Islands Trust Conservancy Board special meeting, February 1, 2024

[0:00:00] Voice 2: evening and I think we're now up and running.

[0:00:02] Voice 5: Thank you very much, Mr. Barlow. This is a special

[0:00:06] Voice 5: meeting of the Financial Planning Committee, which I'm now going to call to order. And before we

[0:00:12] Voice 5: proceed with anything else, I wish to make an acknowledgement that we are privileged to work

[0:00:18] Voice 5: in lands and waters that have been the traditional home of Indigenous peoples since time immemorial.

[0:00:25] Voice 5: Section 3 of the Islands Trust Act, I'm sorry, sets out our mandate,

[0:00:30] Voice 5: date uh which is consistent with the council to newcomers our indigenous peoples uh have always

[0:00:39] Voice 5: been making to us which is to recognize the sacredness of these lands and waters and that's

[0:00:45] Voice 5: our duty and that's what we're going to try to do but we have our work cut out for us and part of

[0:00:50] Voice 5: that is um what's on the agenda today uh moving on to that agenda a second item on the agenda

[0:00:57] Voice 5: agenda, which is the review and approval of the agenda. This meeting, we all know, was called

[0:01:04] Voice 5: for the express purpose of discussing budget guidelines. I'm not aware of any other items the

[0:01:08] Voice 5: trustees wish to add to the agenda, and I don't see any need for in-camera. So unless somebody

[0:01:14] Voice 5: registers an objection, I'm going to assume that the agenda is accepted by consent. I do not hear

[0:01:23] Voice 5: any objections. So that takes us directly into the business of the meeting, and I'm going to try to

[0:01:30] Voice 5: to keep my remarks brief, I promise, to try to establish a framework for the discussion.

[0:01:37] Voice 5: My view of it is that this is the kind of discussion that really should be as open as

[0:01:41] Voice 5: possible. It's about fundamental issues and trustees need an opportunity to stretch their

[0:01:47] Voice 5: wings, so to speak. I do not think it's necessary to explicitly go through all of the items that

[0:01:54] Voice 5: were included in the agenda. I'm referring to my memo, the Saanich guidelines, or the notes that

[0:02:01] Voice 5: may read sent out um earlier i think we can take it as given that people have looked at the material

[0:02:06] Voice 5: and they'll refer to it as they see fit and i think our discussion is more likely to receive

[0:02:11] Voice 5: you know to be productive if um if we proceed with an open meeting that's focused on trying

[0:02:18] Voice 5: to identify guidelines guidelines that we collectively um agree would be helpful in

[0:02:24] Voice 5: in shaping our budgets going forward

[0:02:28] Voice 5: by setting some kind of spending priorities.

[0:02:32] Voice 5: If we're able to,

[0:02:34] Voice 5: it really, whether budget guidelines are good idea or not

[0:02:38] Voice 5: is really a question that will be answered

[0:02:40] Voice 5: by our ability to determine whether to adopt any,

[0:02:44] Voice 5: whether we find any that we think we can work with.

[0:02:47] Voice 5: And I think that should be the focus

[0:02:49] Voice 5: of what we're trying to do here.

[0:02:51] Voice 5: Another point briefly, if I may,

[0:02:53] Voice 5: is um i think in the interest of having a productive discussion it's probably a good

[0:02:58] Voice 5: idea if we defer any resolutions to the near the end of the meeting uh i don't uh personally don't

[0:03:05] Voice 5: intend to make that request for decision that was in my memo the purpose of that was really

[0:03:10] Voice 5: a practical one to try to focus fpc on the concrete but now that we've scheduled this

[0:03:16] Voice 5: meeting for the express purpose of dealing with this issue i don't think we need that particular

[0:03:22] Voice 5: to do that. In any event, with respect to sort of deferring resolutions, my general thinking is

[0:03:30] Voice 5: that we should just discuss things in a wide open way until around 3.30 and then at that juncture

[0:03:35] Voice 5: start attempting to see if we can acknowledge some kind of consensus. My final point is one that

[0:03:43] Voice 5: Prestige Graham and Peterson made last time, which was supported by some remarks that

[0:03:48] Voice 5: Director Mobs made, which is that budget guidelines are most useful at the beginning

[0:03:54] Voice 5: of a budget cycle when funding requests are being developed and staff and trustees can examine

[0:04:02] Voice 5: potential trade-offs and priorities in the context of those guidelines. Realistically,

[0:04:08] Voice 5: we're past that point. The discussion should probably be principally about what guidelines

[0:04:14] Voice 5: guidelines would be appropriate in the next business cycle. What that means really is that

[0:04:21] Voice 5: we're looking for guidelines that we anticipate should be able to dovetail with and enable

[0:04:26] Voice 5: corporate planning. But having said that, there is one point about budget guidelines that FPC

[0:04:34] Voice 5: actually inevitably backs into, adopting at least one budget guideline every cycle.

[0:04:41] Voice 5: What I'm referring to is at the end of the piece, when we're considering total projected expenditures against total projected revenue from all sources, we end up asking ourselves what kind of tax increase, if any, is both reasonable and feasible.

[0:04:56] Voice 5: That's a political question. It always confronts us. It's in the nature of the work. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just it's it's shifting from the operational to the political.

[0:05:07] Voice 5: And we need to answer that question every time. And there are different considerations there, including expectations of the public, what the public needs, all that sort of thing. But in any event, every time we recommend a budget saying it projects a tax increase of X percent that FPC believes is appropriate, we're in a sense making a recommendation about a guideline to trust counsel.

[0:05:33] Voice 5: What I'm trying to say here is setting a ceiling on a tax increase is maybe one of the guidelines

[0:05:39] Voice 5: we can identify today that might apply to the current draft budget.

[0:05:43] Voice 5: I don't know.

[0:05:43] Voice 5: It depends on where the group wants to go.

[0:05:46] Voice 5: In any event, setting boundary conditions around expenditures is ultimately how any

[0:05:51] Voice 5: organization defines and sets priorities.

[0:05:55] Voice 5: We're going to see if we can try to do that today.

[0:05:57] Voice 5: And with that, I'm going to open the floor to discussion.

[0:06:01] Voice 5: It's wide open.

[0:06:02] Voice 5: in. We're trying to figure out what kind of guidelines would work for us. Over to you.

[0:06:15] Voice 4: Trustee Graham.

[0:06:17] Voice 9: Don't all jump in at once. Thanks, Joe, for that introduction.

[0:06:25] Voice 9: I do think guidelines are important. They would have been helpful the first time around as a new

[0:06:30] Voice 9: trustee, as a new member of the FPC. And in previous roles I've had in a budget capacity,

[0:06:39] Voice 9: There was always a five-year budget that we had developed as an organization, and then the yearly budgets always looked at that five-year to see if it was working towards that five-year goal.

[0:06:54] Voice 9: And I think we're always asked to look at a five-year budget, but realistically, it's almost impossible.

[0:07:00] Voice 9: It's really hard to anticipate that far in advance.

[0:07:05] Voice 9: But anyway, guidelines are good.

[0:07:08] Voice 9: Ben, I like the suggestions that you presented in your brief there, and I'm happy to start

[0:07:14] Voice 9: looking at massaging some of those with some input that I have, and that's really, you

[0:07:21] Voice 9: know, I'm happy to start working.

[0:07:23] Voice 9: I will step down.

[0:07:28] Voice 9: Thank you for that.

[0:07:29] Voice 5: Just a point of clarity, the budget guidelines I had proposed in that memo, and I think I

[0:07:36] Voice 5: mentioned this last time i i really there are a handful that i adapted from

[0:07:41] Voice 5: sanic's regional district which seemed uh to be um capable of being adapted and potentially useful

[0:07:50] Voice 5: for us of course that depends on everybody's judgment and uh but i i want to be clear that

[0:07:56] Voice 5: i'm not necessarily beholden to personally uh to any of those frankly i was just grasping to

[0:08:02] Voice 5: to find suggestions of substance that might be useful,

[0:08:08] Voice 5: the floor is open to any kind of guideline

[0:08:11] Voice 5: that people want to consider.

[0:08:13] Voice 5: Trustee Patrick?

[0:08:15] Trustee Patrick: No, thank you.

[0:08:16] Trustee Patrick: And just to follow on David,

[0:08:18] Trustee Patrick: we do have a five-year plan.

[0:08:20] Trustee Patrick: It's called the financial plan.

[0:08:21] Trustee Patrick: It's an obligation that we do every year.

[0:08:24] Trustee Patrick: And it's a very delicate dance

[0:08:26] Trustee Patrick: that our fearless director of administration services does.

[0:08:30] Trustee Patrick: does most municipalities make a far more serious effort. Not, I mean,

[0:08:34] Trustee Patrick: not that hers isn't serious,

[0:08:35] Trustee Patrick: but they really do plan on a five-year process where we tend to do every

[0:08:41] Trustee Patrick: year. You know, we do where our OCP reviews and so forth need longer term.

[0:08:47] Trustee Patrick: I fund, I do agree with budget guidelines and I went and looked up

[0:08:54] Trustee Patrick: Sanich's staff reports because I want to say, how did,

[0:08:57] Trustee Patrick: how did they get to that? You know,

[0:08:58] Trustee Patrick: It's always good to go look at console record.

[0:09:00] Trustee Patrick: And it was actually a recommendation of their financial director that made the recommendations for the guidance with a very lengthy analysis memo in front of sort of what's expected, what's coming down the road in 24, what was committed in plans, and what are they facing for increases that you can't change versus where can you.

[0:09:26] Trustee Patrick: And I think that's an important piece of that. I think as we're moving forward through, you know, improving our planning, there's opportunities, I think we talked about it before, having an IT plan that's, you know, more long term, having a long term staffing plan, having a long term OCP land use bylaw review and update plan.

[0:09:50] Trustee Patrick: You know, there's several things we could do that would fit with the five-year planning cycle better so that we're always seeing what's coming down the road and making those decisions.

[0:10:01] Trustee Patrick: One of the criteria that's not in the example that was in the package today from District of Saanich, I don't know why it was missing, maybe it's because it's the 2024 guidance material, but they have a budget guideline that says council will consider budget reduction scenarios of one and two percent of the proposed tax increases.

[0:10:21] Trustee Patrick: and a few years ago um a few years ago i don't remember when it was i know we were all wearing

[0:10:28] Trustee Patrick: masks so it was during the pandemic um staff went away on day one of uh of our march review

[0:10:37] Trustee Patrick: and came back with their recommendations of where we could cut and i think that's something instead

[0:10:44] Trustee Patrick: of having to do that in the midnight hours of of a march council meeting that that would could be

[0:10:49] Trustee Patrick: something that would be useful in our between now in the march meeting that we as a committee could

[0:10:54] Trustee Patrick: ask for what does a one percent reduction look like what does a two percent reduction look like

[0:11:00] Trustee Patrick: tasking staff to be the ones that shake the tree um to find where those opportunities could be

[0:11:09] Trustee Patrick: because they were quite innovative when we tasked them to do that a couple of years ago so i just

[0:11:15] Trustee Patrick: think that's that's a guideline that could be useful and it would be more useful to do it early

[0:11:20] Trustee Patrick: so that task staff could do that before the march um council well

[0:11:27] Voice 5: we do have the february meeting

[0:11:28] Voice 5: coming up right when we're going to be getting another draft so if we were able to provide staff

[0:11:33] Voice 5: for that direction they would be able to do that before the february meeting uh i believe trustee

[0:11:40] Voice 5: Evans had her hand up. Is that right? No? Sorry. Oh, boy. Comments, please. Okay. Trustee

[0:11:50] Voice 5: Boland. Lifesaver. Audio. Audio.

[0:11:59] Voice 1: Okay. So, yeah, I'm not actually a big fan of the idea

[0:12:07] Voice 1: of five-year plans. It's curious that the Islands Trust Conservancy has to put a five-year

[0:12:14] Voice 1: plan in front of it has to get provincial approval for a five-year plan and that coincidentally the

[0:12:21] Voice 1: now defunct protocol agreement asked for a five-year plan for updates to OCP and LUBs and

[0:12:29] Voice 1: on that basis year by year they got funding from the province so I think it would be really really

[0:12:36] Voice 1: helpful if going forward you know there's the kind of financial planning for five years that

[0:12:42] Voice 1: Julia does which is I assume you know we expect staff and you know increased salaries to increase

[0:12:50] Voice 1: by this and the insurance to increase by that but actually a five-year plan for the sort of

[0:12:58] Voice 1: non-discretionary projects that we're supposed to do which are you know keep the um all of the

[0:13:06] Voice 1: policies and the bylaws up to date and would be really really helpful both as a um as a way to

[0:13:17] Voice 1: kind of you know manage our budget but potentially as a way to kind of ask for focused funding for a

[0:13:24] Voice 1: particular element of the trust thanks thank

[0:13:31] Voice 5: you trustee elliot uh

[0:13:34] Voice 12: thank you and thank you for

[0:13:37] Voice 12: raising the topic and giving us a chance to have another go at this can you hear me okay

[0:13:44] Voice 12: okay um so i'm going to jump into the meat of it i i didn't see my notes uh which trustee

[0:13:50] Voice 12: boll and he said you were collating and sending back out um so i don't know if i missed that

[0:13:57] Voice 1: but if you did i did send them out this morning and i must have missed you i do apologize from

[0:14:02] Voice 1: if they're exactly the

[0:14:03] Voice 1: same pretty much i'll forward them to you apologies no

[0:14:07] Voice 12: um mine were

[0:14:08] Voice 12: yeah so when i was thinking about criteria in terms of content and evaluated business cases

[0:14:14] Voice 12: um i was kind of think of thinking of um putting projects or uh business cases

[0:14:24] Voice 12: is hired to at the forefront that answers say two needs um or two criteria um at a minimum

[0:14:33] Voice 12: and so for instance if they could demonstrate that they're meeting

[0:14:37] Voice 12: um two elements of our ongoing strategic planning process the reconciliation

[0:14:42] Voice 12: um and engagement with first nations and housing needs or housing strategy that could be one

[0:14:51] Voice 12: one approach um so sort of the maximum bang for the buck in terms of um how are they

[0:14:58] Voice 12: uh addressing the elements of our strategic plan another uh waiting factor that i was thinking

[0:15:05] Voice 12: was urgency um so in terms of is this business case or is this a demonstrated

[0:15:13] Voice 12: concentrated, urgent case for meeting operational and capacity needs that are currently impacting

[0:15:22] Voice 12: performance.

[0:15:23] Voice 12: And so that kind of one of your criteria there, Chair Bernardo was sort of addressing that.

[0:15:32] Voice 12: And then a third consideration I've been thinking was if it addresses both needs of the Conservancy

[0:15:39] Voice 12: and the average customer broadly.

[0:15:41] Voice 12: And so this is where mapping

[0:15:43] Voice 12: and the information technology cases

[0:15:47] Voice 12: should probably be rated a little more.

[0:15:50] Voice 6: I don't know if the sound is coming from your end,

[0:15:53] Voice 6: but it's hard to make you out.

[0:15:55] Voice 6: There's some background sound here.

[0:15:57] Voice 12: I know, I apologize.

[0:15:59] Voice 12: Is that better?

[0:16:00] Voice 12: I'll turn my video off.

[0:16:01] Voice 12: Hold on.

[0:16:04] Voice 12: Well, if

[0:16:04] Voice 6: there's background sound here,

[0:16:07] Voice 6: Your mic is picking up

[0:16:09] Voice 6: on the sound.

[0:16:09] Voice 12: I ended up in an auto repair shop just because of how my scheduling went.

[0:16:14] Voice 12: Is this better? No? Okay.

[0:16:16] Voice 12: Anyway, just the last point was if it meets both the Conservancy's and Island's trust needs,

[0:16:25] Voice 12: and so I'm thinking specifically of mapping and information services and technology,

[0:16:30] Voice 12: then those should be weighted more strongly because they're going to cover

[0:16:36] Voice 12: sort of both critical functions in both our agencies that's what it for me well

[0:16:43] Voice 5: it's an interesting suggestion the idea of you know it's it's not necessary

[0:16:48] Voice 5: criteria or the guideline doesn't necessarily have to be inclusionary or

[0:16:52] Voice 5: exclusionary that's anything suggestion the idea of having a feature here that

[0:16:57] Voice 5: talks about waiting that looks potentially quite useful trustee luckham um

[0:17:04] Trustee Luckham: thank you chair um yeah

[0:17:07] Trustee Luckham: there's all kinds of potential concepts here to help guide us and even in this particular cycle

[0:17:14] Trustee Luckham: um but uh that's a novel uh notion that trustee patrick put forward about reducing the um the

[0:17:24] Trustee Luckham: the apparent budget by a certain amount, the opposite end of that, of course, is setting

[0:17:32] Trustee Luckham: a maximum increase. And we seem to want to cut the budget, but we don't know what the goal is.

[0:17:41] Trustee Luckham: So I would think one of the items that we might like to discuss is, indeed, what number is

[0:17:49] Trustee Luckham: Is this body comfortable with recommending to council,

[0:17:57] Trustee Luckham: be it, you know, 10% or 6% or 24%, whatever the number is.

[0:18:03] Trustee Luckham: Thank

[0:18:07] Voice 5: you, Trustee Peterson.

[0:18:11] Voice 11: Well, thank you.

[0:18:12] Voice 11: And Mr. Lockham's comments sort of lead,

[0:18:17] Voice 11: segue into what I've been thinking about a lot,

[0:18:20] Voice 11: which is, and I realize, Chair Bernardo,

[0:18:23] Voice 11: I know that you're not married to the resolution, but one of the things that stood out for me is talking about limiting departmental budgets to no more than X percent increase or the general tax increase no more than X percent.

[0:18:39] Voice 11: And so what I've mostly been thinking about is how do we arrive at those numbers?

[0:18:44] Voice 11: What percentage we're striving for?

[0:18:48] Voice 11: and uh you know of course it occurs to me that something like the consumer price index might be

[0:18:53] Voice 11: helpful for that or uh you know which which basically measures inflation in our area

[0:18:59] Voice 11: but i feel like if we're going to start um thinking about suggesting uh percentage numbers as as being

[0:19:09] Voice 11: a cap of some sort that we want to have uh some sort of rationale for for where that number comes

[0:19:16] Voice 11: comes from um so that we're not as as Mr Luckham sort of jokingly yeah you know toss out a bunch

[0:19:25] Voice 11: of numbers there but but so that we have a basis of okay it's uh we're looking at you know for

[0:19:31] Voice 11: example uh uh the the CPI plus or minus one percent or whatever it is but to me it strikes

[0:19:40] Voice 11: me that that arriving at those caps we need to have a method to get there that that can be

[0:19:47] Voice 11: explained and has the rationale behind it so that's it for me for now right and

[0:19:54] Voice 5: of course i mean the

[0:19:55] Voice 5: purpose of this exercise is actually you know the this whole business of having identified that we

[0:20:02] Voice 5: need to have a rationale for whatever we do spend you know not necessarily having a cap but if you

[0:20:07] Voice 5: don't have a cap what's the rationale for not having one i mean that's kind of where there's

[0:20:11] Voice 5: There's two sides of the same coin we're struggling here, which is to develop a mechanism that

[0:20:16] Voice 5: allows us to reason those things out.

[0:20:17] Voice 5: Trustee Evans.

[0:20:19] Voice 10: Thank you.

[0:20:22] Voice 10: So I just want to say, yes, I appreciate what Trustee Patrick raised about having approached

[0:20:28] Voice 10: staff in the past and asking them to take a look at their department budgets and sharpening

[0:20:34] Voice 10: their pencils a little bit, because I think it's easier to have a greater impact when

[0:20:38] Voice 10: when you're dealing with, you know, not 9 million plus versus us trying to sharpen the pencil on

[0:20:43] Voice 10: 700,000. It'll definitely have more of an impact. And yeah, I'm just I'm just sort of just listening

[0:20:53] Voice 10: to what everybody else is saying. And I think there's almost like two conversations going on

[0:20:58] Voice 10: here. One is what are we planning on doing with the current budget and the percentage tax increase?

[0:21:04] Voice 10: And the second one being, what are some of the budget guidelines that we should be putting in

[0:21:08] Voice 10: place for either this round or more likely the next round. I just feel like there's two

[0:21:14] Voice 10: conversations happening.

[0:21:17] Voice 5: I think that's right. There are two streams here. And my suggestion

[0:21:22] Voice 5: is that we focus on the general point of what kind of budget guidelines we think would be useful

[0:21:26] Voice 5: going forward. And if we're able to reach a consensus of some sort on something in that

[0:21:31] Voice 5: respect, that might reflect back on what, if anything, what guidance we might be able to

[0:21:37] Voice 5: provide to Trust Council for this go-round? As I said before, it probably looks like some blunt

[0:21:45] Voice 5: ceiling is probably the limit of it, but I don't know. Trustee Boland?

[0:21:53] Voice 1: Yeah, it's a good

[0:21:55] Voice 1: conversation. And I like the idea that it's not necessarily a hard stop. It's more like a filter

[0:22:02] Voice 1: that we have to apply so that we really think critically about it.

[0:22:09] Voice 1: I went down a bit of a rabbit hole, I have to say,

[0:22:13] Voice 1: where I was listening to somebody once,

[0:22:18] Voice 1: and it was in the context of applying regulations to areas.

[0:22:24] Voice 1: And it said, you know, you should look at the socioeconomic circumstances

[0:22:28] Voice 1: of the people that you govern, for lack of a better word.

[0:22:33] Voice 1: And if you look at the statistics for the economic well-being

[0:22:40] Voice 1: of the Ireland's Trust, then, you know, on average,

[0:22:47] Voice 1: earned income is much lower than on the mainland.

[0:22:51] Voice 1: And some of that is because the population is a bit unbalanced

[0:22:55] Voice 1: Because, of course, there are a lot of retired people. But having said all of that, I think it's in the context of cost benefit analysis, it's important to consider the sort of economic circumstances of the people that we're governing and, you know, the impact on them.

[0:23:21] Voice 1: And I thought about something, which is that property tax is not means tested.

[0:23:26] Voice 1: Property tax, whether you're an owner or a renter, is applied, you know, with a broad brush, unlike, you know, income tax.

[0:23:36] Voice 1: And, you know, income tax goes up the ladder and then comes back in the form of funding.

[0:23:46] Voice 1: So, you know, basic planning services, to me, fine, somebody has to do it.

[0:23:51] Voice 1: But when you enter into the rest of the stuff that we do and, you know, for the good of the province and the good of British Columbians and good of Canada, that section of the funding is blanket applied to residents who don't really get a choice.

[0:24:11] Voice 1: They've chosen to live someplace. Sometimes it's, you know, their family has been there and then they they are, you know, kind of unfairly or in an unbalanced way targeted with responsibility for paying for that content.

[0:24:27] Voice 1: A bit like the Irish Trust Conservancy, it should be shared more equally.

[0:24:32] Voice 1: Anyway, when we're thinking about tax, that's just something I was thinking about.

[0:24:38] Voice 1: The property tax is different from income tax.

[0:24:42] Voice 1: It's not means tested and it comes to everyone.

[0:24:45] Voice 1: So a bit of a rabbit hole, but I'm just thinking out loud and exploring all of these options.

[0:24:51] Voice 1: Thanks.

[0:24:52] Voice 1: Yeah,

[0:24:53] Voice 5: what I hear you say is that the property tax has the potential to be regressive, depending on a person's economic position.

[0:25:01] Voice 5: Trustee Graham?

[0:25:06] Voice 9: Yeah, thank you for that, Trustee Boland.

[0:25:10] Voice 9: One of the faults that the trust has perpetrated from time immemorial is not charging enough for the individual service that's provided to a landowner who's developing the land.

[0:25:23] Voice 9: And basically, the planning cost is subsidized to a great deal by the rest of us.

[0:25:29] Voice 9: And I've always thought that that was a very strange business decision that somebody made down the road, that we wouldn't charge the actual cost of doing the various permitting and checking of the bylaws to make sure that whatever structure is being built is legal, etc.

[0:25:45] Voice 9: We would just charge an amount, which never covers the cost.

[0:25:49] Voice 9: And so the rest of the people are subsidizing. That's just something that I've always had in the back of my mind. It just doesn't seem correct.

[0:25:58] Voice 9: As far as guidelines, something that's been missed, I didn't see it in the Saanich proposal or your suggestions, Joe.

[0:26:09] Voice 9: Who owns the trust? Well, I would say the residents. We're a service that they pay for.

[0:26:17] Voice 9: So wouldn't it make sense to prioritize budget requests that really affect the local trust committees, the work that each LTC does on their island?

[0:26:30] Voice 9: It's funny that we prioritize the machinery of government, you know, the offices and the workers and their IT, their equipment that they use.

[0:26:39] Voice 9: But nowhere is the priority of the work that's done on each particular island of advancing the mandate.

[0:26:45] Voice 9: If that was the highest priority, it would be a difficult argument for residents to say, oh, the trust doesn't really do anything, blah, blah, blah.

[0:26:55] Voice 9: Just the perspective.

[0:26:58] Voice 5: I know what you mean, Trustee Graham.

[0:26:59] Voice 5: It's always, I mean, we're a planning organization and the planning happens at the LTC level.

[0:27:04] Voice 5: Trustee Luckham.

[0:27:08] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, thank you.

[0:27:09] Trustee Luckham: I'm sort of lost in what's obviously a much bigger, much bigger philosophical question about equity and taxes, because I don't know that the area of the Island's Trust and the residents herein are any different than the people in Port Alberni or Tassus or any other community that is

[0:27:40] Trustee Luckham: um uh suffering i'll just say or it influenced by economic and industry circumstances and tourism

[0:27:48] Trustee Luckham: and desirability um and even a condominium you know strata um there's costs associated with the

[0:27:57] Trustee Luckham: maintenance and upkeep um that may or may definitely does not reflect upon an individual's

[0:28:03] Trustee Luckham: ability to pay. And absolutely, I'm sympathetic with that, being one of those people that has

[0:28:10] Trustee Luckham: challenges with paying his taxes too, as many others of us are. And even those that don't own

[0:28:18] Trustee Luckham: property are influenced by their cost of rental as associated with tax. But I don't know that

[0:28:23] Trustee Luckham: the Allen's Trust is any different than any other place. What we need to do is, and of course,

[0:28:31] Trustee Luckham: Absolutely. I agree with the fact that the province, we need to determine how the province can contribute on behalf of the province to release the burden on the residents here.

[0:28:44] Trustee Luckham: But that's also a much bigger conversation than setting guidelines associated with our budget making ability.

[0:28:52] Trustee Luckham: So there you go.

[0:28:55] Voice 5: Just as a point of clarification, I believe Trustee Boland's point was that the,

[0:28:59] Voice 5: and I think you're right, Trustee Luckham, that potential regressive effect of property taxes

[0:29:04] Voice 5: applies everywhere. But I believe Trustee Boland's point was it is potentially, we don't know,

[0:29:09] Voice 5: we don't have the data, but it's potentially greater in the Islands Trust area than elsewhere

[0:29:13] Voice 5: because the average income is lower. But of course, with that speculation, we don't actually

[0:29:19] Voice 5: have the data that would allow us to establish that. We don't know. Trustee Patrick.

[0:29:24] Trustee Luckham: Is it possible to just add one more remark there, Trustee?

[0:29:29] Trustee Luckham: Sure, go ahead.

[0:29:31] Trustee Luckham: The thing I think we cannot deny is the average age of the population on the Gulf Islands

[0:29:37] Trustee Luckham: is definitely in the retirement spectrum, and that affects the apparent income.

[0:29:43] Trustee Luckham: So not that seniors should be carrying the weight here, but I don't know that the way

[0:29:50] Trustee Luckham: income is measured is necessarily equitable across the scheme of things either

[0:29:55] Voice 5: josie patrick

[0:30:02] Trustee Patrick: I think we had at the beginning, we sort of said there, we're talking about this budget and next year's budget. So the comment I want to make right now is referred to setting next year's budget. And I think it might help us if we kind of maybe make that distinguished difference.

[0:30:20] Trustee Patrick: difference. In preparing for the next regional planning committee meeting, staff were going to

[0:30:26] Trustee Patrick: bring, were preparing a staff report that had criteria on how to decide which project was

[0:30:32] Trustee Patrick: funded or not. And I challenged them back saying, you know, is there a better way at deciding what

[0:30:40] Trustee Patrick: projects get funded than just establishing criteria? And they got thinking and just for

[0:30:46] Trustee Patrick: those of you who are on regional planning committee, we're going to have a much more

[0:30:48] Trustee Patrick: in-depth conversation about that coming up but when i think of a guideline that would be useful

[0:30:53] Trustee Patrick: to set at the development stage of the budget it might it's again knowing the staff are the ones

[0:31:00] Trustee Patrick: that are closest to knowing you know where maybe long-term habits have created inefficiencies

[0:31:07] Trustee Patrick: um that if we were to have a criteria that sort of that we were um you know funding activities

[0:31:14] Trustee Patrick: that would drive efficiencies that would end up increasing

[0:31:20] Trustee Patrick: the resources dedicated to long-range planning.

[0:31:25] Trustee Patrick: That could be worded far better.

[0:31:27] Trustee Patrick: But it sort of picks up on what David was saying,

[0:31:32] Trustee Patrick: is we really want to see the bulk of our dollars in planning

[0:31:38] Trustee Patrick: planning directed toward good, you know, setting up good long-term planning for all of our

[0:31:46] Trustee Patrick: island communities. But we always hear about, oh, they're just making meetings and setting up more

[0:31:52] Trustee Patrick: meetings and doing this and doing, you know, so there's all this stuff that takes away from

[0:31:56] Trustee Patrick: actual planning. So we look at, you can look at how much money, that's the biggest item on our

[0:32:00] Trustee Patrick: budget is planning services. Yet the actual time spent on long-range planning is a small amount

[0:32:08] Trustee Patrick: of resources and i think as a i'm hearing and i know i i would like to see it and i think david

[0:32:15] Trustee Patrick: would like to see it maybe others would that we want to get more resources directed at getting

[0:32:20] Trustee Patrick: ahead of our planning rather than this constant reactive mode that we seem to be stuck in so it's

[0:32:26] Trustee Patrick: to do that again is like teamwork and and and challenging staff to be able to help help find

[0:32:33] Trustee Patrick: those activities and bring them to us rather than us always being the ones that have to figure out

[0:32:38] Trustee Patrick: how to figure out that efficiency so some sort of guidance or some guideline that that benefits

[0:32:46] Trustee Patrick: um increasing resources directed at long-term planning are

[0:32:52] Voice 5: you saying increasing resources or

[0:32:53] Voice 5: a guideline that would prioritize the allocation of resources to plan well

[0:33:00] Trustee Patrick: there's there's funding

[0:33:01] Trustee Patrick: there's there's got to be there's going to have to be a correction something has to change we either

[0:33:06] Trustee Patrick: They have to change how we do our meetings or, you know, there's an expense that needs to be made to free up resources.

[0:33:13] Trustee Patrick: So I'm thinking as for like next year's budget, that we would, that that would be a positive statement,

[0:33:21] Trustee Patrick: that we would fund activities if staff could come up with ideas of how they could improve, make efficiencies,

[0:33:28] Trustee Patrick: create efficiencies in their planning so that we had they could increase the dedicated time toward

[0:33:37] Trustee Patrick: long-term range planning before

[0:33:41] Voice 5: i turn the floor over to trustee boland i'm going to suggest

[0:33:43] Voice 5: trustee patrick that um that memo i provided and had its you know ad hoc suggestions about

[0:33:50] Voice 5: potential guidelines i'm going to ask you to you know uh what you're talking about for this group

[0:33:56] Voice 5: to consider it requires language to put up in the screen so we'd look at it because i do think we

[0:34:01] Voice 5: need to start moving this discussion if we can in the direction of actually engaging potential

[0:34:05] Voice 5: guidelines on their merits i'm going to ask you to look at those things that i suggested and see

[0:34:11] Voice 5: whether or not you can torque twist change the language completely replace it but use it as

[0:34:16] Voice 5: use something in there as a skeleton around which to build your concept because in order to address

[0:34:23] Voice 5: the point you want to make properly this group actually needs to have language in front of it so

[0:34:27] Voice 5: i'm going to throw that in your direction at the moment uh trustee boland uh

[0:34:35] Voice 1: i just wanted to

[0:34:36] Voice 1: respond uh to peter um the thing about it is peter the stats provide the median earned income that

[0:34:45] Voice 1: excludes people who are on pensions retired and that is quite a bit lower in the gulf islands

[0:34:51] Voice 1: and elsewhere so those are people who are actually earning an income and government transfers to

[0:34:59] Voice 1: people in the islands is higher than elsewhere and and the other thing is that I'm not really

[0:35:05] Voice 1: talking about they're not the worst off bit they're not the same as everybody else in this

[0:35:11] Voice 1: in that we have both a regional district and then we have the special mandate and accomplishing the

[0:35:18] Voice 1: special mandate is um on behalf of people beyond the islands trust so people who live in the islands

[0:35:28] Voice 1: trust area are funding a special mandate and um you know and that includes the islands trust

[0:35:35] Voice 1: conservancy so if you took you know basic planning services and said okay wherever you live you get

[0:35:44] Voice 1: that. And then look at the rest of it. So that's where I'm coming from in terms of making a case

[0:35:50] Voice 1: for funding that comes from everybody via income tax to fund the part that is the special mandate.

[0:35:58] Voice 1: Okay, thanks.

[0:36:01] Voice 5: I've put my hand up in order to forestall any potential yelling in my direction

[0:36:08] Voice 5: in the future here, just because I want to follow up on Trustee Boland's point, which to me seems

[0:36:15] Voice 5: Actually, I'm kind of intrigued because it raises a question because every resident in any of our islands, part of their property tax goes to fund a regional district and part of it goes to fund the Islands Trust.

[0:36:33] Voice 5: And that's what the tax bill goes towards.

[0:36:35] Voice 5: And I guess for me, it's a question as to whether or not our residents actually end up paying more for planning than they otherwise would by virtue of being in their local regional district.

[0:36:51] Voice 5: Because the average person who is living in an area that's in a regional district, but that is not part of the Islands Trust is going to be, you know, is going to be paying for services from the regional district and whatever planning services they do.

[0:37:04] Voice 5: So the physical and the planning. Whereas here with us, we bifurcated it. So I think it's possible we can't do it today, but I'd be very curious to know whether or not we are paying more for planning than our counterparts in regional districts.

[0:37:26] Voice 5: in the regional districts we all belong to our counterparts pay under that unified form of

[0:37:31] Voice 5: government and the reason i raised that is that might have the potential to help develop a

[0:37:36] Voice 5: guideline a certain ceiling on how much you know it might help develop the idea of how much the tax

[0:37:42] Voice 5: increases should be these are vague thoughts i haven't really worked it out but there is a

[0:37:47] Voice 5: question of my mind about whether or not we're paying more for planning than some regional

[0:37:52] Voice 5: district starts but you like like them yeah

[0:37:56] Trustee Luckham: you know i might be wrong and i don't know if we have

[0:37:58] Trustee Luckham: staff on the line that can advise us but um i do not believe that we pay more for planning

[0:38:07] Trustee Luckham: uh services because that's why the legislation is designed such the regional district does not do

[0:38:14] Trustee Luckham: land use planning in the Island Trust area. They may plan parks and other services associated

[0:38:23] Trustee Luckham: with the regional district function, but that's the region why the legislation and our limited

[0:38:29] Trustee Luckham: toolboxes is there. And in fact, by comparison, I would just say that indeed the Bowen municipality

[0:38:36] Trustee Luckham: is a very clear point in that they don't pay for planning, they pay for the other services

[0:38:41] Trustee Luckham: that we offer. And so, okay, so my final remark is what's interesting when you drift into that

[0:38:53] Trustee Luckham: space, at this very table, we often have asked, so how is the tax increase going to affect

[0:39:00] Trustee Luckham: Bowen Island Municipality? I think it would be interesting to know how many times any regional

[0:39:05] Trustee Luckham: district asks, how is this services tax increase going to affect the Gulf Islands, particularly

[0:39:11] Trustee Luckham: particularly here on Thetis recently, where there's a recreation tax, which very few or no

[0:39:16] Trustee Luckham: people utilize on Thetis Island, and we pay for it. So this is a great subject to delve into, but

[0:39:23] Trustee Luckham: I'm not sure it's going to help us in the short term.

[0:39:27] Voice 5: No, you're probably right about that one,

[0:39:29] Voice 5: but the short-term issue. Trustee Elliott?

[0:39:31] Voice 12: Yeah, I think we're drifting off topic or what is useful,

[0:39:35] Voice 12: But the BIM tax levy is a structural issue that actually depresses funding for services and the Conservancy, because those drives the tax increase or the tax burden on Bowen Island municipal residents.

[0:39:54] Voice 12: residents and so we're always looking to reduce that and so it inadvertently penalizes and

[0:40:01] Voice 12: depresses conservancy and services rather than planning secondly i would actually say so this

[0:40:09] Voice 12: is a structural issue that is this is external governance issues that we have to address with

[0:40:15] Voice 12: the province this is not something we can do internally it's a structural issue that causes

[0:40:20] Voice 12: this is a really wonky approach to the tax base because of the unfair burden on Bowen Island

[0:40:26] Voice 12: municipality the second thing I would say is we actually probably pay we get less service for

[0:40:32] Voice 12: planning services than we pay for for instance in Gabriola we've got three OCPs um bylaws haven't

[0:40:40] Voice 12: been updated in 25 years we can't run more than one project you can't update an OCP you know it's

[0:40:48] Voice 12: just like we're lagging behind because our planning services are spread over not just

[0:40:54] Voice 12: 13 lpas but sometimes 24 different ocps and lebs so um we're actually spread too thin and

[0:41:02] Voice 12: not getting enough for what residents are paying so anyway i i'd like to get back to the

[0:41:08] Voice 12: conversation on guidelines in this budget i think these are bigger structural issues that we can't

[0:41:12] Voice 12: address today i

[0:41:13] Voice 5: take your point i think you're right i mean we're delving into abstractions and

[0:41:17] Voice 5: larger systemic issues that are beyond the scope here they're relevant to what we're talking about

[0:41:22] Voice 5: but we're not going to solve them with guidelines so you're right let's get back to the guidelines

[0:41:25] Voice 5: discussion uh we've you know we've spent 40 minutes or so uh clearing our throats talking

[0:41:31] Voice 5: about the larger pictures abstractions what we're not doing is the heavy lifting of actually

[0:41:38] Voice 5: having a proposal about a guideline that might be useful in the next budget cycle

[0:41:42] Voice 5: and uh debating it puzzling it out um looking at the nuts and bolts does anybody have a suggestion

[0:41:49] Voice 5: that they'd like to put up on the screen um if they want they could summon up some or all of

[0:41:55] Voice 5: the ones i'd come up with and you can thrash those to pieces or maybe uh trustee patrick may

[0:42:01] Voice 5: have hers but it would be great if we could actually have something up there now uh so we

[0:42:12] Voice 5: All

[0:42:12] Voice 12: right. No, I don't know how. I'm sorry. There you go.

[0:42:15] Voice 5: Okay. Trustee Graham.

[0:42:18] Voice 9: Thanks, Joe. Yeah, I did add my suggestion to, I've taken your, the first suggestion in your guidelines, resource requests for new operational initiatives, et cetera, et cetera.

[0:42:31] Voice 9: And I just added, and I did actually did it in chat because I thought that would be an easy place for Robert to see it.

[0:42:36] Voice 9: And then he can put it on his screen. So I'm not clever enough to email him and still maintain my Zoom account yet.

[0:42:43] Voice 9: And that's just my inadequacy. The other suggestion I might make on guidelines, I think the question about our offices, including Salt Spring, Oak Bay, and Gabriola, I don't see that as built into a guideline.

[0:43:01] Voice 9: I see that as a separate discussion that we certainly need to take much more seriously.

[0:43:09] Voice 9: But I don't see it as an ongoing budgetary guideline, to be quite honest.

[0:43:15] Voice 9: That's just my suggestion.

[0:43:18] Voice 5: Just to clarify that last point you brought up, when I was adapting what I found over in Saanich,

[0:43:24] Voice 5: it was interesting because there's a mix of the more generic type of guidelines that one can see would carry on from year to year.

[0:43:31] Voice 5: and then more there's others that look very specific with respect to that particular budget

[0:43:36] Voice 5: cycle what i did with that one was that was that that would fall under the specific category and

[0:43:41] Voice 5: it wouldn't be something would carry on from year to year now do we have perhaps we have the screen

[0:43:46] Voice 5: we could um following on what you're suggesting it is have that first guideline i had suggested

[0:43:53] Voice 5: adapted with your language if um if robert could perhaps put that up on the screen so we could have

[0:43:58] Voice 5: have a discussion about that as soon as that's ready and while we're waiting for that trustee

[0:44:03] Voice 5: boland um

[0:44:06] Voice 1: i have i would suggest that we um look at the projected consumer price index for british

[0:44:14] Voice 1: columbia and use that as a benchmark and we could actually say you know plus one percent or something

[0:44:22] Voice 1: but that that could be one of the guidelines and i've tried to find it online but it it's a bit

[0:44:29] Voice 1: tricky to find but i'm sure julia could find the right one for us and that's adjustable we could

[0:44:36] Voice 1: adjust it as we go through the year if it um if it changed radically so

[0:44:44] Voice 5: the suggestion is

[0:44:45] Voice 5: a potential guideline would be what to limit the uh budget any taxation increases to

[0:44:51] Voice 5: uh increase like a proportional to the cpi yeah

[0:44:57] Voice 1: we don't have to decide whether it's you know the cpi

[0:45:00] Voice 1: projected increase plus one percent less one percent but just to use it as guide and to set

[0:45:07] Voice 1: the criteria because it's no harm for all of us to have that in our minds anyway like if the

[0:45:13] Voice 1: projected inflation rate is x then you should stay within range of that at least or make a very

[0:45:22] Voice 1: strong justification for why that's not possible i

[0:45:26] Voice 5: think our guideline is going to have to be a bit

[0:45:28] Voice 5: more specific than that i can't just simply generic say look at cpi it really is going to

[0:45:33] Voice 5: have to say something about linking cpi to something you know

[0:45:36] Voice 1: cpi plus one percent okay

[0:45:42] Voice 5: um yes what we need actually on the screen robert is the language of number one guideline

[0:45:54] Voice 5: chair

[0:46:02] Voice 2: if i may uh which one of these points is number one guideline uh

[0:46:07] Voice 5: if you uh if you go to

[0:46:09] Voice 5: of my memo um which is in the agenda uh keep going down below keep going keep going um keep

[0:46:27] Voice 5: going uh there we go stop it's that first bullet it's the first bullet point and trustee graham

[0:46:49] Voice 5: would like the language in quotes put at the end of that okay so if we look at that language i'll

[0:47:06] Voice 5: read it out and uh we uh i'm going to suggest what we debate this uh trustee graham has indicated

[0:47:13] Voice 5: he's interested in this one so we might as well throw it out there and i'm going to read it out

[0:47:17] Voice 5: potential guideline would be resource requests for new operational initiatives including one-time

[0:47:22] Voice 5: projects and hiring new personnel will be considered only if it is established that the

[0:47:27] Voice 5: expenditure is necessary to address critical capacity issues or will result in material cost

[0:47:31] Voice 5: savings within two years or advances the mandate of the trust in an area that has not been addressed

[0:47:36] Voice 5: addressed adequately in the past. Trustee Boland, is your hand still up, or are you

[0:47:45] Voice 5: actually...

[0:47:46] Voice 1: Well, I just wanted to say, would David like to give us an example? I kind of get

[0:47:53] Voice 1: it, but if you could give us an example, that would be great. Thanks.

[0:47:59] Voice 9: Happy to try. This really

[0:48:01] Voice 9: addresses my interest in prioritizing initiatives at the LTC level, where there's an area...

[0:48:11] Voice 9: So it's either an OCP or it's a project that the LTC wants to take on that addresses a specific thing within the mandate.

[0:48:20] Voice 9: Unique amenities, on Demand, we are considering our communities as unique amenities and their sustainability and their resiliency, etc.

[0:48:28] Voice 9: et cetera. And if that hasn't been adequately advanced or funded in the past, then that should

[0:48:35] Voice 9: have as high a priority as an increase in technological tools for the staff. So what

[0:48:43] Voice 9: I'm suggesting is we have favored the machinery of government over the people who actually pay

[0:48:49] Voice 9: for the service that we're providing. And yes, the building is nice. The computers are spiffy.

[0:48:56] Voice 9: we've got excellent staff, but what about the work at the island level? What about the community

[0:49:01] Voice 9: level? What about the actual advancing the mandate? And so that just adds one more area

[0:49:06] Voice 9: to be considered when money is being allocated. That was my suggestion.

[0:49:12] Voice 5: Well, when I hear you

[0:49:13] Voice 5: say that, Trustee Graham, it's like you're being quite specific, whereas the language

[0:49:16] Voice 5: you've added is general. Are you really trying to say, or supports communities in the trust area

[0:49:25] Voice 5: uh in ways that they have not been supported in the past or something along those lines because

[0:49:31] Voice 5: like what i'm fluttering around here is you're really talking about uh interpreting the mandate

[0:49:37] Voice 5: or that aspect of the mandate that really relates to communities and supporting them

[0:49:41] Voice 5: maybe you want to just be more specific about it instead of just in an area that has not been

[0:49:46] Voice 5: addressed adequately in the past uh no offense but you could drive off several mac trucks through

[0:49:51] Voice 5: that one um you know and uh before you know it we're supporting satellites you know and uh

[0:49:58] Voice 5: so thank you

[0:49:59] Voice 5: yes i'm gonna leave it to you to sort of see if you want to tighten up that language

[0:50:03] Voice 5: how

[0:50:04] Voice 9: about if um if i could take the the word in an area and replace that with in a local trust

[0:50:11] Voice 9: uh area an

[0:50:13] Voice 5: lta but it's up to you it's it's well no that

[0:50:16] Voice 5: that's whether it expresses what

[0:50:18] Voice 5: you're trying to say here

[0:50:19] Voice 9: it's exactly what i was trying to say i was just i wasn't not i was not

[0:50:22] Voice 9: very successful in doing it all

[0:50:26] Voice 5: right thank you trustee evans thank

[0:50:32] Voice 10: you um i was just wondering

[0:50:34] Voice 10: if that could maybe be a second guideline uh like i i'm feeling because when when this first went up

[0:50:41] Voice 10: i definitely didn't understand the language the explanation definitely clarified what you were

[0:50:46] Voice 10: were trying to achieve for that trustee graham um but i'm thinking that we don't want to um

[0:50:52] Voice 10: to muddy the waters with the two issues here so we've got one the first section which is saying

[0:50:58] Voice 10: one-time projects hiring new personnel um only if it's an established expenditure

[0:51:04] Voice 10: but now it's like i don't want it now to be read um local trust area like i kind of see that

[0:51:14] Voice 10: getting misread in the future when we're not here to explain it. So I would almost like to stop the

[0:51:21] Voice 10: sentence after amended of the trust and then put a second guideline that addresses the local trust

[0:51:27] Voice 10: area and have some specific language surrounding that as a separate guideline. So that's sort of

[0:51:34] Voice 10: my my tuppence on on this one well

[0:51:38] Voice 5: um that might work um but if you separate it out um

[0:51:44] Voice 5: you need more language in there that um actually provides um a comparative basis for deciding

[0:51:52] Voice 5: whether you know like the filtering function of it and from what i heard trustee graham saying

[0:51:58] Voice 5: it sounds like he would like to give some preference to advancing the mandate in local

[0:52:03] Voice 5: trust areas and so perhaps if there's a

[0:52:05] Voice 5: second if it's treated as a second hypothetical uh guideline

[0:52:11] Voice 5: it's something along the lines of resource requests um uh will be prioritized you know

[0:52:19] Voice 5: will be prioritized um i'm flying here uh would be prioritized uh to the extent that they advance

[0:52:27] Voice 5: the mandate and local trust here it is so

[0:52:30] Voice 1: is

[0:52:31] Voice 5: that i i think that's what trustee graham was trying to

[0:52:35] Voice 5: do and if that's what he is trying to do then you could do that with the second one like you could

[0:52:40] Voice 5: treat it as a second one is that what you're trying to do trustee graham you want some preference

[0:52:46] Voice 5: given to it as opposed to simply advancing um

[0:52:50] Voice 9: thank you joe um when i was looking at that

[0:52:53] Voice 9: particular guideline it seemed to be the the lens through which resource requests were considered

[0:53:01] Voice 9: um so they they but the thing that was missing in that resource request in my mind there was

[0:53:09] Voice 9: no acknowledgement that sometimes we want to spend money to do really good work in a local trust area

[0:53:14] Voice 9: and traditionally that area of expenditure in our budgets has always been woefully low

[0:53:21] Voice 9: So we spend millions and millions of dollars making buildings safe, keeping people employed, giving them good computers, et cetera, et cetera.

[0:53:30] Voice 9: We don't spend very much at the local trust area doing the kind of work that bolsters the OCP or makes the land use model adequate, et cetera, et cetera.

[0:53:44] Voice 9: So I thought this was the place to put it.

[0:53:47] Voice 9: I'm happy to put it someplace else, but I wouldn't want it to be considered a secondary priority request.

[0:53:55] Voice 6: Right. Trustee Young?

[0:54:01] Voice 5: You had your hand up.

[0:54:04] Voice 10: Sorry, you said Trustee Young?

[0:54:06] Voice 5: Evans. Evans. Sorry.

[0:54:10] Voice 10: Okay, so then I'm just trying to get my head wrapped around what this is for.

[0:54:14] Voice 10: So this is now just for local trust area requests.

[0:54:16] Voice 10: is that the intent here because the way that this reads now it's directed that local trust area

[0:54:24] Voice 10: request a resource request for a local trust area uh no

[0:54:28] Voice 5: no i don't think that's what he's saying

[0:54:30] Voice 5: it's like the advances mandate in local trust areas is like this separate consideration like

[0:54:38] Voice 5: there's three considerations here critical capacity savings advancing lta's i think you know

[0:54:45] Voice 5: So there are three separate concepts under the idea

[0:54:49] Voice 5: of new operational initiatives and staff, et cetera,

[0:54:54] Voice 5: will only be considered if they contribute

[0:54:56] Voice 5: to critical capacity or saving money

[0:54:59] Voice 5: or advancing the mandate in the local trust area.

[0:55:02] Voice 5: Bingo,

[0:55:02] Voice 10: thank you, Joe.

[0:55:03] Voice 10: Can we change this so that we drop them down

[0:55:05] Voice 10: into bullet areas rather

[0:55:08] Voice 14: than all on sentence?

[0:55:08] Voice 10: Because right now, like I said,

[0:55:10] Voice 10: I'm having a hard time following this.

[0:55:13] Voice 10: So if that drops as

[0:55:14] Voice 10: bullet points,

[0:55:15] Voice 10: Then that clarifies that it's like separate.

[0:55:18] Voice 10: That would make it a lot clearer for me.

[0:55:21] Voice 10: Thank you.

[0:55:21] Voice 5: Like that.

[0:55:25] Voice 5: Yes.

[0:55:26] Voice 5: And that way there's no risk of local trust area being interpreted as applying to the other two bullets.

[0:55:32] Voice 5: Okay.

[0:55:34] Voice 5: Let's open this up to other trustees to comment on this as a potential guideline.

[0:55:38] Voice 5: Trustee Luckham.

[0:55:40] Trustee Luckham: Yeah.

[0:55:41] Trustee Luckham: No, I think, you know, I think we have to not necessarily drill too much into the details here.

[0:55:49] Trustee Luckham: But I'm in support of this notion. It captures an admirable proposition. I just think that perhaps a different example might be used as opposed to comparing technology to people that do things.

[0:56:07] Trustee Luckham: Of course, if you don't have pencils or computers to do mapping, which was the conversation we had the other day, then the people that you have aren't necessarily able to do really good work.

[0:56:17] Trustee Luckham: so I would just suggest that you something on different comparator but

[0:56:23] Trustee Luckham: I'm in support of trustee Graham's notion here thank

[0:56:27] Voice 5: you trustee Patrick

[0:56:28] Voice 5: yeah

[0:56:31] Trustee Patrick: it's not a lot different from what I was trying to suggest I did send some

[0:56:34] Trustee Patrick: stuff to Robert Barlow but I think I was whether we say advancing the mandate of

[0:56:40] Trustee Patrick: the trust or you know is it the same thing as saying as as increasing

[0:56:45] Trustee Patrick: increasing resources directed to long-term planning. Are we saying the same thing? I'm

[0:56:52] Trustee Patrick: really trying to say we want to move toward real long-term planning instead of reactive-based

[0:56:57] Trustee Patrick: planning. So I was just using, that's why I would use the reference of long-term planning.

[0:57:05] Voice 5: Well, I'm going to ask Trustee Graham, since he's kind of, this is his project,

[0:57:10] Voice 5: You've heard trustee Patrick. If I hear her correctly, what she would like it to read as would be advances long-term planning in local trust areas, period.

[0:57:25] Voice 5: My question for you is, is that what you're getting at? Because if that's what you're getting at, then we could change the language to conform to that.

[0:57:32] Voice 5: It's like the point here is, yeah, we're going to spend new money if it advances long-term planning in an LTA.

[0:57:39] Voice 5: is that what you're getting at the

[0:57:44] Voice 9: what i would suggest sorry so the definition for me for long

[0:57:48] Voice 9: term planning at the lta area is an official community plan and a land use bylaw those are

[0:57:54] Voice 9: the tools that direct long-term planning and and i like using the mandate of the trust i want to

[0:58:00] Voice 9: keep referencing that because because that's where it all starts for me and unique amenities we've

[0:58:06] Voice 9: already had that cleared up with with our previous conversations and i i don't have a problem by by

[0:58:12] Voice 9: using the mandate and unique amenities and the natural protection of our lands and waters

[0:58:19] Voice 9: embedded in our official community plans and our land use bylaws which are in fact long-term

[0:58:24] Voice 9: planning documents all

[0:58:27] Voice 5: right i i'm i'm flailing around here trying to find a synthesis that

[0:58:31] Voice 5: that everybody can agree around, so starting with you two,

[0:58:35] Voice 5: would this language satisfy you both,

[0:58:38] Voice 5: which is advances the mandate of the trust

[0:58:41] Voice 5: in a local trust area through long-term planning?

[0:58:47] Voice 5: Trustee Graham likes it, Trustee Patrick?

[0:58:51] Trustee Patrick: Well, I think what I was really trying to get at

[0:58:54] Trustee Patrick: was we're encouraging investments in areas

[0:58:59] Trustee Patrick: where we're gonna either stop doing something,

[0:59:03] Trustee Patrick: we're creating efficiencies

[0:59:04] Trustee Patrick: so that those efficiencies are being translated into greater resources

[0:59:10] Trustee Patrick: that are being directed to long-term planning.

[0:59:14] Voice 5: Those are separate ideas.

[0:59:16] Trustee Patrick: I know.

[0:59:16] Trustee Patrick: So that's what my language was more along.

[0:59:19] Trustee Patrick: So mine could be a separate point or

[0:59:23] Voice 5: a separate guideline.

[0:59:26] Voice 5: If we analyze this, it is talking about these are three separate things

[0:59:32] Voice 5: that will justify these resource requests.

[0:59:34] Voice 5: one of which it will separate from being connected like if it results in a material

[0:59:40] Voice 5: cost savings within two years that's a virtue in and of itself and what we do with the money

[0:59:45] Voice 5: is a separate issue and if it advances the mandate through planning well uh i don't know i i from

[0:59:56] Voice 5: what i'm i i think this amended the way along the lines

[1:00:00] Voice 5: suggest you would actually answer the thing that you're trying to do here uh but i don't know i

[1:00:04] Voice 5: should leave it open to trustee volunteer and others to speak um

[1:00:08] Voice 1: i actually don't like the

[1:00:10] Voice 1: fact that it's bundled the way it is the third one has more significance in that we are saying

[1:00:18] Voice 1: that um you know yes it's long long-term planning we're saying yes the business at the local trust

[1:00:27] Voice 1: trust committee level is very significant and important and regularly gets squeezed at budget

[1:00:33] Voice 1: time. So I think we should split it out. I mean, address critical capacity issues or will result

[1:00:40] Voice 1: in their kind of standard, you know, why would your budget not be, you know, justified on those

[1:00:49] Voice 1: basis? If you're, if you don't have those in your business case, you're not doing your job properly.

[1:00:55] Voice 1: But I think setting a priority that says local trust area, long term planning will have a priority, those projects.

[1:01:07] Voice 1: And, you know, if we if we I don't I don't exactly know how to put them at the top of the list.

[1:01:14] Voice 1: And we are only coming up with a straw man at this stage.

[1:01:18] Voice 1: But in my view, you know, critical capacity to support those LTC long-term planning, those will have to be addressed in the business case.

[1:01:31] Voice 1: But I think what I'm hearing is

[1:01:33] Voice 1: a desire to look at LTC long-term planning as a standalone guideline that

[1:01:40] Voice 5: it should be given priority.

[1:01:40] Voice 1: Okay,

[1:01:41] Voice 5: we have the point, which is you would

[1:01:43] Voice 5: prefer to see the advance point being separate. And the way I mentioned it before, if you have a separate item, it would be some version of advancing the mandate of the trust in the local trust area through long-term planning will be prioritized.

[1:02:01] Voice 5: I mean that's the point right that that you're making trustee Boland like just have that

[1:02:06] Voice 5: standalone yeah trustee Graham would that satisfy you to have a separate thing that says advancing

[1:02:11] Voice 5: long uh the mandate in the local trust area through long-term planning will be prioritized

[1:02:18] Voice 5: does that work for you is that what you're trying to get at well

[1:02:20] Voice 9: yes it does um and again I want to

[1:02:26] Voice 9: I want to just reference Trustee Luckham's.

[1:02:29] Voice 9: I wasn't suggesting that we go back to pencils.

[1:02:33] Voice 9: I'm merely saying that the rush to be technologically current is one that we go,

[1:02:44] Voice 9: the discussion as to whether we should spend $90,000 or whatever it is to get the latest Microsoft or to get the latest this.

[1:02:52] Voice 9: There's not a lot of discussion on that.

[1:02:54] Voice 9: It's almost like a de facto.

[1:02:55] Voice 9: Oh, yes.

[1:02:56] Voice 9: No, we have to have the best tools.

[1:02:57] Voice 9: and great let's have the best tools but not at the expense of a poor local trust area having a 25

[1:03:05] Voice 9: year old official community plan um so okay okay we have the

[1:03:09] Voice 9: point we have the point i'm going to

[1:03:11] Voice 9: be i'm

[1:03:12] Voice 9: going to be a little

[1:03:12] Voice 5: rough here with you folks because i want to sort of advance you go

[1:03:14] Voice 5: forward i cut you off and shift you over to trustee elliott thank

[1:03:19] Voice 12: you um i agree with trustee boland

[1:03:21] Voice 12: I'm uncomfortable with lumping together sort of efficiency measures

[1:03:26] Voice 12: with what is essentially a content weighting tool.

[1:03:32] Voice 12: And so this is going back to the weighting thing

[1:03:34] Voice 12: and how do we evaluate like things with similar things.

[1:03:40] Voice 12: Three points are not similar.

[1:03:41] Voice 12: And so this should be broken out.

[1:03:43] Voice 12: And also I would want to see the conservancy addressed in some way

[1:03:49] Voice 12: in a similar way that LTCs must be rewarded with projects that support long-range planning,

[1:03:59] Voice 12: the conservancy, where it hits capacity issues, but where its regional plan is basically

[1:04:06] Voice 12: unsupportable. It can't do something to meet what's in its regional plan. That is sort of

[1:04:13] Voice 12: an equivalency, but it's just, that's the- Okay,

[1:04:15] Voice 5: I'm going to leave it to you to come

[1:04:17] Voice 5: off with that language because uh there's um it has several moving parts uh and mr barlow uh given

[1:04:27] Voice 5: the drift of this conversation i'm gonna ask we do a little amendment on the fly here uh put a period

[1:04:32] Voice 5: at the end of within two years then uh start a new paragraph for a separate guideline get rid of the

[1:04:45] Voice 5: bullets below there you know yeah and remove the bullet before advances and uh amend this and this

[1:05:03] Voice 5: i'm only doing this so people can see it and they can look at it and think about it and talk about

[1:05:07] Voice 5: it uh change the language to read as follows advancing the mandate of the trust in a local

[1:05:13] Voice 5: trust area through long-term planning will be prioritized period and just delete the rest of it

[1:05:27] Voice 5: Okay. The discussion continues. We now have two potential guidelines. Trustee Graham's concept is the second one. The other one is more or less, is in fact what I had before. Both are up for discussion. If people want to just let them sit and stew for a while and have another guideline that they would like to put up for discussion, please do now.

[1:05:52] Voice 5: All right. I'm not hearing anything. So I'm going to take the initiative.

[1:06:01] Trustee Patrick: i was gonna say i sent some to robert i don't um okay

[1:06:05] Voice 5: but

[1:06:07] Trustee Patrick: i don't know if he got got it okay

[1:06:14] Voice 5: uh while we're waiting for that uh let me ask the group uh in the guidelines one of the four

[1:06:19] Voice 5: that i proposed is up there uh is there any interest in in the other three uh either as

[1:06:25] Voice 5: is or amended come on people that's what we're here for you need to pipe up okay here we go

[1:06:35] Voice 5: And

[1:06:49] Trustee Patrick: then there was, thanks, Robert, that was the better worded one. And then there was the second one in the first email I sent you. That was the Trust Council will consider budget reduction scenarios of 1% and 2%. There we go.

[1:07:05] Trustee Patrick: Now, my question for this one is, are we saying the same thing? Or in this case, I'm saying there's an investment that creates efficiencies. And as a result, we're waiting more towards long-term planning.

[1:07:26] Trustee Patrick: You're

[1:07:27] Voice 5: actually collapsing two things there.

[1:07:29] Voice 5: One is you're actually making efficiencies subject to long-term planning, as opposed to the first one just says, if you can save money, that's a good enough reason to do it, period, full stop.

[1:07:41] Voice 5: What you do with the money, that's a separate issue.

[1:07:45] Voice 5: What you're doing is saying, we're only going to do these additional spends if, one, it will result in savings that can be directed.

[1:07:55] Voice 5: perspective, it's quite a bit more restrictive what you've got. I actually think that between

[1:08:02] Voice 5: the two of them that are above, they will do what you're trying to do there, but not restrict the

[1:08:09] Voice 5: money saving to being spent on long-term planning. I'm just saying that as an exercise in grammar

[1:08:15] Voice 5: in terms of what that does.

[1:08:17] Trustee Patrick: That's why we're having a conversation.

[1:08:19] Voice 5: Yeah. Well, I'm going to let people digest that, but I see Trustee Evans has her hand up,

[1:08:25] Voice 5: up. So let's go to her.

[1:08:27] Voice 10: I was just going to say I prefer the first one. I think that's given

[1:08:31] Voice 10: it gives a little bit more to work with. I find that this I find Trustee Patrick's a little,

[1:08:38] Voice 10: like you said, restrictive.

[1:08:44] Voice 5: Let's let those lie for a bit. We don't have to make a decision right

[1:08:46] Voice 5: now. Let's move on to the new one that's been introduced by Trustee Patrick. Trust Council

[1:08:51] Voice 5: will consider budget reduction scenarios of one and two percent of the proposed tax increase.

[1:08:55] Voice 5: I will note that we don't know what the proposed tax increase in these circumstances would be.

[1:09:01] Voice 5: So if somebody's staff is proposing a 18 percent tax increase, we will have achieved a reduction to 16 percent.

[1:09:11] Voice 5: So I'm not sure I quite understand the context for this one.

[1:09:16] Voice 5: Trustee Graham.

[1:09:18] Voice 9: Yeah, thanks, Joe. That's that's where I'm coming from.

[1:09:21] Voice 9: So this is in March where Trust Council has looked at the proposed budget that FPC has

[1:09:29] Voice 9: hammered out, and then you're asking Trust Council to consider a 1% to 2% decrease on

[1:09:36] Voice 9: whatever we've proposed.

[1:09:37] Voice 9: Is that what you're suggesting?

[1:09:39] Trustee Patrick: Oh, how I would understand this, and again, this is taken right from Saanich, is that

[1:09:45] Trustee Patrick: that staff would bring to the March.

[1:09:48] Trustee Patrick: So we'll have our February FPC meeting

[1:09:53] Trustee Patrick: where we'll do any final cuts that we make.

[1:09:55] Trustee Patrick: And then staff would bring to the March budget

[1:09:59] Trustee Patrick: two scenarios of 1% reduction and a 2% reduction.

[1:10:03] Trustee Patrick: So a further reduction from where we ended

[1:10:05] Trustee Patrick: on our recommendations.

[1:10:06] Trustee Patrick: It's just for consideration.

[1:10:08] Trustee Patrick: It's like what would have to happen for a one or 2% cut?

[1:10:12] Trustee Patrick: Oh,

[1:10:14] Voice 5: I see. Just so I make sure everybody, I understand it and everybody else understands it. You're saying this budget reduction scenario is not the end of the story in terms of where you end up with the last number on it. It's like this happens after we've done everything we can at FPC in terms of recommending a number.

[1:10:32] Voice 5: and over on top of that staff will provide the one and two percent reductions for trust council to

[1:10:38] Voice 5: to work with to think about in addition to where we landed at the end of the day is that right

[1:10:44] Trustee Patrick: yes okay

[1:10:45] Voice 5: got it got it now i get it uh trustee boland i'm

[1:10:53] Voice 1: looking at the sanich one and the

[1:10:55] Voice 1: um i actually i think trustee evans was ahead of me were you christina just in the order that i see

[1:11:03] Voice 1: Oh,

[1:11:05] Voice 5: sorry. I thought you had, I thought your hand, you had just spoken. I thought your hand

[1:11:08] Voice 5: was just up. Sorry about that.

[1:11:09] Voice 10: No, I put my hand up. So I was just going to say,

[1:11:13] Voice 10: I think I caught most of the explanation there. So it might make my comment moot,

[1:11:20] Voice 10: but I was wondering if we could fit in there something along the lines of a cap for tax

[1:11:26] Voice 10: increases per year. And if we are close to that or go over that, then we employ this.

[1:11:33] Voice 10: um request to staff for budget decrease uh

[1:11:38] Voice 5: again to assist people to puzzle through this i'm going

[1:11:42] Voice 5: to ask mr barlow to put up the language of the i think the last bullet item of my suggested

[1:11:49] Voice 5: guidelines not because it's necessarily will work for what trustee evans is talking about but it's

[1:11:57] Voice 5: it talks about some kind of cap and it might be language that somebody or trustee evans or

[1:12:03] Voice 5: somebody else could work with yeah

[1:12:07] Voice 5: that's it so trustee evans um is that something that you

[1:12:20] Voice 5: could work with to sort of develop your idea um what i've got there is pretty blunt um yeah i

[1:12:28] Voice 5: thought i heard you talking about a kind of a linkage of some sort but i'm afraid i lost track

[1:12:32] Voice 5: of it yeah

[1:12:33] Voice 10: so what i was thinking was um and again i'm just looking at this language and coming up

[1:12:38] Voice 10: with it on the fly, which I hate doing. So Trust Council will consider budget increases to a

[1:12:48] Voice 10: maximum of, let's say, 10%. 10%?

[1:12:57] Voice 10: I am just throwing something out. Yeah, okay.

[1:13:03] Voice 10: And we'll request staff for reduction scenarios of 1% to 2% of the proposed tax increase

[1:13:19] Voice 10: So I'm just I'm just like follow that. So I'm just the language that that's you've dropped down a sentence.

[1:13:25] Voice 10: Yeah, that one. When when close to the to the to the budgeting budget increased cap or something like that.

[1:13:59] Voice 10: I'm trying to blend two things together here.

[1:14:07] Voice 5: Well, I'm going to let you stew on that for a little bit to see whether or not it works.

[1:14:10] Voice 5: And while that's happening, I'm going to turn it over to Trustee Graham, who has some comments.

[1:14:16] Voice 9: Thank you. I want to bring in what Trustee Peterson said originally, that just putting a number without having any rationale is awkward and very difficult to argue.

[1:14:30] Voice 9: So rather than having a maximum of 10%, could we not use something that everyone agrees with, the consumer price index plus 1% or 2%, something that at least puts us in the realm of an arguable increase?

[1:14:49] Voice 9: increase. But my hand was actually up when I heard Trustee Patrick say that staff would

[1:14:56] Voice 9: be responsible to bring two scenarios to Trust Council, one with a 1% tax decrease and one with

[1:15:03] Voice 9: a 2% tax increase. I just felt comfortable asking staff to do that. I didn't mind a general Trust

[1:15:12] Voice 9: council discussion at the end of the day to reduce but i just don't it seems to me a political

[1:15:19] Voice 9: decision as to where we chalk and asking staff i don't i just think that's inappropriate that's

[1:15:25] Voice 9: that's my feeling um

[1:15:27] Voice 5: so uh just working with your your point uh trustee graham uh what i'm hearing

[1:15:34] Voice 5: is the last hypothetical um guideline at the bottom says no tax increase above x blah blah blah

[1:15:43] Voice 5: So is this what you're thinking? No tax increase above 1% of the consumer price index for the preceding year will be considered or approved?

[1:15:59] Voice 9: Yes.

[1:16:00] Voice 9: All

[1:16:01] Voice 5: right. Let's make the change to that language for further debate and discussion.

[1:16:09] Voice 5: So, Mr. Barlow, if we could have that. No tax increase.

[1:16:13] Voice 2: Chair, you were about to tell me, is this a new scenario?

[1:16:18] Voice 4: The

[1:16:19] Voice 2: last

[1:16:21] Voice 4: one there that says no tax increase above X percent, it's going to be changed now to no tax increase above, or sorry, more than

[1:16:30] Voice 5: 1%.

[1:16:33] Voice 5: Sorry, sorry about that.

[1:16:35] Voice 5: No tax increase above 1%.

[1:16:45] Voice 5: Plus CPI.

[1:16:46] Voice 5: No, no, actually, I should go back a step.

[1:16:47] Voice 5: I'm sorry.

[1:16:47] Voice 5: more increase

[1:16:48] Voice 5: above the consumer price index for the preceding year plus one percent

[1:16:53] Voice 5: will be considered or approved uh

[1:17:06] Voice 4: plus one percent i

[1:17:08] Voice 13: think

[1:17:27] Voice 5: that by the way just parenthetically that

[1:17:29] Voice 5: um guideline together with the one as originally proposed by trustee patrick would deliver i think

[1:17:38] Voice 5: what trustee evans is trying to do but it would be in two as opposed to uh one guideline trustee

[1:17:45] Voice 5: you, Patrick?

[1:17:48] Trustee Patrick: First, I'll talk about the scenario one. And I know Trustee Graham said that these

[1:17:54] Trustee Patrick: are only political and that staff don't do this. I would argue the opposite. And I think the

[1:17:58] Trustee Patrick: trustees, at least in the last term, staff often ask, please ask us. They're the ones that,

[1:18:06] Trustee Patrick: you know, some of the budget's built because we put political spin on it, not spin, but direction

[1:18:13] Trustee Patrick: on it and other things and that they're the closest to it and they've asked to be asked

[1:18:19] Trustee Patrick: you know instead of us saying where can we find two percent they would like that opportunity to

[1:18:24] Trustee Patrick: make some suggestions and so that's what happened like two years ago and they were very excited they

[1:18:30] Trustee Patrick: did come up with some innovative and creative ways of finding some reductions that you know

[1:18:35] Trustee Patrick: we never thought of sitting around 26 people sitting around the table so what I want to avoid

[1:18:40] Trustee Patrick: is doing that at you know having staff do that at 3 a.m in the morning of

[1:18:45] Trustee Patrick: trust council that's

[1:18:47] Trustee Patrick: they bring those scenarios to us already prepared in advance work to you know so that it's it's not

[1:18:52] Trustee Patrick: a an overnight exercise that was done to them two years ago which i thought was not fair to do to

[1:18:59] Trustee Patrick: staff um the cap so like i said i would prefer to keep it as just the to me to me this is just

[1:19:07] Trustee Patrick: these are one and two percent scenarios scenarios for us to consider so it's further even above and

[1:19:13] Trustee Patrick: beyond everywhere we go and like i said you sometimes find more efficiency so i'd rather

[1:19:18] Trustee Patrick: see that stay as a separate item not be related to the other as far as a cap a cap what i would

[1:19:24] Trustee Patrick: prefer to see i think we have to be careful we have to and and you know sanage does not set a cap

[1:19:30] Trustee Patrick: other than on certain types of expenditures they get down to that level of detail

[1:19:36] Trustee Patrick: detail and say there will be a cap set on, you know, just non-discretionary or wherever they

[1:19:42] Trustee Patrick: put it or discretionary. But they set it on a line item of expense, not the overall total budget. So

[1:19:49] Trustee Patrick: I think we should be cautious and have that staff advice on where in the budget would it make more

[1:19:56] Trustee Patrick: sense to set a cap versus not the total budget. And then if we're going to have a criteria of

[1:20:04] Trustee Patrick: that right now i'd be very careful not to have language like uh will be considered or you know

[1:20:09] Trustee Patrick: will approve that we would just say you know we've strived for a you know budget increase of no more

[1:20:16] Trustee Patrick: than this or something of that nature well

[1:20:21] Voice 5: of course what you're talking about is political

[1:20:22] Voice 5: preferences um you want you're suggesting flexibility better but somebody with a different

[1:20:27] Voice 5: outlook might say well we don't need the flexibility we need firmness i mean that really

[1:20:30] Voice 5: becomes a political choice uh that people have to sort of decide for themselves but what i've

[1:20:36] Voice 5: heard just in terms of advancing this meeting what i'm hearing is um you're not a big fan of

[1:20:43] Voice 5: the idea of merging your reduction scenario with the other thing let's leave the language that

[1:20:48] Voice 5: trustee evans was working with up there and return a version of what you had in mind and that way

[1:20:54] Voice 5: everybody has everything up there and they can pick and choose what they'd like so uh robert

[1:21:00] Voice 5: If you could just add underneath the no tax increase hypothetical guideline another one, and we'll clean it up later in terms of what goes and stays, staff will provide trust counsel with

[1:21:15] Voice 4: budget reduction scenarios of

[1:21:22] Voice 5: 1% and 2% of any proposed tax increase recommended by FPC.

[1:21:42] Voice 5: I think that's what you're trying to get at, Trustee Patrick, is that right?

[1:21:59] Voice 5: Is that what you're trying to get at, Trustee Patrick?

[1:22:01] Voice 5: Sorry, I put a thumbs up. Yes.

[1:22:03] Voice 5: Yeah, okay. Thank you.

[1:22:05] Voice 5: Trustee Lockham.

[1:22:08] Trustee Luckham: It's okay.

[1:22:08] Trustee Luckham: I think now this is complex and I've come to understand it,

[1:22:12] Trustee Luckham: so I actually do not have a comment at this time.

[1:22:15] Trustee Luckham: I'll take my hand down.

[1:22:16] Voice 5: Thank you.

[1:22:17] Voice 5: Trustee Boland.

[1:22:21] Voice 1: I'm fine with where we're going,

[1:22:23] Voice 1: but I'm also concerned that we need to dig down a little bit

[1:22:28] Voice 1: because at the moment, we're going to be in the same situation.

[1:22:33] Voice 1: With the honourable exception of David Graham's guideline,

[1:22:42] Voice 1: we're directing the controls to the entire budget.

[1:22:48] Voice 1: And every year, because we have fixed costs

[1:22:51] Voice 1: or the so-called discretionary, non-discretionary,

[1:22:57] Voice 1: we end up squeezing the part and the same part every year having said that i had a conversation

[1:23:05] Voice 1: with julia and she said of course the um what we call non-discretionary it's really a time

[1:23:11] Voice 1: framed term so if you talk about moving offices in a particular year you have to pay the lease

[1:23:19] Voice 1: costs so it seems like okay this is non-discretionary but if you create a plan to

[1:23:25] Voice 1: to change that then it becomes um you know a discretionary item and i looked at the sunnage

[1:23:33] Voice 1: one and they have uh one which is a bit extraordinary to me um which is funding for

[1:23:42] Voice 1: salary and benefits costs must be provided within existing budgets with the exception of this some

[1:23:50] Voice 1: Some stuff that they say is accepted from that.

[1:23:53] Voice 1: But I'm wondering about that.

[1:23:55] Voice 1: Is that effectively a plan to reduce staff numbers by saying that?

[1:24:02] Voice 1: And will it have been discussed before they put that guideline up?

[1:24:07] Voice 1: I'm just kind of curious about it.

[1:24:10] Voice 1: You know, when I read it, I thought, am I reading this properly?

[1:24:13] Voice 1: But we do have an operational budget which goes up regardless,

[1:24:17] Voice 1: regardless, and mostly by, you know, increases that are mandated. And but we have to address

[1:24:24] Voice 1: that, because we end up squeezing the rest of the budget to accommodate or to accomplish what we,

[1:24:30] Voice 1: you know, want. Okay. Well, if anybody

[1:24:34] Voice 1: can answer that

[1:24:34] Voice 5: question, that'd be great. I can't.

[1:24:36] Voice 5: I don't know what they're doing over there. Trustee Patrick may. Trustee Luckham, did you

[1:24:41] Voice 5: actually have your hand up? Or did you forget to turn it off?

[1:24:44] Trustee Luckham: Oh, sorry, it didn't click properly.

[1:24:46] Trustee Luckham: Okay.

[1:24:47] Voice 5: Trustee Evans.

[1:24:50] Voice 10: I'm just sort of working my way through the no tax increase above the CPI of the preceding year plus 1%. So I'm thinking if that were in effect now, the CPI for 2023 was 3.4%. So we would be looking at a 4.4% increase on our tax budget this year. We're in double digits.

[1:25:12] Voice 10: no

[1:25:12] Voice 5: no hang on that that's just to be clear that's not the language says that language doesn't say

[1:25:17] Voice 5: that's what we're looking at it puts a ceiling on it what the actual number is is something else

[1:25:23] Voice 5: it's whatever we decide you know so right

[1:25:25] Voice 10: that's the ceiling yeah that's

[1:25:27] Voice 10: the ceiling 4.4 is the

[1:25:29] Voice 10: ceiling yeah we're in double digits so that is going to have it that i'm just saying like in

[1:25:37] Voice 10: this current situation the current budget would require significant uh trimming um so i'm thinking

[1:25:45] Voice 10: that that might be a little too low and like i know this is just for a discussion um but i'm

[1:25:50] Voice 10: still thinking that we should have a maximum and and i know you're trying to accomplish that here

[1:25:56] Voice 10: but i think that that number is going to be too low um like i said this year with when the cpi

[1:26:02] Voice 10: was quite high it's 3.4 percent plus one percent that's 4.4 percent i think i think that's going

[1:26:08] Voice 10: to put us in trouble down the road thank you

[1:26:12] Voice 14: yes and

[1:26:14] Voice 10: i was going to say i would love to see that

[1:26:16] Voice 10: but i think that's going to be really hard to maintain over the long haul yes

[1:26:20] Voice 4: but then of

[1:26:21] Voice 4: course we're into the political debate about whether or not as others have mentioned here

[1:26:25] Voice 5: whether or not we want and following on what tristi peterson is saying about whether or not

[1:26:30] Voice 5: You just want to simply have this fixed number. I mean, no matter how much data you have, eventually that type of thing, it's always arbitrary to some extent, because it's a decision to say, look, there's just only so much we want to raise taxes by.

[1:26:44] Voice 5: The question is, we have to agree on what that number is. It doesn't necessarily have to be super rational. It is kind of arbitrary. It comes down to, frankly, what the people collectively believe is politically acceptable.

[1:27:00] Voice 5: Thank

[1:27:05] Voice 12: you. I sent two potential guidelines to Robert Barlow, just in the weighting sort

[1:27:15] Voice 12: of aspect. So the first could be that project business cases are weighted favourably if

[1:27:21] Voice 12: they address three or more areas of the strategic plan. And the second might be business cases

[1:27:30] Voice 12: are weighted more favorably if they address operational needs of both the conservancy and the

[1:27:35] Voice 12: islands trust uh

[1:27:38] Voice 5: when you say both you mean uh if they do you mean they will simultaneously address

[1:27:42] Voice 5: operational needs i'm

[1:27:44] Voice 12: specifically thinking of gis coordinator position it's like a 50

[1:27:50] Voice 12: 50 needed

[1:27:51] Voice 12: by both the agencies um yeah so i don't know if robert's got um that

[1:27:57] Voice 5: could be merged into a single

[1:27:59] Voice 5: one couldn't it yeah

[1:28:01] Voice 12: yeah oh yeah it could be a single one with an or yeah yeah

[1:28:05] Voice 12: um i i guess

[1:28:08] Voice 12: because i'm thinking of our pc's got to do some work with how we evaluate the the business cases

[1:28:15] Voice 12: from ltcs we are running on an old strategic plan but um if there was some consideration for how

[1:28:22] Voice 12: how many elements a business case is going to,

[1:28:25] Voice 12: or a project is going to address multiple elements of our strategic plan,

[1:28:31] Voice 12: let's say freshwater and housing and reconciliation,

[1:28:34] Voice 12: then

[1:28:34] Voice 5: it kind of goes to the top of the pile.

[1:28:36] Voice 5: All right. In the interest of tightening up the language here,

[1:28:40] Voice 5: I'm going to throw in my two bits worth.

[1:28:41] Voice 5: Let's see if we can merge these two into one thing.

[1:28:45] Voice 5: Let's use the bottom one as the starting point for the editing.

[1:28:48] Voice 5: So it will read business cases will be weighted more favorably if they simultaneously address operational needs of both the Conservancy and Island Trust or address three or more areas of the...

[1:29:24] Voice 12: The problem is

[1:29:25] Voice 12: that Islands Trust has a strategic plan and Conservancy has a regional conservation plan.

[1:29:30] Voice 12: Stop,

[1:29:30] Voice 5: stop. Next year, we're supposed to like this whole strategic, what we call strategic plan, we get a whole debate about that is difficult. I mean, this is why we're doing corporate planning. Do we want to be saying here three or more areas of the corporate plan? Because that's what we're going to head toward. That's the future we want to have, where these things are designed that way. Is that what you're trying to get at, Trustee Elliott?

[1:30:00] Voice 12: um this is for this year's budget which we're still running on a strategic plan or so i i don't

[1:30:06] Voice 12: see that the corporate plan is in place yet to address it but it could be changed for next year

[1:30:10] Voice 12: well

[1:30:11] Voice 5: that does raise the question of um okay we'll leave it as the way it is now and we'll we'll hash

[1:30:17] Voice 5: it out later i guess but we do have to at some point decide how much of this or which of these

[1:30:23] Voice 5: these elements, if any, are actually applicable to the next, this upcoming budget, whether that's

[1:30:32] Voice 5: feasible, you know, following up the remarks that I've made before, following on Trustee Peterson,

[1:30:37] Voice 5: who, by the way, has had his hand up for some time now, and Trustee Bowen, Trustee Peterson

[1:30:42] Voice 5: hasn't had a shot here. I'm going to give him the first shot.

[1:30:47] Voice 11: Well, that's very generous of you.

[1:30:49] Voice 11: However, I really just wanted to comment about this whole notion of tax increases and the political nature of these decisions.

[1:31:00] Voice 11: Having been on Trust Council for a while, I've seen years where there's been a striving to keep a 0% increase, which I understand, and I certainly understand it politically.

[1:31:16] Voice 11: But just to point out that one of my whole issues with this whole capping scenario is that when a number of budgets consecutively keep increases very low, you know, we want to do the longer.

[1:31:36] Voice 11: And this is why I'm a big fan of longer term planning is because you can run into over the long term, you can run into serious situations where basically to keep the lights on and the doors open, you're looking at bigger jumps.

[1:31:52] Voice 11: And and in a lot of ways, I think it's more responsible to look at what's what sort of gradual increases are reasonable and acceptable rather than trying to artificially avoid any increase.

[1:32:10] Voice 11: And then whether it's this trust council or FPC or another one down the road, eventually there has to be a catch up.

[1:32:19] Voice 11: and so i just want to you know i i think it's my approach is that it's better to

[1:32:24] Voice 11: to do the gradual rather than leave it a big catch-up down the road somewhere

[1:32:28] Voice 11: so just the political end of

[1:32:32] Voice 11: things yep

[1:32:33] Voice 5: and as a reminder these budget guidelines

[1:32:34] Voice 5: will not be written in stone and uh just as we at the beginning of every budget cycle we

[1:32:41] Voice 5: staff brings us principles for the inputs that go into the budget the outcomes contemplated by

[1:32:51] Voice 5: budget guidelines i think have to be reassessed every year as well i mean these guidelines add

[1:33:00] Voice 5: the greatest value when staff and trustees have them in hand when they're developing their

[1:33:05] Voice 5: individual funding requests. And that creates a framework for it. So if staff knows, for example,

[1:33:14] Voice 5: hypothetically, that no increase above the CPI plus 1% is going to be considered, well,

[1:33:20] Voice 5: that's going to feed into the calculations that people make when they do their planning and

[1:33:25] Voice 5: should save us the painful exercise of doing the cuts business. Anyhow, I see Trustee Leckham has

[1:33:32] Voice 5: his hand up and then trustee evans uh i propose to do this we're going to hear from them both and

[1:33:37] Voice 5: then we are approximately you know we're at 320 335 after we've heard from those three trust our

[1:33:43] Voice 5: two trustees i propose to start going through each of these and asking you as a group uh first

[1:33:51] Voice 5: is this a guideline that we think is potentially feasible for 2526 and secondly is it something

[1:34:00] Voice 5: that can be adapted for the purposes of the current draft but we're not going to get there

[1:34:05] Voice 5: yet we're going to hear from trustee luckham and trustee evans first trustee luckham

[1:34:08] Trustee Luckham: thank you very

[1:34:09] Trustee Luckham: much and so this is good work uh and um i just have a question that i'd like to ask you i don't

[1:34:16] Trustee Luckham: have an answer or a suggestion or recommendation but just about extraordinary uh unexpected

[1:34:22] Trustee Luckham: expenses that we don't necessarily want to draw from surplus and i'm the two items that are in

[1:34:29] Trustee Luckham: our purview at this very moment is a building or lease change and a CAO recruiting expense.

[1:34:38] Trustee Luckham: And that both of those could be one to three or four percent. I wonder what the expectation would

[1:34:47] Trustee Luckham: be given these rules, because an extraordinary expense, you wouldn't necessarily expect it to

[1:34:52] Trustee Luckham: influence the strategic planning of the organization?

[1:34:58] Voice 5: I think the key there is,

[1:35:02] Voice 5: in one of the words you used, rules. These aren't rules. They're guidelines. We have to be adaptable,

[1:35:09] Voice 5: obviously. And if you have an extraordinary situation, well, we're going to have to be

[1:35:12] Voice 5: grownups and deal with it. But these are guidelines for the planning. If a contingency arises,

[1:35:20] Voice 5: rises then we deal with it trustee evans thank

[1:35:26] Voice 10: you i was going to just quickly say i really like

[1:35:29] Voice 10: um number one and number two number four i'm still in favor of and um number six

[1:35:39] Voice 10: and number seven i would say uh project cases are weighted favorably if they address two or

[1:35:47] Voice 10: more of the areas of the strategic plan um but the last one i'm a little nervous of just because

[1:35:54] Voice 10: business cases will be weighted more favorably if they if they simultaneously address operational

[1:35:58] Voice 10: needs of both conservancy and violence trust but what if you're an ltc and you're just doing a

[1:36:04] Voice 10: bylaw like you're doing an ocp or something and how do you like i'm i'm curious as to how you can

[1:36:11] Voice 10: bridge that that's covered that

[1:36:12] Voice 10: business case then be rejected no i

[1:36:15] Voice 10: just wanted to also rate

[1:36:16] Voice 10: I would also say like with regards to 1, 2, 3, 4, I threw in 10% there.

[1:36:27] Voice 10: Bear in mind, like last year, staff had a salary increase of 7%.

[1:36:32] Voice 10: So that already blew the cap out of the water, which is why I'm more in favor of that one than I am of just the CPI plus 1%.

[1:36:42] Voice 10: I would rather have a slightly higher cap that we don't have to get to than constantly be going over the cap and not being able to meet our own guideline.

[1:36:54] Voice 10: I would struggle with that.

[1:36:56] Voice 10: Thank you.

[1:36:57] Voice 5: We have your point.

[1:36:58] Voice 5: And to address your question, I don't see a contradiction here.

[1:37:04] Voice 5: The last item, which actually just as housekeeping here, the second to last item should be deleted because it's actually covered now.

[1:37:12] Voice 5: the second to last one yeah take that one out great now the last item uh trustee elliott's

[1:37:19] Voice 5: suggestion talks about weighting um business cases more favorably under certain circumstances

[1:37:25] Voice 5: and your question was with respect to advancing the mandate of the trust

[1:37:28] Voice 5: or local trust area stuff well uh the if we adopt that guideline advancing the mandate of the trust

[1:37:39] Voice 5: in a local trust area through long-term planning will be prioritized well that just speaks for

[1:37:44] Voice 5: for itself, which is like, yeah, okay, business cases will be weighted more favorably, but

[1:37:48] Voice 5: priority still remains advancing LTCs or sort of the work of the LTAs. So, you know, staff and

[1:37:57] Voice 5: trustees will have to balance those two together. They have to work with it. And I kind of like the

[1:38:02] Voice 5: idea of people having to sort of take multiple dimensions as they sort of feed information into

[1:38:08] Voice 5: the budget now as

[1:38:10] Voice 10: i said before i misread it

[1:38:12] Voice 5: okay now as i said before i mean we can go on for

[1:38:15] Voice 5: circle forever and we've got about 20 minutes before we run out of time here i would like to

[1:38:20] Voice 5: take these in turn in terms of having a straw poll uh just quickly see where we're standing

[1:38:25] Voice 5: let's go to the first very first item and um i see people got their hands up but i would just like

[1:38:31] Voice 5: Like anybody who objects to the first one in 4.25.26, does anybody think there's a problem with that one?

[1:38:42] Voice 5: Okay, that's encouraging.

[1:38:44] Voice 5: How about the second one, Trustee Graham's point, advancing the mandate, et cetera, et cetera.

[1:38:49] Voice 5: Does anybody have a problem with that guideline for the next budget cycle?

[1:38:56] Voice 5: Apparently not.

[1:38:58] Voice 5: Okay, what about the third one?

[1:39:00] Voice 5: I

[1:39:00] Voice 10: was going to say two people have their hands up for that.

[1:39:02] Voice 5: Oh, sorry.

[1:39:04] Voice 5: Right, Trustee Luckham and Trustee Boland.

[1:39:06] Voice 5: But I was actually canvassing whether or not people have objections here.

[1:39:11] Voice 1: My hand was up to speak generally, so I can take it down and we can start the hand thing again.

[1:39:17] Voice 1: OK, thank

[1:39:18] Voice 5: you. Thank you. Let's move on to the third item here.

[1:39:20] Voice 5: Resource requests for additional operating budgets, including one time projects and hiring new personnel will only be considered if it can be clearly demonstrated.

[1:39:29] Voice 5: It's a

[1:39:29] Voice 1: duplicate, I think.

[1:39:31] Voice 5: Yeah, it's a duplicate of the one at the top.

[1:39:33] Voice 5: this is trustee patrick's one does anybody object to that one because it's actually

[1:39:38] Voice 5: different than the first one

[1:39:41] Voice 1: well i'll

[1:39:44] Voice 5: speak up i actually think it's duplicative of one and two

[1:39:49] Voice 5: and having the one and two separate actually does delivers what trustee patrick's wants

[1:39:55] Voice 5: in a wider way so i would object to that one uh trustee evans are you objecting to that one

[1:40:04] Voice 5: she's nodding yeah okay

[1:40:06] Voice 12: i agree as well it's this one's confusing and i think it's addressed in the

[1:40:10] Voice 12: first one

[1:40:10] Trustee Patrick: yeah all right i was just gonna say what my my attempt was i was trying to say where

[1:40:17] Trustee Patrick: and that's where it was getting hard where you were investing in creating efficiencies so you

[1:40:22] Trustee Patrick: were you know rebalancing where work was directed so i'm fine with taking it out all right let's

[1:40:29] Voice 6: take it out okay

[1:40:33] Voice 5: uh then we have uh trustee evans um idea of setting a cap of 10 or cpi plus

[1:40:45] Voice 5: and then having budget reduction scenarios on top of that i'll be honest i think that just

[1:40:53] Voice 5: functionally has operational challenges because whatever the budget increase is it may not be

[1:40:59] Voice 5: enough in terms of reducing 1% or 2%. For example, if we end up in a scenario of 10%,

[1:41:07] Voice 5: because that's what the recommendation was, and then we have another scenario like an alternative

[1:41:11] Voice 5: of knocking down 2%, that means that we've locked ourselves into an 8% tax increase, which may or

[1:41:17] Voice 5: may not be what we want to get to. So I have reservations. Do other people have reservations

[1:41:23] Voice 5: about this? I see Trustee Evans, you've got your hand up here.

[1:41:26] Voice 10: I was just going to say,

[1:41:27] Voice 10: They may be separated out the issues rather than having them lumped together.

[1:41:34] Voice 5: Well, that's what the next two do.

[1:41:40] Voice 4: And I'll tell you what, in the interest of like this one's a bit more a bit tricky in the interest of just trying to sort of work through this.

[1:41:49] Voice 4: Let's go down to the very last

[1:41:51] Voice 5: one, if we can, Robert.

[1:41:53] Voice 5: Robert, and if you could move that text and put it underneath advancing, like just change

[1:42:03] Voice 5: the order here. Yeah, move that line and put it underneath the line that says advancing

[1:42:14] Voice 5: the mandate. Right. This one is kind of standalone, which is why I'm putting it up here. And I'm

[1:42:30] Voice 5: going to ask people whether or not they have any objections to this one as a guideline

[1:42:34] Voice 5: for 2526. Good. We don't.

[1:42:39] Voice 10: Well, sorry. I see Lacham has his hand up.

[1:42:44] Voice 4: yeah i like in this context doing this draw poll i just want people to speak up so trust you like

[1:42:51] Voice 4: do you have something to say about this one audio or

[1:43:00] Trustee Luckham: you change you change the order on me here i

[1:43:02] Trustee Luckham: was wanting to speak to the previous one but i'm fine with this one

[1:43:06] Voice 5: okay thank you uh does anybody

[1:43:09] Voice 5: object to this one trustee boland is objecting what is the objection and

[1:43:14] Voice 1: my objection really

[1:43:15] Voice 1: is that once again we've bundled two things that are different into one and given that we're just

[1:43:22] Voice 1: beginning this journey and i see this like we all need to look at this carefully and think through

[1:43:29] Voice 1: you know the consequences and the detail before it's any way i wouldn't even i'd hardly regard

[1:43:36] Voice 1: this as a it's like a preliminary draft but i i don't i agree with i like the idea of

[1:43:44] Voice 1: of simultaneously addressing operational needs but i don't like it being the the three or more

[1:43:52] Voice 1: areas of the corporate strategic plan being bundled in with that it's like too big a mouthful

[1:43:58] Voice 1: and you need to address the logic of both and um i also have a kind of a sneaking

[1:44:06] Voice 1: unease with the one about the operational needs because you know the trust and the

[1:44:11] Voice 1: honest trust conservancy theoretically are not two separate entities uh the budget comes together

[1:44:18] Voice 1: so i i don't i see this as kind of not necessary this year's example of the gist technician where

[1:44:25] Voice 1: it was supported by you know from two points of view is kind of you know maybe a you know a bit

[1:44:33] Voice 1: unusual but i i just find it a little bit unnecessary whereas the okay all right yeah

[1:44:39] Voice 1: we've got

[1:44:40] Voice 5: that point trustee peterson okay

[1:44:41] Voice 1: yeah

[1:44:43] Voice 11: i just want to support um uh trustee boland's

[1:44:46] Voice 11: notion of actually separating some of these out and uh the reason is is is that um i think

[1:44:56] Voice 11: if we look at the potential that we might be bringing these to trust council

[1:45:02] Voice 11: uh it's going to be they won't have had the benefit of our discussion here and i actually

[1:45:07] Voice 11: I want to push back against the bundling we've been doing

[1:45:11] Voice 11: for that very reason.

[1:45:16] Voice 5: What do you propose?

[1:45:21] Voice 11: I would

[1:45:22] Voice 11: unbundle the one that's

[1:45:24] Voice 11: presently highlighted.

[1:45:29] Voice 5: You would simply just want to have them separate?

[1:45:34] Voice 11: Not so much for the purposes of our discussion, but I'm thinking down the road of when

[1:45:38] Voice 11: When we're bringing this to Trust Council, I think the bundling actually will be doing everyone a disservice when we get to that point.

[1:45:45] Voice 11: And then I would say also the same with the one the Trust Council consider budget creases and will request staff to provide reduction scenarios.

[1:46:00] Voice 11: I actually think those should almost be two.

[1:46:02] Voice 11: But anyway, I'm going to leave it at that.

[1:46:03] Voice 11: And I'm fine with that.

[1:46:05] Voice 11: However, our process here, I'm just thinking about down the road.

[1:46:08] Voice 11: okay other people who haven't been in on the discussion looking at these all

[1:46:12] Voice 5: right well we're

[1:46:13] Voice 5: dealing with two at the moment of which there is at this juncture at least less than unanimous

[1:46:18] Voice 5: support uh trustee evans comments about this one yeah

[1:46:23] Voice 10: i was going to just uh echo what has just

[1:46:26] Voice 10: been said i think if we just removed out the conservancy portion i would be happy with that

[1:46:32] Voice 10: and if we wanted to add in another one that addresses that address the conservancy separately

[1:46:35] Voice 10: for their budget, that would be different.

[1:46:40] Voice 12: Sorry, but that's not the intent of the

[1:46:42] Voice 12: guideline that I'm proposing. It is to weight a business case favorably if it addresses both

[1:46:50] Voice 12: needs. And the only time that it really does is with mapping and GIS. And if you've been able to

[1:46:57] Voice 12: hear the conversation about mapping and GIS and how they are complementary, and I realize the

[1:47:02] Voice 12: budgets are related, but we have two different distinct, the regional conservation plan versus

[1:47:08] Voice 12: is the corporate strategic plan. So these are different entities for the purposes of

[1:47:15] Voice 12: budgeting, even though they are linked.

[1:47:17] Voice 10: Okay, I know that you're jumping in here. But I was

[1:47:20] Voice 10: going to say, if that's the case, I can't say that I could support something that weights

[1:47:25] Voice 10: more favorably a mapping project over another project that could also be more urgent. So again,

[1:47:31] Voice 10: I couldn't support this written the way that it is.

[1:47:35] Voice 5: Okay, let's pause on that one for a moment.

[1:47:37] Voice 5: there's a certain amount of controversy on that one and also uh the one immediately below it

[1:47:42] Voice 5: so let's skip those two for now it's like you know we've got two about which we actually do have

[1:47:47] Voice 5: what appears to be a reasonable support or consensus the other two the last two are

[1:47:55] Voice 5: actually interrelated uh no tax increase above the cpi for the preceding year plus one percent

[1:48:02] Voice 5: will be considered or approved uh yeah that does make you captive to inflation but inflation is

[1:48:08] Voice 5: also a fact of life and as i mentioned before guidelines are not rules then we have trustee

[1:48:15] Voice 5: patrick's suggestion which is whichever wherever we land on terms of the budget the recommendation

[1:48:22] Voice 5: for tax increase that we come up with we would like staff to give trust council the information

[1:48:28] Voice 5: it needs to know what a budget that's one percent or two percent less will look like i'll be honest

[1:48:34] Voice 5: this one looks really harmless to me and like helpful for discussion so i want to attack that

[1:48:38] Voice 5: one seeing if if anybody who objects to the very last one please speak up

[1:48:45] Trustee Luckham: nobody's

[1:48:47] Voice 5: objecting and

[1:48:48] Voice 5: on that base uh

[1:48:49] Trustee Luckham: chair i'm objecting yes okay

[1:48:51] Voice 5: go ahead go ahead yeah

[1:48:52] Trustee Luckham: um i just uh there's uh i'm

[1:48:55] Trustee Luckham: unable to resolve that in one notion we're saying that it shouldn't be more than a one percent

[1:49:01] Trustee Luckham: increase and then we're suggesting that the reduction could be one to two percent so uh let's

[1:49:07] Trustee Luckham: let's just say we did one percent and then we did two percent. So then we're we're cutting into the

[1:49:11] Trustee Luckham: consumer price index. I think that those should be two percent maximum of which there could be a one

[1:49:18] Trustee Luckham: or two percent maximum reduction proposed. So if you whatever the higher number is, I think we need

[1:49:23] Trustee Luckham: to allow ourselves to protect the CPI.

[1:49:28] Voice 5: Well, that's interesting. I mean, that's a political

[1:49:30] Voice 5: perspective as to you want you want to ensure that there's a certain amount gets spent every

[1:49:37] Voice 5: year for sure. I'm not clear though. I mean, I just want to make sure you're clear on the

[1:49:46] Voice 5: original concept, which is we as FPC at the end of the day are going to have to recommend a budget

[1:49:51] Voice 5: and it will have some kind of tax increase in it. That's where we're going to stand and we're

[1:49:57] Voice 5: going to defend that budget. But what trustee Patrick's asking for is that trust counsel be

[1:50:02] Voice 5: given the information of what one and 2% less than that looks like. I'm having trouble understanding

[1:50:09] Voice 5: why we would object to giving Trust Council the information so they've got it to work with. We're

[1:50:13] Voice 5: not saying we want the budget to be less than that. We're saying we want Trust Council to have

[1:50:18] Voice 5: a look at what a budget of 1% or 2% less would look like, and they can figure out what they

[1:50:24] Voice 5: want to do with it. But our recommendation is something separate from that.

[1:50:28] Trustee Luckham: And that's fair

[1:50:29] Trustee Luckham: enough. I understand that and support that last item. What I'm saying is I want to protect the

[1:50:36] Trustee Luckham: CPI index as a minimum. And if we are only giving ourselves permission to do a 1% increase and then

[1:50:44] Trustee Luckham: determine a 2% reduction, we're not protecting the consumer price index. And over time, that

[1:50:49] Trustee Luckham: will bite us as I believe it is presently.

[1:50:54] Voice 5: Okay. All right. It seems that we've got

[1:50:58] Voice 5: some controversy there. Do we have controversy over the no tax increase above CPI

[1:51:04] Voice 5: preceding year plus one percent does anybody object to that speak up please uh boland has

[1:51:10] Voice 5: got her hand i

[1:51:11] Voice 12: do i'm confused um preceding year plus one percent how does that compare with the

[1:51:16] Voice 12: previous one yeah like like trustee evans was saying it's like we're looking at double digits

[1:51:23] Voice 12: so previous yeah this one seems

[1:51:26] Voice 4: how are we looking at double proceeding

[1:51:30] Voice 12: 4

[1:51:32] Voice 5: .4 is one digit

[1:51:33] Voice 5: it in a fraction then it doesn't

[1:51:35] Voice 12: no no the current draft budget is 10.8 tax increase and so we're

[1:51:40] Voice 12: going to have to do some serious cutting to get down to like four percent that's crazy so i don't

[1:51:46] Voice 12: know if this is feasible why is

[1:51:47] Voice 14: that crazy because

[1:51:50] Voice 12: we have operational things that are

[1:51:53] Voice 12: long outstanding that have to be in this budget and so it's getting from 10 to four percent

[1:52:00] Voice 12: i think is challenging well

[1:52:03] Voice 5: let's remember let's not confuse ourselves here we're trying to figure

[1:52:08] Voice 5: out at the first level what makes sense at the level of principle and what i'm hearing is people

[1:52:15] Voice 5: hanging on to the idea of salvaging something from this year's budget forget that let's think

[1:52:20] Voice 5: about not this budget but going forward what kind of principles are applicable and after we've

[1:52:26] Voice 5: decided on that whether there's anything in that pile of guidelines small pile that is

[1:52:33] Voice 5: is a practical way applicable to this budget so i don't want anybody to feel that their favorite

[1:52:42] Voice 5: items in the budget is threatened and um we're really talking about the level of principle here

[1:52:48] Voice 5: trustee graham uh

[1:52:50] Voice 9: yeah thanks joe i just have a suggestion and i'm i'm okay with the second to

[1:52:54] Voice 9: the last the the maximum i have a problem with that 10 or cpi or cpi plus one how about

[1:53:01] Voice 9: the maximum is cpi plus non-discretion increase period that's the maximum so in other words we

[1:53:10] Voice 9: cover what we can't control that's non-discretional that's wages and and lease increases we have no

[1:53:16] Voice 9: control over that and then we add cpi that's inflation and that's where we target our maximum

[1:53:23] Voice 9: a moment that's just my suggestion that

[1:53:26] Voice 5: would be that would be a change we're suggesting to the

[1:53:28] Voice 5: second to last item so instead of saying plus one percent it would be plus what how would you

[1:53:34] Voice 5: phrase that uh audio uh trustee

[1:53:41] Voice 9: graham sorry plus non-discretion non-discretionary interest

[1:53:47] Voice 9: increases okay yeah increases

[1:54:02] Trustee Luckham: on non-discretionary expenses is that what you're saying

[1:54:06] Voice 9: thank you

[1:54:07] Voice 9: you it's past my nap time

[1:54:11] Trustee Luckham: mine too yeah

[1:54:14] Voice 5: okay so what you're trying to say uh uh no tax increase

[1:54:18] Voice 5: above the computer consumer price index the previous year plus uh increases in non-discretionary

[1:54:28] Voice 5: expenses exactly yeah uh that would so that would be plus increases in not on um sure yeah okay

[1:54:38] Voice 5: Okay. Well,

[1:54:39] Voice 5: that's alternative language we have there. I mean, is this something we,

[1:54:43] Voice 5: does anybody object to Tracey Graham's suggestion here? I see Tracey Evans, you have your hand up.

[1:54:49] Voice 10: I don't object. I think this actually would make me feel more comfortable with it. And I was going

[1:54:54] Voice 10: to suggest that we delete the paragraph above it. That was my suggestion before. So let's get rid of

[1:54:59] Voice 10: it altogether. I would feel more comfortable having his suggestion in place.

[1:55:04] Voice 5: Well, that sounds,

[1:55:05] Voice 5: That's constructive, thank you.

[1:55:08] Voice 5: Let's delete that one immediately above.

[1:55:13] Voice 5: And that's predicated on getting rid of the 1%.

[1:55:18] Voice 5: But before we do that, Trustee Boland.

[1:55:22] Voice 1: Yeah, sorry, my hand seems to go up and down

[1:55:24] Voice 1: without my control.

[1:55:26] Voice 1: I don't know, it's kind of connected with,

[1:55:28] Voice 1: anyway, bottom line is the only,

[1:55:30] Voice 1: I have a good suggestion, I think,

[1:55:33] Voice 1: which is to ask Julia to cast her eye over this proposal,

[1:55:36] Voice 1: proposal because we are struggling with, you know, a number of things. One that I think is

[1:55:42] Voice 1: like we start a budget cycle in April 2024, but the actual budget is for the year beginning April

[1:55:50] Voice 1: 2025. So talking about the CPI at the preceding year, et cetera, is not going to cut it. I think

[1:55:58] Voice 1: we have to look at some sort of forecasted cpi situation um and then uh the other thing is um

[1:56:07] Voice 1: with respect to trustee graham's i get what he's trying to do but the non-discretionary increases

[1:56:14] Voice 1: are fueled by the cpi um to some degree so we're kind of um you know we're kind of i don't know

[1:56:24] Voice 1: what the word is mathematically but we're we're um applying the increase twice arguably so we have

[1:56:31] Voice 1: to somehow or other separate out i get the idea but there's a risk that we are um you know double

[1:56:41] Voice 1: applying the cpi twice that's all so i think julia would be a good person to try and help us

[1:56:48] Voice 1: figured

[1:56:48] Voice 5: out how to do it. I think it's a given

[1:56:50] Voice 5: that we would want

[1:56:53] Voice 5: Director Vaughan...

[1:56:53] Voice 1: Let's stop agonizing over it

[1:56:57] Voice 1: and just say, go straight

[1:56:58] Voice 1: to her.

[1:57:01] Voice 5: We're dealing with some

[1:57:02] Voice 5: principles here

[1:57:03] Voice 5: that people need to be comfortable with.

[1:57:06] Voice 5: We're running out of time here. It's almost 4 o'clock.

[1:57:09] Voice 5: We're going to run a little over.

[1:57:10] Voice 5: Trustee Evans.

[1:57:12] Voice 10: Can we delete

[1:57:14] Voice 10: the third from the bottom?

[1:57:17] Voice 5: The highlighted part.

[1:57:19] Voice 5: Yeah. Just

[1:57:19] Voice 5: get rid of that one. Thank you. All right. We've reached some, I'm not quite sure.

[1:57:31] Voice 5: I mean, I think we've gotten some pretty clear direction happily with respect to the first two

[1:57:36] Voice 5: items. We've got things to discuss, it seems, with respect to the remaining three. We don't

[1:57:43] Voice 5: necessarily have unanimity. I'm not sure that we necessarily want to have a resolution or vote

[1:57:49] Voice 5: vote on this. My sense of it is that the remaining three with further work might be turned into

[1:57:55] Voice 5: something useful. Is there anything or any concepts that we're working with here that we

[1:58:03] Voice 5: believe should be applied to this year's budget as opposed to the next budget cycle? Okay, we're not

[1:58:13] Voice 5: ready to discuss that, I don't think. What do we want to do with this information? Do we want to

[1:58:19] Voice 5: to kick it over to the february meeting we've made a bit of progress here um we don't have to

[1:58:25] Voice 5: make a decision now um but we would have to i think drill into the other three at some other

[1:58:36] Voice 5: time how do we want to deal with this i'm open to suggestions because i don't have any great ideas

[1:58:39] Voice 5: as myself trustee elliot so

[1:58:42] Voice 12: what if we test it out um take three of these guidelines that we

[1:58:49] Voice 12: have general agreement on and see if we can apply it to this year's budget and how does it sit

[1:58:56] Voice 5: well i know there are going to be trustees who are going to care about the tax increase let's

[1:59:01] Voice 5: not kid ourselves about that we can we can wrestle and have a tug of war about that depending on our

[1:59:05] Voice 5: perspectives but we all know that you go to trust council with a 10 tax increase it's not going to

[1:59:12] Voice 5: happen and we need to anticipate that so if you talk about running three of them past trust

[1:59:21] Voice 5: council first of all i'd like to leave that decision of which three they are no sorry chair

[1:59:26] Voice 12: um i didn't mean running them three of them past trust council i mean testing three of these

[1:59:30] Voice 12: guidelines against the current draft budget and budget

[1:59:33] Voice 12: in february for discussion oh

[1:59:38] Voice 5: i see having

[1:59:38] Voice 5: staff uh run those as an experiment yeah okay thank you um the first two are in the cards

[1:59:48] Voice 5: because people seem to be behind them what do people think about including as the third one

[1:59:52] Voice 5: the no tax increase one as amended by trustee graham see what it looks like trustee evans

[2:00:00] Voice 10: And I was going to say, I prefer to run the last one.

[2:00:06] Voice 10: I mean, it would be worth running the fourth one as well to see where we fall out as a test.

[2:00:13] Voice 10: But like

[2:00:13] Voice 10: what Trustee Elliott said, guideline one, two and five, I think, would be good, good ones to play with this year.

[2:00:23] Voice 10: I'm happy to play with number four and and see what that looks like in the February meeting.

[2:00:30] Voice 5: I'd like to see four and five, like instead of having three, like having four and five run through as part of the test, because I see them as related.

[2:00:41] Voice 10: One and two.

[2:00:43] Voice 5: Yeah, one, two, four and five. Does that make sense? Can we do that?

[2:00:50] Voice 5: And for experimental purposes, can we agree that number four will be changed to the language that Trustee Graham had suggested?

[2:00:59] Voice 5: Thumbs up from Evans.

[2:01:00] Voice 5: Okay, let's fix that. Nobody's howling about it.

[2:01:03] Voice 5: But let's fix the last second, the last one, number four, to read no tax increases, no tax increase above the CPI of the preceding year, plus increases in non-discretionary expenses.

[2:01:23] Voice 5: Period. Yeah, will be considered period. Yeah.

[2:01:30] Voice 5: So if we ask Julia and team to sort of experiment with those, I think Trustee Elliott's suggestion is a good one.

[2:01:38] Voice 5: And it might it'll give us some sense of what this stuff looks like in practice.

[2:01:42] Voice 5: And why don't we just, you know, we had some back and forth about the third item.

[2:01:49] Voice 5: What do we want to include that in the experiment? Or are we overloading staff if we do that one?

[2:01:59] Voice 1: I think overloading, but, you know, maybe we could have a quick look at it ourselves just to get a feel for it.

[2:02:07] Voice 1: Or Toby could.

[2:02:09] Voice 5: Well, you know what?

[2:02:10] Voice 5: But it may well be, as Trustee Elliott pointed out, there's only the one, the GIS issue.

[2:02:16] Voice 5: So I'm going to suggest this.

[2:02:17] Voice 5: I mean, like, we've been dealing with in the abstract.

[2:02:21] Voice 5: It does make a lot of sense to see what this looks like in practice.

[2:02:26] Voice 5: And let's ask Director Mobbs to run this through the machine.

[2:02:31] Voice 5: And in February, report back on what it looks like.

[2:02:35] Voice 5: Does that make sense?

[2:02:38] Voice 12: Agreed.

[2:02:38] Voice 5: Do we need a resolution to that, for that effect?

[2:02:41] Voice 5: or asking staff to blah, blah, blah, do all this stuff?

[2:02:45] Voice 12: Probably, yes.

[2:02:47] Voice 7: David here.

[2:02:48] Voice 7: Yeah, if you can – if these are guideline recommendations for council,

[2:02:53] Voice 7: then the resolution that that's the case, and if you're asking staff to do anything,

[2:02:58] Voice 7: I can't speak for Julia and her ability to do that,

[2:03:02] Voice 7: but you could make a request and then Director Moss can let you know

[2:03:06] Voice 7: if there's any issues around that when she's available.

[2:03:08] Voice 7: level well

[2:03:12] Voice 4: are we talking

[2:03:12] Voice 5: about uh director mobs coming to the february meeting with a draft budget

[2:03:18] Voice 5: that on the one hand a draft budget that uh is as is without potential guidelines and then another

[2:03:27] Voice 5: one that incorporates all of these guidelines so we've got those two alternatives to look at

[2:03:33] Voice 5: trustee ellie is that what we're looking for

[2:03:35] Voice 12: i i think we do need staff advice on what is feasible

[2:03:39] Voice 12: Director Marder's point that, you know, this is budget crunch time.

[2:03:42] Voice 12: We don't want to be running superfluous scenarios.

[2:03:45] Voice 12: So perhaps, Chair, you could have a further conversation with Julia and say,

[2:03:50] Voice 12: which, you know, could you run these two guidelines or three guidelines

[2:03:54] Voice 12: so that we can test drive it out, decide on the most likely two or three,

[2:03:59] Voice 12: and that informs the draft budget.

[2:04:02] Voice 12: But I think we need staff advice on that before we give them work to do.

[2:04:07] Voice 5: So how do we word that?

[2:04:08] Voice 5: what do we want what exactly are we going to ask staff to physically do with this information

[2:04:12] Voice 5: request

[2:04:17] Voice 12: staff feedback or advice on incorporating three guidelines from this discussion

[2:04:28] Voice 12: to inform the next draft of the 2024-25 budget

[2:04:35] Voice 13: well

[2:04:40] Voice 4: i think

[2:04:41] Voice 5: one question we have to ask is whether

[2:04:43] Voice 5: it's feasible to incorporate any of these guidelines in the budget. And maybe it's just

[2:04:51] Voice 5: like too cumbersome. Anyhow, Trustee Evans.

[2:04:59] Voice 10: I was going to say I liked Trustee Elliott's

[2:05:02] Voice 10: suggestion earlier that you have a sideline conversation with Director Mobs. Ask her about

[2:05:08] Voice 10: this. Ask her what's feasible. And then if a resolution is needed, we can do that with an RWM.

[2:05:14] Voice 5: Okay. Trustee Boland, what do you think about that?

[2:05:20] Voice 1: I think that's a great idea.

[2:05:21] Voice 1: I actually think that the only ones that Julia can really be responsible for are the last two.

[2:05:27] Voice 1: The others actually come out of the business cases and each person would have to evaluate and change their business case.

[2:05:37] Voice 1: So I don't think the first three can be addressed by Julia and not at this late stage by pretty much anyone.

[2:05:44] Voice 1: But the last two, we could actually run the current budget through that.

[2:05:48] Voice 1: But we would need advice from Julia, I think, on, you know, our thinking behind what we want.

[2:05:54] Voice 1: And then we do a resolution with that meeting.

[2:05:56] Voice 1: Yeah.

[2:05:58] Voice 5: I'm not going to prejudge it.

[2:06:00] Voice 5: I will have that conversation with Julia.

[2:06:03] Voice 5: And depending on what she says is feasible, then we'll have the RWM and we'll go from there.

[2:06:08] Voice 5: How does that sound?

[2:06:09] Voice 5: Okay.

[2:06:11] Voice 4: It is now 4.07.

[2:06:14] Voice 4: Seven, I'm proposing to adjourn the meeting

[2:06:18] Voice 5: on that direction provided by you guys.

[2:06:21] Voice 5: Is there anything else that we need to address today

[2:06:24] Voice 5: about this issue?

[2:06:30] Voice 5: Nope.

[2:06:31] Voice 5: Okay, I'm gonna ask Robert to email me

[2:06:35] Voice 5: the final text that we came up with.

[2:06:37] Voice 5: So I have that to work with when I communicate with Julia.

[2:06:40] Voice 5: Apart from that, I think we're done

[2:06:42] Voice 5: and we can adjourn to the next meeting,

[2:06:43] Voice 5: which is scheduled for February fill in the blanks.

[2:06:47] Voice 5: forgotten what it is uh trustee peterson yeah

[2:06:51] Voice 11: i'd just like to request and i'm not sure if others

[2:06:53] Voice 11: want that but i was just thinking it'd be it might be nice for all of us to get a copy of this uh

[2:06:59] Voice 11: robert to all of us if we can all

[2:07:02] Voice 5: mull over it absolutely understood thank you uh robert please

[2:07:07] Voice 5: do that much appreciated if you can uh any other comments i

[2:07:11] Voice 10: was just gonna say the next meeting's

[2:07:12] Voice 10: February 21st I

[2:07:14] Voice 5: think we need a motion to adjourn by somebody

[2:07:16] Voice 14: second

[2:07:19] Voice 5: all those

[2:07:22] Voice 5: in favor all

[2:07:23] Voice 14: those

[2:07:24] Voice 5: opposed can go away we're adjourned