:59] Voice 15: I know this seems like a simple request.

[3:48:01] Voice 15: We've got three or four of these.

[3:48:03] Voice 15: this will be hard to do um the downstream you're indicating that our processes aren't adequate to

[3:48:13] Voice 15: assist you in your decision making um not you personally but the the request to create another

[3:48:20] Voice 15: administrative stream for information prior to you just help me understand what's wrong with

[3:48:28] Voice 15: our process as it stands where the committees review their material we get them to you we get

[3:48:35] Voice 15: them on the agenda um they're they're amended at various times through these processes and then

[3:48:43] Voice 15: you get them and review them such that you're to get one extra document and i'm going to be accused

[3:48:51] Voice 15: of being of not helpful but this is going to we do this four times before we do a budget

[3:49:01] Voice 15: and these these these documents get amended and referred again the first time through it's going

[3:49:08] Voice 15: going to be nothing the next time you'll we'll have a separate we'll have to set up a separate

[3:49:15] Voice 15: administrative area that you attend every time something's changed in one side we're going to

[3:49:21] Voice 15: have to make sure we've done it so that trustee boland and others get the material updated from

[3:49:29] Voice 15: the last time the

[3:49:31] Voice 16: business case was moved um can

[3:49:38] Voice 4: i interject to ask

[3:49:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): a question sure

[3:49:41] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Sure. You're describing business plans as an iterative process.

[3:49:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And, you know, you have a I'm hearing that you've got a concern that it's just like a lot of just layers of just communications here.

[3:49:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But my understanding of the question or the request that was coming from Trustee Boland, implicit in that question, I thought, and she'll comment on it, I'm sure,

[3:50:06] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is the idea that at some point the business plan from the mover of the business plan is complete

[3:50:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it's what they think they they're going to work with a committee has you know a local trust

[3:50:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): committee or that's got a project in mind or staff that has a particular project in mind or

[3:50:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): some proposal that comes forward they have drafted the plan and they're ready to send it you know to

[3:50:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the FPC consideration. Yes. I think she's asking for the, I'm going to ask Trustee Boland to

[3:50:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): confirm this, that that business plan be provided to the members as soon as it's ready and not wait

[3:50:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): until the whole agenda package is put together. And, you know, I am not to be speaking for

[3:50:48] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Boland. I'm just trying to be efficient here. Is that the idea?

[3:50:51] Voice 15: So it's like three or

[3:50:52] Voice 15: four extra days. Like this is going to

[3:50:55] Voice 15: help you that much that we're all going to sort of re

[3:50:59] Voice 15: calibrate this well i just don't understand it i'm afraid okay trustee

[3:51:05] Voice 15: bowman so

[3:51:06] Voice 2: uh yesterday

[3:51:08] Voice 2: trust programs committee approved some business cases um in the in the current environment we

[3:51:17] Voice 2: won't see those until the week before financial planning committee in october but somewhere

[3:51:26] Voice 2: Somewhere between yesterday and whenever, they will be forwarded to the administrative services so that they can be incorporated into the first round of the budget, which is presented in the middle of October or whatever.

[3:51:43] Voice 2: ever so um you know that content is approved in that business case form and i just feel that we

[3:51:55] Voice 2: could see those and uh you know you

[3:52:01] Voice 15: can see them

[3:52:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): can't you well well okay hang on here let's hang

[3:52:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): on we we have your point a trustee bull and you know uh ceo you've heard what

[3:52:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the trustees you

[3:52:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): You heard what the trustee said.

[3:52:12] Trustee Bernardo (probable): You mentioned a few days.

[3:52:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, she's basically disagreeing with you.

[3:52:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): She's saying some of these business cases are prepared some weeks, if not months, before that they are going to be in the normal cycle, before they would be forwarded to FPC.

[3:52:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But

[3:52:27] Voice 15: they're available to her from the agenda of the regional.

[3:52:33] Voice 15: It's like we're creating another

[3:52:35] Voice 15: process that's the

[3:52:36] Voice 15: same as a process that exists.

[3:52:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Okay, I'm going to cut to the chase here, CEO.

[3:52:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you know what what i'm hearing her say is she doesn't want to go through the process of having

[3:52:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to review everybody else's agenda she wants staff to simply provide her with the material when it's

[3:52:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): ready and it's like you're talking about a process i mean it doesn't seem that complicated to me in

[3:52:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): terms of simply forwarding the item to the fpc i mean it's just a piece of paper really or you know

[3:53:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): No,

[3:53:05] Voice 15: and I appreciate that. And I know you guys think that. And I get it.

[3:53:12] Voice 15: Is there a complication we're missing here?

[3:53:15] Voice 15: There's a suite of other requests that we're working on. It's a form of governance review, right?

[3:53:21] Voice 15: Like it's, we're looking at process corrections and we're doing it sort of piece of bread by piece of bread.

[3:53:27] Voice 15: And we've got four other ones that are asking for access to the EDM, the creation of a new backbone at the Allen's Trust for trustees to have access to.

[3:53:38] Voice 15: And I'm, you know, admittedly not as swift as the average bear, but I'm starting to get confused by the various requests for access to information on a motion-by-motion basis at various committees.

[3:53:53] Voice 15: everything sounds great in an isolation um trustee boland wants a report from trust programs

[3:54:00] Voice 15: committee um yeah i i get that all of it's another the creation of another um somewhat redundant

[3:54:13] Voice 15: in some cases access to information and it and it's sounding like we don't get you the information

[3:54:18] Voice 15: you need i haven't seen i don't know understand the problem and then i'm trying to listen and

[3:54:24] Voice 15: figure it out um well i i

[3:54:27] Voice 15: don't know what the implications of how much how much work it is i

[3:54:30] Voice 15: know it's going to be more work for the same people doing the same stuff organizing the same agendas

[3:54:34] Voice 15: and eventually there'll be 20 budget proposals that'll come out of one committee

[3:54:39] Voice 15: something will go wrong and the wrong one will get forwarded and there'll be meetings of trustees on

[3:54:46] Voice 15: the wrong you know i'm just hang

[3:54:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): on i mean i i think items will be discussed at fpc on the basis

[3:54:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of what's on the agenda do we put them on the agenda

[3:55:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): what i'm hearing is this is not about

[3:55:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): this is about simply about timing about getting information we'd otherwise get anyhow getting it

[3:55:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): as soon as possible because there's a perceived need that we need more time to digest these

[3:55:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): business cases or these business plans

[3:55:18] Voice 5: okay and

[3:55:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it's not not any more complicated than that i

[3:55:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): don't think um but you know i'm hearing a fair bit of frustration at your end that the logistics of

[3:55:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it are perhaps unduly complicated and um trustee peterson uh

[3:55:38] Voice 8: thank you chair so i am one of the

[3:55:40] Voice 8: trustees who's been working with trustee boland on this access trustee access to information question

[3:55:47] Voice 8: And I think I understand, you know, where it comes from. And we have done some preliminary work and we're looking at sort of trying to scope out what the implications are that are going to be in terms of staff time and expenditure.

[3:56:06] Voice 8: um and it's not as easy as we had hoped it would be what i think that i'm hearing from the cao

[3:56:15] Voice 8: is that uh a request like this uh in the interim is uh is adding administrative work and complexity

[3:56:28] Voice 8: uh and and sort of a sense of frustration that um that you know trustee any trustee can go and

[3:56:41] Voice 8: look at any agenda and you know certainly when you go through the cover page it doesn't take

[3:56:46] Voice 8: long to see if there's business cases and so i think what i'm trying to say is that until

[3:56:52] Voice 8: until uh a new access to to documents uh system is in place or or we've done some more work on that

[3:57:01] Voice 8: that it's sort of adding extra work in the short term where in fact you know with a little bit of

[3:57:09] Voice 8: work and i actually don't think it's a super onerous for for any of us to go into um the

[3:57:17] Voice 8: the agenda packages of other committees

[3:57:19] Voice 8: and local business cases.

[3:57:21] Voice 8: I mean, it isn't, but what I think

[3:57:24] Voice 8: I'm hearing

[3:57:25] Voice 8: is staff is saying it's not as simple

[3:57:27] Voice 8: as we think it should be.

[3:57:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well, on the one hand, Trustee Peterson,

[3:57:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you're saying it's simple and then-

[3:57:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Well, I'm saying

[3:57:35] Voice 4: it's not simple.

[3:57:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Trustee Peterson, you're saying it's pretty straightforward.

[3:57:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Just go to the agenda.

[3:57:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): But then when it comes time for the staff

[3:57:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to do this clerical work, suddenly it's complicated.

[3:57:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): complicated those two concepts don't ride together very well i mean it's one or the other

[3:57:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh i have to say and this shows you what a jerk i am i'm not a big fan of trustees having to do

[3:57:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): clerical work you know it may not take a lot of effort to sort of go through an agenda but you

[3:58:01] Trustee Bernardo (probable): have to go being suddenly having to be the vigilant guy who has to go through every one of those

[3:58:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): agendas on the off chance there's a business plan or a business case in there that sounds kind of a

[3:58:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of drag you know mr marler yeah

[3:58:16] Voice 1: i'm i'm going to just maybe make a few comments from a records

[3:58:20] Voice 1: management perspective and also a little bit from my um almost 29 years at the allen's trust so

[3:58:28] Voice 1: one you know before we had open meetings we had a lot of this happening where the trustees would

[3:58:34] Voice 1: be passing resolutions asking for information and it really was very inefficient and the one

[3:58:40] Voice 1: thing that did happen especially when the province enacted open meeting rules is that and trust

[3:58:47] Voice 1: committee started meeting more is that created the agenda uh agenda clock and that is we prepare the

[3:58:55] Voice 1: agenda put everything on the agenda trust committees meet and they talk about it so

[3:59:00] Voice 1: from a staff point of view that creates that efficiency and the trust committee or the

[3:59:06] Voice 1: the committees get their information hopefully enough time in advance to be able to read it and

[3:59:11] Voice 1: make some decisions and and if that's not the case we can certainly look at that so that's one

[3:59:18] Voice 1: and and from a records management is and maybe even a frame of information it's about transparency

[3:59:25] Voice 1: to the public so everything that goes to a trustee or to a trust committee really should unless it's

[3:59:30] Voice 1: camera, the public should be aware of that. And any discussion about it has to be in your meetings

[3:59:41] Voice 1: as trustees to advance the business. So those are two reasons why we do it this way. It's efficiency

[3:59:49] Voice 1: and it's for the transparency to the public. So it's not terribly complicated to do the work.

[3:59:57] Voice 1: it is going to add more.

[4:00:00] Voice 1: time and it's easy when it's just one or two but we get quite a lot of reports and from what I'm

[4:00:08] Voice 1: hearing from the group that met wanting to see a lot of things like everything that goes on the

[4:00:15] Voice 1: agenda for example we could be talking about thousands of reports a year because there's

[4:00:22] Voice 1: about 200 meetings a year and there's you know more than five reports on most of those meetings

[4:00:28] Voice 1: so that we would be then doing something else with.

[4:00:31] Voice 1: And then finally, it's just version control

[4:00:34] Voice 1: and where are the documents and what's happening to them.

[4:00:37] Voice 1: So that's the complicated aspect is I would like time

[4:00:41] Voice 1: for us as an organization to analyze what that means

[4:00:46] Voice 1: from a staff perspective.

[4:00:48] Voice 1: And then obviously take that to council

[4:00:50] Voice 1: with these are the options that we can do

[4:00:54] Voice 1: and this is what we'd recommend.

[4:00:56] Voice 1: amend but council would have a series of options and there's going to be a cost to all of them from

[4:01:01] Voice 1: the staff time which could be minimal to new software that provides the securities to allow

[4:01:09] Voice 1: trustees to have direct access to documents in our system that kind of thing anyway so that's

[4:01:15] Voice 1: those are my comments just to help you with the discussion thanks thank

[4:01:20] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you if you could clarify

[4:01:21] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to clarify something Mr. Marlowe there you mentioned version control but my understanding

[4:01:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of the request here is it's in it's not in respect of the draft versions of these plans that are

[4:01:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): floating around it's really and I it and it's relevant to the transparency issue it's not as

[4:01:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I understand it it's not about looking at something that the public doesn't see it's looking at what

[4:01:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): what the public will see when it goes on the agenda.

[4:01:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): It's just seeing it earlier

[4:01:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): because really when it comes to budgeting,

[4:01:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the action really for a lot of these projects

[4:01:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is in these business plans and business cases.

[4:02:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And especially if we get into multi-year cases

[4:02:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that it's going to require a fair bit of deliberation

[4:02:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): on each one of those things.

[4:02:10] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, if you're going to be a critical thinker

[4:02:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and analytical about it and those,

[4:02:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the proposal actually is that these business cases are going to be quite a bit more detailed

[4:02:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): than they were in the in the past committee members on fpc are going to need time to drill

[4:02:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): through that stuff that's

[4:02:26] Voice 5: true yeah

[4:02:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i i got i'm not disagreeing so i'm

[4:02:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): trying to just address the

[4:02:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): transparency issue it's like it's not to deny the public anything it's simply give early access

[4:02:35] Trustee Bernardo (probable): to the same thing to the trustees uh right

[4:02:40] Voice 1: and yeah i totally agree with you i just wanted to

[4:02:44] Voice 1: say though it is still something we have to consider is the transparency to make sure that

[4:02:48] Voice 1: we are providing that that it really is going to end up on that agenda and the further back from

[4:02:54] Voice 1: an agenda you are there's potential things can get missed so we need the processes in place to make

[4:03:00] Voice 1: it work

[4:03:00] Trustee Bernardo (probable): trustee like them

[4:03:03] Trustee Luckham (probable): yeah um we spent a lot of time on this and i don't really want to extend

[4:03:10] Trustee Luckham (probable): extend that anymore if I'm not mistaken we have a direction um already to find uh to uh to improve

[4:03:18] Trustee Luckham (probable): upon the access of information for trustees and this has been a helpful discussion to understand

[4:03:25] Trustee Luckham (probable): the the problem uh overall from both sides I think uh from the staff perspective and the

[4:03:32] Trustee Luckham (probable): the trustee perspective. But I think that we can, correct me if I'm wrong, CEO, I think we can leave

[4:03:42] Trustee Luckham (probable): this conversation here now with staff to reflect on what manageable improvements might or might not

[4:03:52] Trustee Luckham (probable): be able to be made with respect to that access to information and to determine what the benefits

[4:03:59] Trustee Luckham (probable): benefits are of shaving you know a little bit of time off of each end because of course the other

[4:04:05] Trustee Luckham (probable): side of the coin is that the whole process could start earlier and then that would achieve the

[4:04:10] Trustee Luckham (probable): same thing but nobody's necessarily ready for that so um i would think that uh this has been

[4:04:16] Trustee Luckham (probable): a good conversation we should uh not try and totally hash it out on in the medium time if

[4:04:22] Trustee Bernardo (probable): well i'll hang on here cal let's uh trustee bullen had her hand up

[4:04:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and then we'll get to you trustee bollock um

[4:04:30] Voice 2: thanks i i sort of lose the will to live about

[4:04:34] Voice 2: this but having said thank you thank you uh i don't i don't even remember your title now

[4:04:42] Voice 2: david or your you know for for speaking to a subject i would just like to point out something

[4:04:50] Voice 2: thing that if we are directed to go to those agendas we are not seeing the final version

[4:04:56] Voice 2: necessarily because those could have been approved with amendments so we are looking at something in

[4:05:02] Voice 2: those agendas which are not necessarily the same or they might not have been approved at all so

[4:05:08] Voice 2: we're looking at a collection of business cases which may or may not end up in that form in the

[4:05:15] Voice 2: the mid-October agenda that's presented to us and usually a week before the meeting and I leave it

[4:05:24] Voice 2: at that I appreciate there's a lot of work to sort through but I really believe that some change has

[4:05:32] Voice 2: to happen with respect to providing us with standalone copies of key pieces of information

[4:05:39] Voice 2: that have been created with a lot of um you know sweat and full of good information that are just

[4:05:48] Voice 2: buried in agendas so you know this is this is an example of one the business cases but there's a

[4:05:55] Voice 2: lot of other content that is lost to us and probably we go back and torture staff to find

[4:06:01] Voice 2: things for us that we should be able to find for ourselves okay i know we're

[4:06:07] Voice 2: all tired i'll leave

[4:06:08] Voice 2: is it does well

[4:06:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we're running over time and we did start late but you know we're actually been

[4:06:13] Trustee Bernardo (probable): fairly efficient all things considered uh given the fact we got started an hour late but we're

[4:06:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we are getting tired here uh i think we need to have a resolution of this concept now uh i see

[4:06:25] Trustee Bernardo (probable): trustee harris has his hand up but actually the ceo had his hand up first i think and okay go to

[4:06:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the ceo first and then we'll go to harris well

[4:06:32] Voice 7: i deferred it to

[4:06:33] Trustee Bernardo (probable): the elected official

[4:06:34] Voice 7: all right that's fine i'll just keep it really quick um you know i like the idea of what trustee

[4:06:40] Voice 7: boland is proposing i understand that this is probably isn't something that can happen overnight

[4:06:44] Voice 7: um but maybe as we can something that we can work towards and we can maybe free up staff resources

[4:06:52] Voice 7: from other areas that aren't that we aren't really getting some major deliverables for

[4:06:56] Voice 7: in the organization as a whole um just as we've just freed up some staff time with the um budget

[4:07:02] Voice 7: budget survey deal thank

[4:07:05] Trustee Bernardo (probable): you and you know after hearing all these different comments and given

[4:07:09] Trustee Bernardo (probable): our time constraints i think the prudent thing is there are enough complications with this issue

[4:07:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): like you know as much as we kind of want to be willful and have our own way when the staff is

[4:07:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): telling us that there's something that they need to think about and work through let's be respectful

[4:07:27] Trustee Bernardo (probable): of that request I'm going to suggest we table the concept table the idea follow the general

[4:07:34] Trustee Bernardo (probable): direction that Mr. Marler was suggesting which gives staff chance to sort of work through this

[4:07:38] Trustee Bernardo (probable): concept and I'm going to ask staff to come back to us at the next FPC meeting with some more

[4:07:45] Trustee Bernardo (probable): complete thoughts about what the pros and cons are about this proposal and you know I have every

[4:07:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): confidence that staff will try to find some way to accommodate it if it's feasible if it's not

[4:07:58] Trustee Bernardo (probable): feasible it's going to explain to us why not so let's table the discussion for now until the next

[4:08:03] Trustee Bernardo (probable): meeting it's sufficiently complicated that it requires more deliberation uh the ceo do you

[4:08:08] Trustee Bernardo (probable): have anything to add to that i

[4:08:10] Voice 15: can send trustee boland anything she wants right so if she needs

[4:08:16] Voice 15: if she needs the x this information in a specific time frame let's do it for trustee boland i have

[4:08:21] Voice 15: have not heard it across and i'm

[4:08:24] Voice 15: totally fine with doing that that's number one

[4:08:26] Trustee Bernardo (probable): um okay i'm

[4:08:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): ceo i'm going to cut you off because you're adding variables to this and we don't have the time well

[4:08:35] Voice 15: then i'd ask

[4:08:36] Voice 15: you to send it to governance committee because part of the recommendations

[4:08:39] Voice 15: in the governance committee is information flow meeting agendas and the sequencing of

[4:08:44] Voice 15: information through the organization towards a good decision moment and i know they're thinking

[4:08:50] Voice 15: about this and if we did all of this in one fell swoop it might make more sense

[4:08:54] Voice 15: so or at least maybe I'll mention it to the Governance Committee so that I know

[4:08:59] Voice 15: I feel that it's related in some way

[4:09:02] Voice 2: but I don't want to be an exception that

[4:09:07] Voice 2: creates a burden I'd rather it was solved systematically for everyone okay

[4:09:13] Voice 2: okay

[4:09:14] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and CEO on issues like this we do need staff's help if you think the

[4:09:19] Trustee Bernardo (probable): general or if you think governance committee is the better forum because this intersects with

[4:09:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): larger issues about information sharing and all the rest of it

[4:09:27] Voice 16: yeah uh

[4:09:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i still want to table this

[4:09:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): discussion in this forum but i'm going to leave it to you to raise that issue at governance committee

[4:09:36] Trustee Bernardo (probable): uh not necessarily at the next meeting but at some framework to further develop ideas and then report

[4:09:42] Trustee Bernardo (probable): report back to this committee about what we can do okay thank you all right uh moving on to item

[4:09:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): nine here uh work program uh we're supposed to review for review and referral to trust council

[4:09:57] Trustee Bernardo (probable): what's that who has their hand up me oh hi there hi

[4:10:03] Voice 17: i just wanted to mention that like we kind of

[4:10:06] Voice 17: skipped to new business and we didn't talk about 7.5.2 which is the budget cycle timelines

[4:10:12] Voice 17: lines so i don't know if uh anybody needs to go back there uh

[4:10:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): i thought we'd already approved it

[4:10:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): back in may we

[4:10:21] Voice 11: we did approve it in may it's included with the items that go to trust council

[4:10:25] Voice 11: so that's why it's here there's no need to discuss oh

[4:10:28] Voice 17: okay sorry just wanted to make sure we didn't

[4:10:30] Voice 17: miss it

[4:10:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): no thank you for your vigilance it's like better safe than sorry okay moving on to the work

[4:10:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): program uh perhaps we can deal with that briskly who's gonna who's gonna walk us through that or

[4:10:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): or do we need to even do go through it?

[4:10:47] Voice 11: I can lead us through.

[4:10:50] Voice 11: So the current work program or the work program

[4:10:53] Voice 11: was approved by council at their last meetings on page 51.

[4:10:57] Voice 11: The work program that staff have amended

[4:10:59] Voice 11: and are proposing that FPC send forward is on page 53.

[4:11:03] Voice 11: So this would be going to council for their approval

[4:11:07] Voice 11: for work to focus on in the following quarter.

[4:11:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): All right, unless anybody has,

[4:11:15] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I mean, it's all kind of self-evident.

[4:11:17] Trustee Bernardo (probable): it's not that long i mean uh unless anybody has any specific comments uh i'm just going to take

[4:11:23] Trustee Bernardo (probable): that as given and that's what's going before um a trust council uh we'll take that oh hang on i

[4:11:30] Trustee Bernardo (probable): see trustee peterson i'm being too hasty i see trustee peterson has his hand up i

[4:11:36] Voice 8: am ready to

[4:11:37] Voice 8: make the motion that financial planning committee approved the proposed work program as presented

[4:11:42] Voice 8: and forwarded to trust council for approval.

[4:11:44] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Do we have a seconder?

[4:11:47] Trustee Bernardo (probable): I see trustee Graham was seconding it

[4:11:49] Trustee Bernardo (probable): and trustee Maude and everybody else

[4:11:51] Trustee Bernardo (probable): who wants to get out of here.

[4:11:53] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Let's not have a discussion.

[4:11:55] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Let's vote on the matter.

[4:11:56] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Everybody in favor of the motion raise your hand.

[4:12:00] Voice 4: That's done.

[4:12:02] Voice 4: And if I'm not mistaken.

[4:12:11] Voice 12: Chair Bernardo, just for the sake of the viewing audience,

[4:12:14] Voice 12: could you please identify if the motion was carried or not?

[4:12:18] Trustee Bernardo (probable): The motion was carried emphatically.

[4:12:24] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And returning to the agenda, let's see.

[4:12:29] Trustee Bernardo (probable): As we know, we've already got a scheduled meeting

[4:12:31] Trustee Bernardo (probable): for Wednesday, October 7th, sorry, October 18th.

[4:12:37] Trustee Bernardo (probable): And we have no reason to have a closed meeting

[4:12:40] Trustee Bernardo (probable): as I'm aware, at least I'm not aware of anything.

[4:12:43] Trustee Bernardo (probable): Does anybody have any points that they believe

[4:12:46] Trustee Bernardo (probable): we need to have a closed meeting for?

[4:12:50] Trustee Bernardo (probable): No, that's good news.

[4:12:52] Trustee Bernardo (probable): okay uh thank you everybody for your uh endurance uh it's been a long meeting but i think it's been

[4:12:59] Trustee Bernardo (probable): productive uh uh and uh i think it's been thank you

[4:13:04] Trustee Bernardo (probable): a good example of a good working meeting and

[4:13:07] Trustee Bernardo (probable): actually we're running a few minutes over the original scheduled time but overall i think we're

[4:13:11] Trustee Bernardo (probable): pretty efficient so thank you everybody for that and enjoy the rest of your days this meeting is

[4:13:16] Trustee Bernardo (probable): is concluded.