Islands Trust Financial Planning Committee regular meeting, October 23, 2024

[0:00:00] Voice 15: today at the moment. I've got only one screen, so if I'm a bit slow to mute and unmute,

[0:00:04] Voice 15: that's probably why.

[0:00:07] Voice 12: And we are now recording and live streaming.

[0:00:12] Voice 9: Thank you. I'm now calling this meeting of the Financial Planning Committee to order.

[0:00:19] Voice 9: Welcome, all attendees. First item, let's review the agenda. Are there any late items, new items,

[0:00:27] Voice 9: or does anybody want to reorder anything in the agenda? I'm not hearing anything,

[0:00:35] Voice 9: anything. So we'll move on to the next item. Unless I hear otherwise, I'm going to assume

[0:00:40] Voice 9: the agenda has been approved by general consent. Thank you. The public comment, we do have

[0:00:50] Voice 9: a public comment period. Do we have any members of the public who have any remarks they wish

[0:00:54] Voice 9: to make?

[0:00:55] Voice 12: No, there are no members of the public present at this moment.

[0:01:00] Voice 9: Thank you. And I see also from the agenda that we do not have any delegations nor any

[0:01:06] Voice 9: any correspondence to deal with so we'll move on to the uh the clearing up of basically administrative

[0:01:13] Voice 9: housekeeping which we have two items there one is we have uh in the agenda package the draft

[0:01:19] Voice 9: minutes of the previous uh meeting which was held on august 28th um does uh anyone have any comments

[0:01:28] Voice 9: about those um uh about the contents of the minutes or any changes they think would be

[0:01:33] Voice 9: advisable not hearing any comments or objections i'm going to assume that those draft minutes have

[0:01:43] Voice 9: been approved by the consent of this committee next item resolution without meeting this

[0:01:53] Voice 9: this item here is relates to the most recent resolution without meaning we just had just

[0:01:58] Voice 9: to change in fact the meaning of this date from the 13th to today i'm going to assume that that

[0:02:04] Voice 9: That has also been, will also be approved by general consent because we're all here and the meeting is happening as required.

[0:02:12] Voice 9: All right, if we could turn to the agenda, please, as we race into the heart of the business.

[0:02:20] Voice 9: Follow-up action list.

[0:02:24] Voice 9: Do we have any comments?

[0:02:27] Voice 9: Director Mobs, I should ask you if you have anything.

[0:02:30] Voice 9: First of all, I ask you to speak first if you've got anything you wish to address with respect to the follow-up action list, by which I mean any things that you or the staff would like to see this committee put some more emphasis on or anything you'd like us, from us, in order to facilitate the work.

[0:02:52] Voice 15: Thanks, Chair.

[0:02:53] Voice 15: Nope, I don't think there's anything that's required specifically from this committee at this juncture.

[0:02:59] Voice 15: You will note that the follow-up action list is getting shorter.

[0:03:02] Voice 15: There is only one page in this meeting agenda and there's only one item that remains as in progress.

[0:03:08] Voice 15: The rest of the items are complete. That's a really good thing.

[0:03:12] Voice 15: A lot of the work that financial planning committee undertakes is very cyclical work that traditionally doesn't show up in a follow up action list.

[0:03:20] Voice 15: So even if our follow up action lists are short or small, certainly doesn't mean that we're not doing enough work.

[0:03:25] Voice 15: Most of our cyclical work doesn't land on the follow up action list.

[0:03:29] Voice 15: I think that's all I need to say. Happy to take questions.

[0:03:32] Voice 9: Thank you for that.

[0:03:34] Voice 9: Committee members, do you have any questions for Director Mobs

[0:03:37] Voice 9: with respect to follow-up action work as itemized?

[0:03:44] Voice 13: Congratulations.

[0:03:46] Voice 9: Yes, I think that's a fair point.

[0:03:50] Voice 9: Having a shorter follow-up action list is actually quite gratifying.

[0:03:56] Voice 9: Less for you, less for us.

[0:03:58] Voice 9: All right, now we're into, in fact, I'm going to congratulate myself.

[0:04:04] Voice 9: at 10.04, we've zipped right into the guts of this meeting.

[0:04:08] Voice 9: And there's no running away now, Director Moggs,

[0:04:11] Voice 9: we're really into the heavy lifting

[0:04:13] Voice 9: where you've got to come in.

[0:04:14] Voice 9: Could you please start with item 7.1, of course,

[0:04:18] Voice 9: the overview of this budget briefing, thank you.

[0:04:24] Voice 15: Thanks, Chair, and yes, I'm happy to walk us

[0:04:26] Voice 15: through the first draft of the budget.

[0:04:28] Voice 15: So a reminder for this committee,

[0:04:30] Voice 15: this is the first draft of the budget.

[0:04:33] Voice 15: There are six iterations of this budget that are looked at during the budget cycle.

[0:04:38] Voice 15: FPC will see the budget twice before it lands at Council in December,

[0:04:41] Voice 15: and then FPC will see it twice again before it lands at Trust Council in March.

[0:04:46] Voice 15: So this is the first blush. There's still some pieces that are contributing to the budget that are being ironed out

[0:04:51] Voice 15: and still need some additional work, which is pretty customary for us to be massaging things as we move through the budget cycle.

[0:04:59] Voice 15: But I'm happy to present what we've got at this juncture.

[0:05:01] Voice 15: on page 13 of the agenda there is a table there that just highlights what the various contributors

[0:05:07] Voice 15: to the budget have been up to so specifically we list the various trust bodies executive committee

[0:05:14] Voice 15: has taken a look at their budget submission for next fiscal year the business cases that are

[0:05:20] Voice 15: associated with the policy statement has not yet been reviewed by executive committee they will be

[0:05:25] Voice 15: reviewing that at their october 30th meeting and that will be advancing to fpc in as part of the

[0:05:31] Voice 15: this agenda because it was ready in draft format. However, executive committee has not yet seen it

[0:05:36] Voice 15: and you may see a few changes to that business case come forward after their review. Governance

[0:05:42] Voice 15: committee does have a few business cases in the works. They've not yet reviewed those three

[0:05:45] Voice 15: business cases yet and so the amounts for those are not included in the draft budget because

[0:05:50] Voice 15: they're not a particularly strategic plan item. However, after governance committee's November

[0:05:55] Voice 15: meeting, if there's any business cases or funding request submissions that that committee wants to

[0:06:00] Voice 15: advance to the budget cycle. FPC will see those at your next meeting in November.

[0:06:05] Voice 15: Regional Planning Committee has

[0:06:07] Voice 9: also done some work.

[0:06:08] Voice 9: Director Mobbs, a quick question. I appreciate the Governance Committee

[0:06:14] Voice 9: potential projects are in preparation, so it's not feasible to talk in any sort of firm way about

[0:06:23] Voice 9: numbers, but do you have any general sense about what these proposed initiatives, if the committee

[0:06:28] Voice 9: committee is fine with them, what they might roughly add up to in terms of a financial and

[0:06:33] Voice 9: staff resource requirement?

[0:06:37] Voice 15: So as of right now, the drafts are not indicating a need for any

[0:06:42] Voice 15: additional staff resources to support the work. There is a project governance committee we'll be

[0:06:47] Voice 15: looking at to review all of Trust Council's policies. That would require some additional

[0:06:52] Voice 15: legal funds to make sure that in instances where we need legal review, we can obtain that.

[0:06:57] Voice 15: there is administrative work associated with that which we believe we can resource from existing

[0:07:02] Voice 15: staff personnel and so that cost for that piece of work might only be around five to seven thousand

[0:07:08] Voice 15: dollars and i know robert barlow has actually been assisting with some of those business case

[0:07:14] Voice 15: reviews so if i misspeak robert feel free to correct me one of the other business cases going

[0:07:19] Voice 15: forward to governance committee is around exploring a secretariat position for the islands trust

[0:07:25] Voice 15: there is a trustee or two that believes that if this exercise is very clear and straightforward

[0:07:30] Voice 15: most people I talk to staff and trustees don't believe that to be the case so it's difficult

[0:07:35] Voice 15: for us to estimate what might come forward for that particular piece of work so I won't attempt

[0:07:40] Voice 15: to do that the third piece is around hiring an external consultant to review trustee remuneration

[0:07:45] Voice 15: values so former FPC and staff have already undertaken work to review trustee remuneration

[0:07:50] Voice 15: remuneration policy itself, but the values have not been looked at. And the best practice is to

[0:07:55] Voice 15: have an independent third party review those values. So that would not be trustees and it

[0:08:00] Voice 15: would not be staff. And so there would be the potential hiring of an external consultant to

[0:08:04] Voice 15: take on that work. That might land in the neighborhood of $8,000 to $10,000. So we might

[0:08:09] Voice 15: be looking at $15,000 to $20,000 coming out of governance committee. But of course, it depends

[0:08:14] Voice 15: on how they want to approach these various projects.

[0:08:17] Voice 9: Understood. That's all entirely

[0:08:19] Voice 9: is provisional subject to governance committee actually deciding to do some or all of these

[0:08:23] Voice 9: things all right thank you for that director mobs but please carry on uh

[0:08:28] Voice 15: so regional planning

[0:08:29] Voice 15: committee has also started their budget discussions um they've reviewed all the business cases that

[0:08:33] Voice 15: have come forward from local trust committees and all of those are included in this agenda

[0:08:37] Voice 15: with fpc today um other business cases for regional planning committee work uh tied to

[0:08:43] Voice 15: their strategic plan projects that they're working on on behalf of council are the freshwater

[0:08:47] Voice 15: water sustainability and housing strategies there hasn't been any business cases that have been

[0:08:51] Voice 15: submitted to rpc and submitted to the budget cycle at this juncture related to those because

[0:08:57] Voice 15: their strategic plan work there are placeholders in this budget for that i think we've got twenty

[0:09:02] Voice 15: six thousand dollars as a placeholder for rpc work and that will be adjusted as we see business

[0:09:07] Voice 15: cases coming out of regional planning committee i believe they also meet in a few weeks

[0:09:12] Voice 15: uh

[0:09:14] Voice 9: before you proceed uh director mobs before he proceeds the next item trustee patrick has

[0:09:19] Voice 9: her hand up yeah

[0:09:21] Trustee Patrick: uh rbc i'm not certain we saw all of the business cases uh there was they weren't

[0:09:25] Trustee Patrick: all ready for september 4th was the last time we met so they many of them didn't exist um for that

[0:09:30] Trustee Patrick: meeting uh what we wanted to do at our next meeting was to also look at the um all of the

[0:09:35] Trustee Patrick: projects with sort of two end of term eyeballs as well so not just this budget but to look at

[0:09:40] Trustee Patrick: the work in terms of uh you know a two-year uh cycle so that's what we want to do in our next

[0:09:46] Trustee Patrick: meeting hopefully thank

[0:09:49] Voice 6: you um

[0:09:51] Voice 15: and so if i i do expect that november's fpc will see the results

[0:09:57] Voice 15: of that meeting at rpc is that fair great thanks trustee patrick um okay marching on to trust

[0:10:04] Voice 15: programs committee uh trust programs committee is ahead of us all they've reviewed all of their

[0:10:08] Voice 15: funding requests for next fiscal year and the amounts for those pieces of work are included

[0:10:12] Voice 15: in the draft budget and this agenda package today.

[0:10:15] Voice 15: And local trust committees, as I've mentioned,

[0:10:18] Voice 15: have submitted business cases for their projects

[0:10:20] Voice 15: that are valued at $5,000 or more,

[0:10:22] Voice 15: which is in line with our policy.

[0:10:24] Voice 15: The Conservancy Board is missing from this table.

[0:10:27] Voice 15: My thanks to Trustee Boland for her eagle eyes

[0:10:29] Voice 15: and noticing that.

[0:10:30] Voice 15: But the Conservancy Board has also met

[0:10:32] Voice 15: and they've submitted their budget request

[0:10:34] Voice 15: into this budget cycle as well.

[0:10:36] Voice 15: There's a briefing in the agenda

[0:10:38] Voice 15: that outlines their request and the rationale for it.

[0:10:41] Voice 15: operational business unit so all the directors across the organization have also taken a look

[0:10:46] Voice 15: at the needs of their departments for next fiscal year and have also submitted their operational

[0:10:51] Voice 15: needs into the budget cycle at this juncture we don't have any business cases requesting

[0:10:57] Voice 15: significant resources as far as operational work is concerned there's been a number of

[0:11:03] Voice 15: considerations for operational initiatives that have not advanced into the budget cycle

[0:11:08] Voice 15: um some of that was to make sure that we're keeping the budget um reduced by the one to

[0:11:14] Voice 15: two percent that trust council is hoping for and some of that is simply due to time the management

[0:11:21] Voice 15: look at all which might be critical

[0:11:26] Voice 9: uh your audio is breaking up uh perhaps you could repeat the last um five or six sentences

[0:11:33] Voice 9: this place going

[0:11:39] Voice 15: with your audio there Bernardo and there's you're breaking up

[0:11:53] Trustee Allen: maybe turn off the video okay

[0:11:57] Voice 15: I'll give that a go okay how's this

[0:12:01] Voice 9: better better

[0:12:03] Voice 15: all right so the last piece is there's no operational initiatives that have

[0:12:09] Voice 15: advanced into this draft of the budget. There's a few initiatives that have been proposed to the

[0:12:16] Voice 15: management team that are currently being investigated, but there's nothing that's

[0:12:21] Voice 15: been identified at this juncture as being critical, needing to advance in the budget,

[0:12:27] Voice 15: and so taking the view of Trust Council's direction with the guidelines given in September,

[0:12:34] Voice 15: anything that's not critical is not advancing. There are still a few initiatives that

[0:12:39] Voice 15: need to be investigated by management team and so we might see a few things come forward in

[0:12:43] Voice 15: the next draft of the budget but workloads and timelines have just not allowed for that at this

[0:12:48] Voice 15: juncture.

[0:12:51] Voice 9: Do you have anything to say or anything that you consider not worthy about the business

[0:12:57] Voice 9: cases submitted by the local trust committees?

[0:13:03] Voice 15: I have not management team doesn't review the

[0:13:06] Voice 15: local trust committee business cases to determine whether or not they are worthy or not those are

[0:13:11] Voice 15: very political pieces of work those are reviewed by regional planning committee trustee Patrick's

[0:13:16] Voice 15: indicated that they haven't seen them all but what has been submitted by the local trust committees

[0:13:21] Voice 15: has landed in this agenda all

[0:13:24] Voice 9: right thank you we have a number of questions trustee Allen

[0:13:29] Trustee Allen: thank you I know I know I'm here in this trust programs committee but I'm just going to question

[0:13:35] Trustee Allen: about Hornby Islands had a business case and it doesn't seem to be here and I'm not sure

[0:13:41] Trustee Allen: where it went and it was actually for a fair amount of money

[0:13:45] Trustee Allen: $31,500 so I don't know whether

[0:13:49] Trustee Allen: Which local trust

[0:13:50] Trustee Allen: committee was that?

[0:13:51] Voice 15: Can

[0:13:52] Trustee Allen: you

[0:13:54] Voice 15: tell us which local trust committee that was?

[0:13:57] Trustee Allen: That's Hornby Island

[0:13:58] Trustee Allen: Hornby

[0:14:00] Voice 15: Island. If it's

[0:14:04] Voice 15: not in this agenda package it means it was missed. I would need

[0:14:08] Voice 15: to pull up the budget document itself to see if the amount is

[0:14:12] Voice 15: is included. I'll just go have a look right now. I don't see it included there. So it looks like

[0:14:20] Voice 15: that one has been missed in submission to the budget cycle. And so if that's the case, we would

[0:14:25] Voice 15: see a $30,000 increase to local trust committee projects.

[0:14:28] Trustee Allen: Yeah, 31. And

[0:14:30] Voice 15: I'll make a note to track

[0:14:30] Voice 15: that one down.

[0:14:32] Trustee Allen: Okay, thanks. So

[0:14:35] Voice 8: I

[0:14:40] Voice 13: do notice that later on there are, there's one new staff or two,

[0:14:48] Voice 13: I can't quite remember now. One was temporary and the other was to make one permanent. And

[0:14:55] Voice 13: would those not be included in operational business unit business cases and budget requests?

[0:15:02] Voice 13: Or where would they fit in this list? Thanks.

[0:15:08] Voice 15: They will be submitted once they have been

[0:15:11] Voice 15: reviewed by executive committee. So executive committee with oversight of operations will be

[0:15:16] Voice 15: reviewing any requests for new staff. Staff were not able to complete the business cases

[0:15:22] Voice 15: for the new staff position at this juncture and so Executive Committee will be looking at that

[0:15:27] Voice 15: at their October 30th meeting. The request to make the last year's temporary position permanent

[0:15:35] Voice 15: will also be looked at by Executive Committee at the same time. Those types of decisions can

[0:15:41] Voice 15: can advance to Trust Council outside of the budget cycle.

[0:15:43] Voice 15: And so we might see that decision advance to Trust Council

[0:15:47] Voice 15: earlier than the March budget approval.

[0:15:49] Voice 15: And any decision of Trust Council related to that

[0:15:51] Voice 15: will, of course, be incorporated into the budget.

[0:15:56] Voice 13: Okay, maybe it would be helpful.

[0:15:58] Voice 13: I don't know if there's a category they could fit under here

[0:16:00] Voice 13: because new staff requests are kind of a significant item

[0:16:04] Voice 13: in terms of the budget.

[0:16:06] Voice 13: So it would be helpful, I think, to see them noted here.

[0:16:10] Voice 13: Thank you very much.

[0:16:13] Voice 15: Yeah, that's fair comment.

[0:16:15] Voice 15: We can do that.

[0:16:16] Voice 15: The executive committee agenda with their business cases will actually be hitting the

[0:16:20] Voice 15: streets on Friday this week.

[0:16:21] Voice 15: So if you're interested in taking over the business case in advance of FPC's November

[0:16:25] Voice 15: meeting, that would be the way to do it.

[0:16:27] Voice 15: As staff, we didn't feel it was appropriate to advance a staffing request without executive

[0:16:32] Voice 15: committee's stamp of approval.

[0:16:34] Voice 15: So that's why we've held that one.

[0:16:37] Voice 15: But good question.

[0:16:41] Voice 9: All right.

[0:16:42] Voice 9: Thank you, Director Mobs.

[0:16:43] Voice 9: I don't see any further questions on this section, so perhaps you could move on to discussing the summary results.

[0:16:53] Voice 15: Okay, I will do that.

[0:16:55] Voice 15: Our summary results start on page 14 of the agenda.

[0:16:58] Voice 15: So next year's budget comes in with a price tag of $10.8 million.

[0:17:03] Voice 15: $10 million of that is directed towards operations, and that excludes amortization expense, which of course is a non-cash expense that we do not tax for.

[0:17:12] Voice 15: There's a project budget that's proposed at $572,000 and some capital funding that's required of $162,000.

[0:17:20] Voice 15: So the results of this plan spending would generate a 6% general tax increase to local trust areas, which is exclusive of the non-market change values, which is property values associated with new construction and development.

[0:17:32] Voice 15: development. There is a proposed 34.4% general tax levy increase to Bowen Island, which of course

[0:17:40] Voice 15: is a staggering increase. I think we can all agree that that would not be a palatable increase

[0:17:46] Voice 15: to Bowen Islanders, and that's very understandable. There is some work that needs to be done by senior

[0:17:52] Voice 15: staff to look into that calculation. That's the number that is being spat out by our calculation

[0:17:57] Voice 15: calculation currently. Usually in the budget cycle early on, I have a chance to dig into that

[0:18:02] Voice 15: calculation, find ways to make sure that the Bowen levy remains reasonable and make sure that the

[0:18:08] Voice 15: allocation feeding into that calculation are correct. With my workloads at the moment, I

[0:18:12] Voice 15: haven't had a chance to do that. But my expectation is once I have the opportunity to take on that

[0:18:17] Voice 15: work, we will see that amount come down to more reasonable values. The factors that influence the

[0:18:23] Voice 15: the Bowen Island levy are the increases to Trust Council's budget, the Conservancy budget,

[0:18:28] Voice 15: and increases to general administration. So the Office of the CAO, Administrative Services,

[0:18:35] Voice 15: Legislative Services, and Information Services, where we see cost increases there,

[0:18:39] Voice 15: Bowen also contributes to those costs. There are a few items missing from the budget,

[0:18:47] Voice 15: which I think will also influence the Bowen Island calculation as we move through the budget cycle.

[0:18:52] Voice 15: one of the biggest things that influences the budget levy is or the Bowen levy sorry

[0:18:57] Voice 15: is the amount that we draw from general surplus every year to fund the budget the amount that

[0:19:05] Voice 15: is drawn from general surplus in this version of the budget is much smaller than the amount that

[0:19:10] Voice 15: was drawn from general surplus last year and so that means Bowen doesn't get a credit for that

[0:19:17] Voice 15: draw from surplus and so we see an increase to their levy simply from how we're funding our work

[0:19:25] Voice 15: as we shift where funding sources come from there is an opportunity to draw more from general

[0:19:31] Voice 15: surplus and less from the local planning reserve fund for example um there will be an opportunity

[0:19:36] Voice 15: to reduce that bow and levy and so that's on my plate uh work to undertake i do see chair getty

[0:19:42] Voice 15: or trustee getty's hand up uh do you want to give her an opportunity to speak at this juncture chair

[0:19:47] Voice 9: I most certainly do. That was prominent in my mind, considering we've been doing a lot of talking here about Bowen Island.

[0:19:53] Voice 9: Trustee Getty, please proceed.

[0:19:55] Voice 2: So I had a chat yesterday with our CFO, and she believes that you have a spreadsheet that gives all sorts of details in terms of how the Bowen formula is sorted out.

[0:20:08] Voice 2: So if that is the case, then we'd like to have a copy of that so that we can work through that with you.

[0:20:15] Voice 2: Absolutely.

[0:20:18] Voice 15: And that spreadsheet is shared with Bowen staff every year in the budget cycle. Once we've got a sense that it's, you know, once it's been reviewed and from our staff end feels accurate. At this point, I haven't had a chance to undertake that review. So once I've had a chance to do that, I will absolutely share that with staff. And if there's any questions or any concerns about what's there or any mistakes, we'll correct those very promptly.

[0:20:43] Voice 2: Okay. If we can get it early, it's hard to deal with a 34.4% increase at this point without being able to talk to people amongst ourselves in terms of, you know, the spreadsheet needs some fine tuning and that we're going to be working on it.

[0:21:01] Voice 2: so we can we can say that in general terms but we need to actually start working on it so the

[0:21:07] Voice 2: the sooner the better and we can help with whatever um accuracies and and comments

[0:21:13] Voice 2: that you might be looking at

[0:21:17] Voice 15: okay yeah the biggest um factor will be decisions that this committee

[0:21:24] Voice 15: or recommendations this committee has for amounts to fund from surplus that will have um and also

[0:21:32] Voice 15: amounts to keep in the budget or amounts to reduce in the budget. Those will be the biggest influencers

[0:21:37] Voice 15: to the Bowen Island calculation. We've also lost grant funding this year in relation to last year,

[0:21:45] Voice 15: so we had much more grant funding last year. Bowen of course also receives credits when we've got

[0:21:49] Voice 15: grant funding. They receive benefit from that. So there's definitely some factors that we cannot,

[0:21:56] Voice 15: that we have no control over. Some factors that we do have control over in terms of

[0:22:01] Voice 15: funding sources and then of course we do make sure that the calculation is

[0:22:05] Voice 15: accurate so I'm happy to share that early with staff I'm happy to reach out

[0:22:09] Voice 15: to them and start that dialogue okay

[0:22:12] Voice 2: I'm new to this so we're you know just

[0:22:15] Voice 2: starting to dig into it the more we get the easier it's going to be to speak to

[0:22:20] Voice 2: this number that's on the page right now mm-hmm okay

[0:22:27] Voice 6: go ahead I

[0:22:29] Voice 15: will I will march

[0:22:31] Voice 15: on. So the draft budget.

[0:22:34] Voice 9: I do have a question for you, Director Mops. The proposed general

[0:22:40] Voice 9: tax increases that you've just outlined, I'm assuming that's the preliminary estimates

[0:22:50] Voice 9: that you've arrived at and does not, staff has not yet undertaken, followed the budget

[0:22:59] Voice 9: guideline that we approved last September which is to develop um alternate scenarios that knock

[0:23:04] Voice 9: it down by one uh and two percent respectively have I have I got that right um

[0:23:11] Voice 15: partially correct

[0:23:12] Voice 15: the way that um I've addressed that in part is um to just proactively not advance things that

[0:23:21] Voice 15: would be part of the one to two percent proposed to cut um and part of that decision is because

[0:23:27] Voice 15: some of those pieces uh weren't ready to advance um and so there will be with the next iteration

[0:23:34] Voice 15: of the budget uh a list of items that either were not included in the budget um that would get to

[0:23:39] Voice 15: that one to two percent or that could potentially be withdrawn from the existing budget to get to

[0:23:44] Voice 15: that one to two percent um those guidelines you know was very close to the time when we were

[0:23:50] Voice 15: getting this budget out so um assessment of our current draft budget against the guidelines is

[0:23:54] Voice 15: underway i've already started that but there's some additional work that needs to take place

[0:24:00] Voice 8: all right thank you um

[0:24:05] Voice 15: the draft budget has a proposed draw from general surplus of sixty

[0:24:08] Voice 15: five thousand dollars as i mentioned before that's um quite a bit lower than it was in the previous

[0:24:12] Voice 15: version of the budget or sorry in the previous approved budget for the current year

[0:24:17] Voice 15: and there's a proposed draw from the local trust committee project specific reserve fund of 130

[0:24:21] Voice 15: 000 this primarily relates to expected funds from the current year that will not be spent in the

[0:24:28] Voice 15: the current year and therefore will be drawn on in next year's budget to fund continuation of

[0:24:33] Voice 15: local trust committee projects we always provide a comparison of the draft budget against previous

[0:24:40] Voice 15: fiscal year numbers and so that information is on page 15 of the agenda package so it's a bit of a

[0:24:47] Voice 15: an easy place to go and see where some of the primary drivers are increasing our budget year

[0:24:53] Voice 15: year over year. A number of these items are coming forward from political bodies. So for example,

[0:24:58] Voice 15: applications sponsored by executive committee, they have increased their request for funds

[0:25:02] Voice 15: associated with this next year by $10,000. The same is true for history and heritage funding

[0:25:08] Voice 15: grants. Things like the audit, those are operational costs that increase that we have

[0:25:13] Voice 15: very little control over. But it is just a good place to summarize some of the key drivers of

[0:25:19] Voice 15: increases to the budget. Page 16 of the agenda is where we start digging into the details of

[0:25:27] Voice 15: the draft budget. And so I'm going to turn there. We've talked about local trust area taxes already

[0:25:33] Voice 15: a little bit. They total $9.1 million in the draft budget, which represents...

[0:25:38] Voice 15: I'm

[0:25:38] Voice 9: sorry to interrupt, Director Bobbs, but two points. One, it would be helpful if the

[0:25:46] Voice 9: The image on the screen can be expanded a bit.

[0:25:49] Voice 9: The text is a little on the small side, at least for my eyes.

[0:25:57] Voice 9: Thank you.

[0:25:58] Voice 9: And I see Trustee Yates has her hand up.

[0:26:00] Voice 9: And let's address Trustee questions as promptly as we can as we go through this.

[0:26:08] Voice 9: So you were just about to start drilling into this, and Trustee Yates has her hand up.

[0:26:12] Voice 9: So let's go to Trustee Yates.

[0:26:15] Voice 11: Thank you, Chair Bernardo.

[0:26:17] Voice 11: So, Julia, I have a question with regard to the discrepancy between the proposed 6% general tax increase, because we've had much bigger ones than that in the past.

[0:26:30] Voice 11: But we've never had, I'm sure, as big of a general tax levy for Bowen Island.

[0:26:37] Voice 11: Island so did I miss something like I just can't get over the the increase for Bowen but it's not

[0:26:45] Voice 11: a huge increase for the local trust areas yes

[0:26:52] Voice 15: and so a lot of that has to do with where dollars in

[0:26:57] Voice 15: our budget are distributed where we see for example if our planning budget in the current

[0:27:05] Voice 15: or for next year is lower than it is in the current year approved budget local trust areas

[0:27:11] Voice 15: would see some relief to their taxation as a result of that reduction bowen would not because

[0:27:17] Voice 15: they don't contribute to planning services um and so we do see that a little bit this year we had a

[0:27:23] Voice 15: lot of big projects in the planning um area um in the current approved budget we had the development

[0:27:31] Voice 15: bit of city view we've got housing needs assessments there's lots of pieces of work there

[0:27:36] Voice 15: that have had an impact and what we are seeing is a shift in proportion of budget that the various

[0:27:44] Voice 15: areas of the islands trust are contributing to so where trust council costs are increasing and

[0:27:52] Voice 15: conservancy board costs are increasing and administrative costs are increasing

[0:27:55] Voice 15: thing, Bowen is going to contribute more to our budget because those are the pieces that Bowen

[0:28:02] Voice 15: contributes to. So last year's contribution rate for Bowen was around 29.3%, I believe.

[0:28:11] Voice 15: In the current draft, it is 32.3% or in that range. So they are contributing at a larger rate

[0:28:20] Voice 15: towards our budget because of the distribution of dollars within our budget. That's a piece of it.

[0:28:26] Voice 15: Then, of course, where we see less grant money coming to the Islands Trust, Bowen is not getting a credit for that.

[0:28:32] Voice 15: Neither is the rest of the trust, but Bowen feels it more acutely.

[0:28:36] Voice 15: And we're also drawing less money from the general surplus fund and more money from the local trust committee project reserve fund.

[0:28:46] Voice 15: Local trust areas will see relief to their taxation when money comes from the LCC reserve fund.

[0:28:52] Voice 15: fund.

[0:28:53] Voice 15: Bowen sees zero relief when money comes from the LTC reserve fund, absolutely nothing.

[0:28:59] Voice 15: And so local trust areas are benefiting greatly from the fact that more money is coming out

[0:29:04] Voice 15: of the LTC reserve fund in this version, and Bowen isn't seeing that same in fact.

[0:29:11] Voice 15: They are seeing the opposite effect because the draw from our general reserve is reduced

[0:29:16] Voice 15: over the previous year, and so that has a negative impact to Bowen.

[0:29:21] Voice 15: The way that our local trust committee reserve fund is used is appropriate for a reserve fund.

[0:29:28] Voice 15: If there's unspent monies on local trust area work or local trust committee projects, that unspent money that's taxed for in a year would flow into the local trust committee project specific reserve fund.

[0:29:40] Voice 15: Because it was taxed for this work, it should be used for this work in the future.

[0:29:44] Voice 15: And therefore, we take that approach.

[0:29:47] Voice 15: We draw it from the reserve fund to fund next year's projects.

[0:29:50] Voice 15: It is at Council's discretion to change the way that funding works.

[0:29:58] Voice 15: Council could choose to

[0:30:00] Voice 15: to say we want to move money from the LPC reserve fund

[0:30:04] Voice 15: and put it into the general surplus fund

[0:30:07] Voice 15: so we can draw more from the general surplus fund

[0:30:10] Voice 15: so we can help Bowen's levy.

[0:30:13] Voice 15: That is within control of Trust Council.

[0:30:18] Voice 15: And FPC can recommend that.

[0:30:20] Voice 15: It's actually something that I would suggest

[0:30:22] Voice 15: as a way to provide Bowen some relief

[0:30:24] Voice 15: if we wanted to go that route.

[0:30:28] Voice 15: but there's there's many many moving parts into the Bowen calculation but I think that is the

[0:30:34] Voice 15: most significant driver this year that

[0:30:36] Voice 11: is so helpful thank you very much director mobs and

[0:30:39] Voice 11: especially thank you for the suggestion that FBC could recommend something to help with Bowen thank

[0:30:47] Voice 11: you

[0:30:50] Voice 9: absolutely director mobs if and when staff and you were able to bring that point that trustee

[0:30:58] Voice 9: just referred to, bring it forward for FPC and perhaps the Trust Council.

[0:31:04] Voice 9: I think it would be helpful in that discussion if staff was able to provide some discussion about

[0:31:11] Voice 9: the reasoning that is going into the current structure, the current arrangement funding

[0:31:16] Voice 9: structure, because I think the question that will arise in the minds of many trustees and

[0:31:22] Voice 9: certainly the public is about the equity of the situation. I mean, just at first blush,

[0:31:28] Voice 9: you know a six you know a six percent increase versus a 34 plus percent increase looks dramatically

[0:31:36] Voice 9: inequitable but as you've just explained it's it's a lot more complicated than that and i think

[0:31:40] Voice 9: fairness will be a question in people's minds and i think the the facts that need to come out are

[0:31:44] Voice 9: the ones that help illuminate that for people um trustee luckham uh

[0:31:55] Voice 8: your audio is off trustee

[0:31:56] Voice 8: looking.

[0:32:00] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I wonder, Chair, perhaps through to Julia Mobs, Director

[0:32:09] Trustee Luckham: of Administrative Services, whether this would be an opportune moment for a motion to ask staff

[0:32:17] Trustee Luckham: to investigate policy adjustment

[0:32:24] Trustee Luckham: to provide more fair representation

[0:32:30] Trustee Luckham: of the use of surplus funding.

[0:32:33] Trustee Luckham: And I haven't actually formulated that motion very well,

[0:32:36] Trustee Luckham: but just asking the question, really,

[0:32:38] Trustee Luckham: and I could try to craft a motion if you wish.

[0:32:46] Voice 15: I'll offer some thoughts, Chair, if you wish.

[0:32:48] Voice 15: um so i i just want to be clear that uh we should steer away from the word fair

[0:32:55] Voice 15: um because we've done exercise in the past where it demonstrates that the amount local trust areas

[0:33:03] Voice 15: contribute to the various pieces of the budget versus what bowen contributes to the various

[0:33:07] Voice 15: pieces of the budget is um very equitable so in this it's hard to wrap your mind around why

[0:33:14] Voice 15: bowen would see a higher increase than local trust areas how is that equitable but really the

[0:33:18] Voice 15: The 6.5% that you see for local trust areas is an average of the percentage increases that they would see for all of the departments of the trust.

[0:33:27] Voice 15: So if you were to dig down into the various areas, you might see a 35% increase for local trust areas for the areas of the budget Bowen contributes to.

[0:33:36] Voice 15: And you might see a significant negative, like a reduction in planning, for example, and those two would average to the 6%.

[0:33:47] Voice 15: So just to help our conversations with our public,

[0:33:51] Voice 15: I want to make sure we're not saying it's unfair.

[0:33:53] Voice 15: Certainly is alarming.

[0:33:55] Voice 15: And I'm happy to take on any suggestions for revision to policy.

[0:34:00] Voice 15: It is Trust Council's policy related to reserves and surplus

[0:34:04] Voice 15: that have established the local trust committee reserve fund.

[0:34:07] Voice 15: Reserve funds are always used in a very particular way.

[0:34:10] Voice 15: There's a policy adjustment that could be made.

[0:34:13] Voice 15: This is a new reserve fund as of, I think, 2018.

[0:34:17] Voice 15: Personally, from a staff perspective, I don't feel it's of great value.

[0:34:25] Voice 15: It also creates some administrative burden, so I would certainly welcome review of that

[0:34:30] Voice 15: if you wish to propose that.

[0:34:35] Voice 9: Director Mobs, do you really need a motion to undertake that inquiry and then come back

[0:34:43] Voice 9: to this committee with suggestions, insights?

[0:34:47] Voice 9: insights uh the reason i'm hesitating uh over you know trustee lockham's offer uh to make a motion

[0:34:55] Voice 9: is we're right in the middle of the budget preparation season and i i wouldn't want to

[0:35:00] Voice 9: trip you up or add more work on your plate while we're in midstream here so looking to you from

[0:35:08] Voice 9: for some um insight on uh when would be well what the appropriate thing is for us to do to

[0:35:16] Voice 9: sort of drill into ways of you know stay away from the word fairness just making this technically

[0:35:21] Voice 9: improving the process here but really looking to you to suggest when we should be looking at that

[0:35:29] Voice 9: uh and secondarily how we should go about doing it and whether we you really need direction from

[0:35:36] Voice 9: us to do it or if that's just part of the business in terms of um supervising the financial work

[0:35:44] Voice 9: sorry for that question oh

[0:35:48] Voice 15: no worries there uh the loan item sitting on fbc's follow-up action

[0:35:52] Voice 15: list that's in progress actually relates to council's reserve and surplus policy it has a

[0:35:57] Voice 15: target date of the end of this budget cycle and that was an intentional target date to acknowledge

[0:36:01] Voice 15: the fact that this policy might need review in this current budget cycle to address things like

[0:36:06] Voice 15: this um so it's already um planned for um to take place before this budget is approved and these

[0:36:13] Voice 15: types of considerations would be advanced as part of the conversation. Part of why the Local Trust

[0:36:19] Voice 15: Community Reserve Fund was established was the thought that if a surplus is generated

[0:36:26] Voice 15: that Bowen taxpayers didn't contribute to, then why would Bowen then get a credit in the future

[0:36:34] Voice 15: for drawing it? So that was the historical logic. If we're now in an era where we want to be

[0:36:41] Voice 15: be maintaining a reasonable levy increases for Bowen and there's other ways to go about it then

[0:36:48] Voice 15: we acknowledge that and we can make amendments to that policy so the work is planned for I don't

[0:36:52] Voice 15: think we need a resolution unless you'd like to make one.

[0:36:57] Voice 9: Trustee Luck can I see you still have

[0:36:59] Voice 9: your hand up you've heard from Director Mobs.

[0:37:02] Trustee Luckham: Lowered my hand.

[0:37:03] Voice 9: Okay thank you. Trustee Peterson.

[0:37:05] Voice 9: Yeah,

[0:37:08] Voice 18: thank you. Question for Director Mobs. If you could just briefly remind us, my recollection is that the municipal calculation for Bowen, or the tax requisition formula for Bowen, is not an Islands Trust policy. Is that right?

[0:37:32] Voice 15: Yes. So the way Bowen Municipality contributes to Islands Trust finances comes out of the Islands Trust Act. So that is the source.

[0:37:44] Voice 15: The more detailed codification of the Act requirements is part of Trust Council's Bowen Island Municipal Calculation,

[0:37:57] Voice 15: which really just lays out the process that is taken internally to enact what's in the Islands Trust Act.

[0:38:04] Voice 15: act um so that policy could be reviewed but there's restrictions as to how much you can

[0:38:11] Voice 15: change it because it is codified in the act that's a good reminder thank you chelsea peterson

[0:38:17] Voice 15: chelsea

[0:38:21] Voice 2: getty so um i appreciate all of the uh comments and discussion about bowen um but my

[0:38:30] Voice 2: i'm over the initial shock and horror and um freaking out about the number and um we're

[0:38:38] Voice 2: getting down we've decided that collectively um in terms of um the cfo people here that have been

[0:38:46] Voice 2: looking at this that will um will dig down and will become very granular at some point but this

[0:38:52] Voice 2: is the the first brush and um you know i think yeah any community would see a 34 percent increase

[0:39:00] Voice 2: is something that's horrendous so we're going to be working on it and um i don't know that we need

[0:39:07] Voice 2: need to spend a whole lot of time on it at this point once once we get a handle on it we've got

[0:39:11] Voice 2: an argument then we'll present that in great detail thank

[0:39:15] Voice 9: you for that uh trustee getty

[0:39:18] Voice 9: director mobs please continue um

[0:39:23] Voice 15: thanks chair i'll go back to my notes here um okay i think we were

[0:39:28] Voice 15: on page 16 digging into the details um so i think it mentioned our local trust area taxes total 9.1

[0:39:35] Voice 15: $1 million. That represents a 6.5% increase over the previous budget, and half a percent of that

[0:39:41] Voice 15: is expected to be generated from non-market change factors. So that's new properties,

[0:39:47] Voice 15: new construction, et cetera. That number, 0.5%, is the same figure that was included

[0:39:53] Voice 15: in last year's budget. That number is updated more closely to December, and then again in March

[0:40:01] Voice 15: when we actually have new information from bc assessment for now what's reflected is from last

[0:40:05] Voice 15: year's budget we've just talked at length as trustee getty has said about the bowen island

[0:40:11] Voice 15: municipal tax levy so i don't think i'll dig in too much detail there just acknowledging that

[0:40:15] Voice 15: increase is alarming and there's some work that needs to be done to see if we can reduce that

[0:40:21] Voice 15: same comments that i will make about non-market change bowen's non-market change factor in the

[0:40:25] Voice 15: draft budget is 1.1 which mirrors what was in last year's budget and that will be updated as

[0:40:30] Voice 15: we move through the budget cycle as well. We haven't seen any requests from local trust

[0:40:35] Voice 15: committees for special tax requisitions this year, and so there's none that's included in the draft

[0:40:39] Voice 15: budget. On the grant revenues side of things, we see $561,000 in the draft budget. Our annual

[0:40:47] Voice 15: budget or annual grant from the province of $180,000 is included once again. The federal

[0:40:54] Voice 15: grant awarded to the Conservancy for their species at risk work is continuing, and we see an amount

[0:41:00] Voice 15: of $222,000 in the budget, which again mirrors historical amounts. There is a restricted federal

[0:41:07] Voice 15: grant of $200,000 that's been received from the federal government to support our temporary

[0:41:13] Voice 15: biologist staff person. So South Council saw this request previously and has approved the grant and

[0:41:19] Voice 15: approved the hiring of that staff person funded by this grant. And so we will see continuation

[0:41:24] Voice 15: of that decision in next year's budget. There was an amount of $150,000 received from the

[0:41:30] Voice 15: Ministry of Municipal Affairs for First Nations engagement that was received in

[0:41:33] Voice 15: fiscal 2024 it is a five-year grant and we're expecting $26,000 of that amount

[0:41:39] Voice 15: to be spent next year and so we are then bringing in the same amount into

[0:41:43] Voice 15: revenues in the budget and of course we maintain an almost empty line for

[0:41:49] Voice 15: contingent grant income there's a dollar included in the budget we are required

[0:41:53] Voice 15: to have this line in case any grants come forward in the year we need a place

[0:41:56] Voice 15: to record it. Fees from applications. There is a reduction in the current draft budget from

[0:42:02] Voice 15: historical years. So the previous budget had $276,000 and we're planning for $198,000 next

[0:42:09] Voice 15: year. That is not because we are seeing a reduction in application fees or we are expecting to see a

[0:42:14] Voice 15: reduction in application volume. This is a reflection of the new accounting standard,

[0:42:19] Voice 15: which tells us that we cannot record application fee revenue when we receive it. Instead, we can

[0:42:26] Voice 15: only record application fee revenue as we move through the process of processing the application

[0:42:32] Voice 15: and so that has an impact on the amount of revenue that we can record each year and so that's where

[0:42:37] Voice 15: that increase

[0:42:38] Voice 15: or that reduction is coming from of course that does influence the budget because it

[0:42:42] Voice 15: means that we have a reduced revenue source in this particular area which means that we've got

[0:42:47] Voice 15: less funding to offset expenses our interest income we're also seeing a reduction over previous

[0:42:53] Voice 15: years because we're expecting that interest rates will continue to fall.

[0:42:58] Voice 15: We've talked already about surplus funding so the draft budget does

[0:43:02] Voice 15: generate a shortfall which is very common in Island's trust space I think it

[0:43:06] Voice 15: happens every year and very common in the public sector space and we choose to

[0:43:10] Voice 15: fund that shortfall from surplus funds that are on hand. $65,000 from the

[0:43:15] Voice 15: general revenue surplus funds I'm expecting this amount will change as we

[0:43:18] Voice 15: move through the budget cycle and as mentioned $130,000 from the local trust

[0:43:23] Voice 15: trust committee project specific reserve fund to pay for local trust

[0:43:26] Voice 15: committee work.

[0:43:28] Voice 15: And as

[0:43:29] Voice 9: there's been no request.

[0:43:30] Voice 9: Just a moment to direct the mobs.

[0:43:32] Voice 9: We have a question from trustee Getty.

[0:43:34] Voice 2: We can go back to the top of that page.

[0:43:37] Voice 2: The other revenue, sorry, fees from applications.

[0:43:41] Voice 2: Was there not an earlier report that was talking about trying to change

[0:43:46] Voice 2: the fee structure so that we were collecting more of the costs,

[0:43:51] Voice 2: that the fees would cover more of the costs, the real costs?

[0:43:55] Voice 2: And if that is the case, has that been enacted

[0:43:59] Voice 2: and is that going to affect the money that we get from revenue from fees?

[0:44:07] Voice 15: That is a conversation that did take place at council last term.

[0:44:13] Voice 15: And there was an exercise to update application fees

[0:44:17] Voice 15: to attempt to be more in a cost recovery space.

[0:44:21] Voice 15: space. That exercise did not accomplish getting us closer to a cost recovery space. There

[0:44:28] Voice 15: was some data inputs into that exercise that weren't correct. So the conversation that's

[0:44:32] Voice 15: happening this term is related to that. There's been a desire to look into the tracking of

[0:44:38] Voice 15: staff time to then compare it to our application fees to see how far off we are from cost recovery.

[0:44:44] Voice 15: So that work is ongoing. The first briefing on that topic went to Trust Council in September and there is another one planned for March.

[0:44:53] Voice 15: Trust Council's resolution specifically asked to see that in September and in March. It allows time for staff tracking to actually take place.

[0:45:00] Voice 15: um i think what we will see is that we are far from a cost recovery model um and if council

[0:45:10] Voice 15: wishes to uh adjust its model fee bylaws for local trust committees to consider that it certainly

[0:45:17] Voice 15: could undertake that work of course it's up to the local trust committees to be setting their own

[0:45:21] Voice 15: fees um so there's not much control there um but certainly if we were to do that and we saw more

[0:45:29] Voice 15: more money received in the form of application fees,

[0:45:32] Voice 15: it would help with our budgeting process.

[0:45:36] Voice 6: Thanks.

[0:45:37] Voice 6: Trustee Lockham.

[0:45:39] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Chair.

[0:45:40] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Julia, for that little bit of detail.

[0:45:45] Trustee Luckham: I hadn't heard before that there were maybe some data errors

[0:45:50] Trustee Luckham: in the process because indeed,

[0:45:54] Trustee Luckham: I think many of us were surprised

[0:45:58] Trustee Luckham: surprised that the gains were not as significant as we had hoped, and that it was obvious that

[0:46:04] Trustee Luckham: there was additional expenses associated that were not being accounted for in order to change

[0:46:11] Trustee Luckham: that number. So, I would be pleased to see a review of that. But, you know, also that said,

[0:46:20] Trustee Luckham: right, that in the application process, because of the nature of the Preserve and Protect mandate,

[0:46:24] Trustee Luckham: mandate, there may very well be expenses associated with extra levels of diligence associated with

[0:46:31] Trustee Luckham: environmental review that maybe shouldn't necessarily be borne by the applicant. But

[0:46:37] Trustee Luckham: that also is a function of our request to the province for additional funding to cover the

[0:46:43] Trustee Luckham: operational costs of the Islands Trust on behalf of the province with respect to the

[0:46:47] Trustee Luckham: preserve and protect elements. But I would look forward to seeing a review. And just when you said

[0:46:54] Trustee Luckham: some errors in the data are we talking a significant percentage like could we anticipate

[0:47:01] Trustee Luckham: that we might have a you know a significant increase of the amount of funds recovered

[0:47:07] Trustee Luckham: through application which is which is property owner development work so

[0:47:16] Voice 15: the previous exercise

[0:47:17] Voice 15: as I understand it I wasn't so involved in it but here's what I know the amounts that were used

[0:47:26] Voice 15: for staff salaries did not include, did not have an acknowledgement of the significant benefit

[0:47:33] Voice 15: costs that we incur associated with staff, which is 24.5%. That's the sizable amount that was not

[0:47:42] Voice 15: included in the previous exercise. The model bylaw historically also indicated an automatic

[0:47:49] Voice 15: 2% increase in fees year over year. That has not matched the increase that we've seen for

[0:47:56] Voice 15: staff salary. Staff salary increases have been much larger. And so both of those things working

[0:48:03] Voice 15: together have meant that our current fees are not anywhere close to accomplishing a sort of

[0:48:12] Voice 15: cost recovery model. There's also the acknowledgement that the model fees bylaw

[0:48:17] Voice 15: trust council approved did give a 20% reduction opportunity for local trust committees.

[0:48:24] Voice 15: and so local trust committees could choose to adopt fees that were quite a bit lower

[0:48:29] Voice 15: than what trust council's model bylaw was suggesting and some local trust committees did

[0:48:37] Voice 15: take that and so all of those things working together are contributing.

[0:48:43] Trustee Luckham: Thank you. Trustee Yates.

[0:48:50] Voice 11: Thank you Chair Bernardo. Getting back to that model development or application fee bylaw

[0:48:56] Voice 11: it's my understanding from looking at that that it was also at the same time

[0:49:02] Voice 11: we were given a model development application information by law and it

[0:49:07] Voice 11: was my understanding that the RPC would be looking at both of those before we

[0:49:13] Voice 11: again looked at it either in December or March and I you know having reviewed it

[0:49:20] Voice 11: myself i i really really hope that we will adopt the model fee bylaw like most of us and i really

[0:49:29] Voice 11: hope we will adopt the model development application information bylaw as well that

[0:49:34] Voice 11: will give us a little more surety in the budget every year but also it would as far as i can

[0:49:41] Voice 11: understand give us a more a better way of compensating for the um the processing fees

[0:49:48] Voice 11: and all the planning fees and, you know,

[0:49:51] Voice 11: closer to what other municipalities charge, for example.

[0:49:57] Voice 9: Rosie Patrick?

[0:50:00] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, the model fees bylaw is not a standard piece of work

[0:50:04] Trustee Patrick: for the Regional Planning Committee.

[0:50:05] Trustee Patrick: It was a project of last term.

[0:50:08] Trustee Patrick: So hearing what we've just heard about the inputs of it,

[0:50:12] Trustee Patrick: I know the results of the model bylaw,

[0:50:15] Trustee Patrick: actually Salt Spring had already application fees

[0:50:18] Trustee Patrick: that were greater than what the model bylaw recommended.

[0:50:20] Trustee Patrick: amended. So things seemed strange. So there's work that needs to be done. And not only does

[0:50:28] Trustee Patrick: it allow them to go 20% less, I think you can't go 10% more or something too. There's brackets

[0:50:33] Trustee Patrick: and holding local trust committees to those amounts. So if this committee, I would certainly

[0:50:41] Trustee Patrick: say, or trust council, or we recommend a trust council to consider waking up that work and to

[0:50:47] Trustee Patrick: to get it up to date.

[0:50:51] Voice 9: Thank you, Trustee Patrick.

[0:50:53] Voice 9: We've got a lot happening here

[0:50:55] Voice 9: and Trustee Peterson is gonna be recognized

[0:50:58] Voice 9: as our next speaker,

[0:50:59] Voice 9: but I think that's gonna be our last speaker

[0:51:02] Voice 9: on this particular issue with respect to this model bylaw

[0:51:05] Voice 9: and cost recovery.

[0:51:08] Voice 9: That is obviously, we can tell from the tenor discussion,

[0:51:11] Voice 9: something that has a lot of moving parts to it,

[0:51:15] Voice 9: requires a lot of thinking and work.

[0:51:17] Voice 9: We're not going to do that today, but I think staff's pretty clear by now that this committee at least has an interest in revisiting that area.

[0:51:26] Voice 9: Trustee Peterson?

[0:51:29] Voice 18: Yeah, thank you.

[0:51:30] Voice 18: I'll be brief.

[0:51:30] Voice 18: I agree with what I heard from Trustee Patrick.

[0:51:35] Voice 18: I think it's fully appropriate that LTCs move to a more adequate cost recovery model, and I'll support that work going forward.

[0:51:47] Voice 9: Now, Director Mobs, just a quick question before you move on to the separate different question before you move on with your review here.

[0:51:57] Voice 9: About the $195,000 budget shortfall, you know, that is, you know, and looks like at this stage, that's the proposed drawdown from our surplus and reserve funds.

[0:52:10] Voice 9: Can you please speak to how this projected shortfall compares to previous years?

[0:52:19] Voice 15: It's lower. And part of that is because there's some missing pieces in this budget. So we are still waiting for contributions from the Governance Committee, some contributions from Regional Planning Committee, a few contributions from the Executive Committee, and there's no operational initiative.

[0:52:38] Voice 15: So this is a reduced shortfall from what we typically see. But I expect that to change

[0:52:44] Voice 15: as we move

[0:52:45] Voice 9: through the budget cycle.

[0:52:45] Voice 9: Is it possible to say by about how much it looks short?

[0:52:51] Voice 15: Oh, I

[0:52:52] Voice 15: don't have that information in front of me.

[0:52:54] Voice 15: But I know that, you know, in some years, we've had draws from general surplus as high

[0:52:59] Voice 15: as $365,000, for example.

[0:53:03] Voice 15: And, you know, I think there's some years where we've drawn more than half a million

[0:53:07] Voice 15: dollars from surplus in total, from surplus and reserve in total.

[0:53:11] Voice 15: In other years, it's been closer to about 300.

[0:53:13] Voice 15: hundred. So this is quite a bit reduced, but I don't think it's going to stay that way as we

[0:53:17] Voice 15: move through the budget cycle.

[0:53:19] Voice 9: Right. Thank you. Please continue with your review.

[0:53:25] Voice 15: OK, the bottom of page 17 is where we start to look at planned spending. So as always,

[0:53:30] Voice 15: we start with our most significant area of spending, which is staff salaries and benefits

[0:53:34] Voice 15: expense, which is coming in around seven million dollars in the draft budget. That's representing

[0:53:39] Voice 15: presenting about 65% of the overall plan spending.

[0:53:42] Voice 15: We do continue to provide a table which gives the cost

[0:53:46] Voice 15: or the full-time equivalent breakdown

[0:53:48] Voice 15: by area of service within Islands Trust.

[0:53:52] Voice 15: You'll see that the base FTE is 63.6 staff persons

[0:53:57] Voice 15: and there's no new FTEs that are included

[0:53:59] Voice 15: in the current chapters of the budget,

[0:54:01] Voice 15: but we are potentially going to see one new one

[0:54:04] Voice 15: after executive committee reviews their budget requests.

[0:54:07] Voice 15: the same factors that influence our staff costing each year are once again influencing the budget

[0:54:14] Voice 15: for next fiscal year so some of the changes to staff levels and complements that we see

[0:54:19] Voice 15: are change to the salaries and benefits for the new chief administrative officer so there's an

[0:54:25] Voice 15: increase in spending for that particular role there is an additional few months of salary and

[0:54:30] Voice 15: benefit for all of the new staff positions that were approved last fiscal year when we have new

[0:54:36] Voice 15: staff positions approved we always acknowledge the fact that it takes time to hire so we do not

[0:54:41] Voice 15: budget for a full year of salaries benefits and expense but of course in the following year which

[0:54:47] Voice 15: is next year those staff persons should be around for the full duration of the year and so we see

[0:54:51] Voice 15: additional months of salaries for those particular staff members so in next year's draft budget that

[0:54:57] Voice 15: is the island stress conservancy team lead which was approved last year the registered professional

[0:55:01] Voice 15: biologist which was approved last year as well as the new GIS coordinator which

[0:55:06] Voice 15: was approved last year we have an estimated wage increase in the draft

[0:55:11] Voice 15: budget for all of our union staff members effective April 1 of 2025 that

[0:55:15] Voice 15: amounts estimated at 3% currently however we don't yet know what the

[0:55:20] Voice 15: actual increase might be the province is still in negotiations with the Union and

[0:55:27] Voice 15: so we don't have a ratified a union agreement at this juncture the 3%

[0:55:31] Voice 15: estimate that we've used in the draft budget mirrors last year's wage increase

[0:55:35] Voice 15: and also closely approximates recent Victoria CPI values. And so we feel

[0:55:40] Voice 15: that's a reasonable estimate. We'll update that as we get more information

[0:55:43] Voice 15: about the negotiations. As always, we have staff who move up within their

[0:55:48] Voice 15: salary sort of band in the year. And so we've accounted for those 26 union

[0:55:53] Voice 15: staff increases in the year. We have an estimated 3% increase for excluded

[0:55:59] Voice 15: staff members in the draft budget that takes place partway through the year and

[0:56:02] Voice 15: so we've made sure to reflect that part-year increase we do have an

[0:56:07] Voice 15: overtime budget that's included once again the overtime analysis that takes

[0:56:12] Voice 15: place to inform this number will be reviewed later in the budget cycle and

[0:56:16] Voice 15: if we need to amend it we will do that benefits expense I mentioned this

[0:56:20] Voice 15: earlier is a significant contribution to the cost of our staff that's twenty five

[0:56:25] Voice 15: 5.4%. This is an amount that is billed to us by the public service agency, and it reimburses them

[0:56:32] Voice 15: for the employer portions of remittances that they take on on behalf of Island Trust, which is

[0:56:38] Voice 15: things like CPP, EI, employer health tax, and pension contributions, as well as extended benefit

[0:56:43] Voice 15: premium plans. If we receive a change in this rate from PSA as we move through the budget cycle,

[0:56:49] Voice 15: we will adjust it. At this juncture, we've not received any communication around that.

[0:56:54] Voice 15: There's an allowance of $180,000 to acknowledge that every year we have staff turnover that takes

[0:56:59] Voice 15: place so what this is is that we calculate the amount of salaries and benefits expense

[0:57:04] Voice 15: for each of our staff or for a total of our staff at Islands Trust and then we reduce it by $180,000

[0:57:12] Voice 15: to acknowledge that we will have some turnover and along with that turnover will come periods

[0:57:16] Voice 15: of vacancy. I believe there

[0:57:20] Voice 9: was a question

[0:57:20] Voice 15: from...

[0:57:22] Voice 9: I see Trustee Graham has his hand up, but I also

[0:57:25] Voice 9: would like to point out that we seem to have lost our screen with the relevant text that

[0:57:29] Voice 9: you're tracking. So perhaps we could have that back up on the screen and with text that's big

[0:57:36] Voice 9: enough for some of these eyes to sort of keep track of it. Trustee Graham.

[0:57:41] Voice 5: That was my question,

[0:57:42] Voice 5: Chair, I had lost the screen. I didn't know if I was the only one.

[0:57:47] Voice 6: Thank you.

[0:57:48] Voice 15: I just received a text message from Nancy who's been running the agenda to say that

[0:57:52] Voice 15: her computer is frozen. So perhaps I'll ask Robert, if you can please pull up the agenda for us.

[0:57:59] Voice 12: I'll do that.

[0:58:01] Voice 15: Thank you, Robert.

[0:58:03] Voice 9: While we're waiting for that, I'll sneak your question in.

[0:58:07] Voice 9: With your discussion of the salary increases and projected salary increases,

[0:58:11] Voice 9: is looking at that 3% number, my naive thought that comes to mind is that really the projected

[0:58:19] Voice 9: salary increases are accountable for the bulk of the projected tax increase. Is that fair?

[0:58:26] Voice 9: Or 50% or

[0:58:35] Voice 15: somewhere? At this juncture, they do represent a sizable portion of it. But as we move

[0:58:43] Voice 15: through the budget cycle and start to see more requests coming in for project work from EC

[0:58:49] Voice 15: governance committee and regional planning committee I think that will no

[0:58:54] Voice 15: longer hold true okay thank

[0:58:57] Voice 9: you well we have the well we have the budget

[0:59:02] Voice 9: overview has has made its appearance it's up there on the screen and what

[0:59:06] Voice 9: page were we at 17 or something 16 18 age

[0:59:11] Voice 15: 18 I had just commented on how we

[0:59:14] Voice 15: deal with acknowledging that we have staff vacancies by way of staff turnover

[0:59:19] Voice 15: over allowance I think trustee Boland had a question related to that I

[0:59:25] Voice 9: think

[0:59:26] Voice 9: trustee Boland has had to step away but if you have to if you know the question

[0:59:32] Voice 9: it might be helpful for the rest of the group if you were able to elaborate go

[0:59:41] Voice 15: back through my emails and see if I can find it so this is what so she'd sent

[0:59:51] Voice 15: this both to you and I chair so with your permission I'll read out her

[0:59:55] Voice 15: comment and associated question. She would like to hear more.

[1:00:00] Voice 15: about the temporary assignments that are allowed at islands trust and how they affect our available

[1:00:06] Voice 15: resources denotes that we allow 180 000 for vacancies and there's discussion about resources

[1:00:12] Voice 15: and feasibility of projects or temporary assignments considered in those there's a few

[1:00:18] Voice 15: questions i think in her comment there um so i'll just tackle them in order in relation to temporary

[1:00:24] Voice 15: assignments um when islands trust staff take temporary assignments elsewhere in the province

[1:00:29] Voice 15: we do not pay for them to work for someone else we would experience a staff vacancy at that point

[1:00:36] Voice 15: that we would therefore not be paying for and if we are to backfill that staff person and bring in

[1:00:42] Voice 15: someone else temporarily then we would pay for them usually their salary would be very very

[1:00:47] Voice 15: similar to the salary of the staff that's away on temporary assignment because we have to hire

[1:00:51] Voice 15: within a certain classification and a certain salary range so there's very little impact to

[1:00:57] Voice 15: our financial resources, with the exception of potentially some savings as we take time to hire.

[1:01:04] Voice 15: The $180,000 staff turnover allowance does take that into consideration. So we look at our

[1:01:10] Voice 15: historical turnover rate, we see how much we historically underspend in salaries associated

[1:01:16] Voice 15: with vacancies, and we use that to estimate what we might save next year in terms of vacancies,

[1:01:21] Voice 15: and so we reduce our salaries expense accordingly um the question about whether or not temporary

[1:01:29] Voice 15: assignments are considered in the feasibility assessment for local trust committee projects

[1:01:33] Voice 15: might be best addressed when we get to that particular report i believe that all right to

[1:01:37] Voice 15: you chair

[1:01:38] Voice 9: let's do it that way then okay

[1:01:42] Voice 15: so we've got our agenda back so i can continue

[1:01:46] Voice 15: if there's no other questions please

[1:01:49] Voice 9: do okay

[1:01:50] Voice 15: um so bottom of page 18 we turn our minds to

[1:01:54] Voice 15: trustee remuneration and benefits so trust council does have a policy around trustee remuneration

[1:01:58] Voice 15: and that policy has been applied in this version of the draft budget and it calculates trustee

[1:02:03] Voice 15: remuneration at $728,000 which is a slight increase over the previous year the same factors

[1:02:09] Voice 15: influencing this number have been taken into account so we have an increase for remuneration

[1:02:14] Voice 15: based on victoria cpi that number will change as we move through the budget cycle trustee

[1:02:19] Voice 15: remuneration policy says that the amount to be used in this calculation must be for the

[1:02:23] Voice 15: December CPI factor for Victoria. Of course, we're not there yet. When we get there, this number will

[1:02:29] Voice 15: be adjusted. There's no new population information that we have at this juncture, so we continue to

[1:02:34] Voice 15: use the most recent population information from Statistics Canada. The amount of folios will be

[1:02:41] Voice 15: adjusted when we receive new information from BC Assessment, so a portion of trustee remuneration

[1:02:45] Voice 15: is based on how many land folios are within a particular local trust area, and we'll be updating

[1:02:52] Voice 15: that when we've got the new information from BC assessment. No changes to CPP

[1:02:57] Voice 15: contributions in the year over previous years. No changes to our extended benefit

[1:03:01] Voice 15: in terms of offerings. However, we are seeing an increase to the premium which

[1:03:05] Voice 15: we've received from the provider and that's reflected in the draft budget as

[1:03:09] Voice 15: well. Employer health tax continues to be at the same rate of 1.95% and we

[1:03:14] Voice 15: continue to pay Council committee members for their attendance at meetings

[1:03:17] Voice 15: things in line with policy.

[1:03:20] Voice 15: If there is work to undertake review of Trust Council's remuneration policy next budget

[1:03:25] Voice 15: cycle, amounts would take effect in the following fiscal year and so the impact of that work

[1:03:31] Voice 15: will not influence the draft budget for next year.

[1:03:35] Voice 15: We are expecting that Trust Council will plan for all four meetings in person once again

[1:03:40] Voice 15: and so we've included that in the draft budget.

[1:03:42] Voice 15: Executive Committee has discussed this amount and they are proposing a $33,000 amount per

[1:03:49] Voice 15: per in-person meeting, which totals $135,000 in the budget.

[1:03:54] Voice 15: Of course, if Trust Council chooses not to hold

[1:03:56] Voice 15: all of their meetings in person,

[1:03:58] Voice 15: we would see a reduction in the amount needed for this,

[1:04:00] Voice 15: and we would be reducing that value accordingly.

[1:04:05] Voice 15: Again, just looking at Trustee Boland's email,

[1:04:08] Voice 15: because I just had it up,

[1:04:09] Voice 15: she did have a question about Trust Council meetings

[1:04:14] Voice 15: and whether or not financial planning committee

[1:04:16] Voice 15: committee wished to recommend that Trust Council holds some of its meetings electronically.

[1:04:23] Voice 15: There have been a number of trustees and staff who have become ill from our in-person meetings,

[1:04:28] Voice 15: particularly held in the winter. So bringing that comment forward from Trustee Boland,

[1:04:32] Voice 15: if there's comments, we can take them.

[1:04:34] Voice 9: Well, of course, you know, I appreciate that,

[1:04:36] Voice 9: but, you know, I wish Trustee Boland was here to speak to it. But the fact of the matter is

[1:04:40] Voice 9: that question comes up every year uh uh there's always a you know there's this attractive large

[1:04:47] Voice 9: numbers that we can peel off by trimming some of the in-person meetings and of course we end up

[1:04:53] Voice 9: having a big discussion about their value back and forth we kind of more or less end up where we are

[1:04:57] Voice 9: now

[1:04:58] Voice 6: um

[1:04:59] Voice 9: i'm not sure it's that fruitful for us to have that discussion today but it may be something

[1:05:04] Voice 9: something that, you know, it's more a trust committee decision, I think, than financial

[1:05:10] Voice 9: planning. Trustee Allen?

[1:05:14] Trustee Allen: Yeah, thank you, Chair. Yeah, just to follow up on that, you know, there

[1:05:17] Trustee Allen: has been discussions about not necessarily having meetings in Nanaimo or Victoria, having cheaper

[1:05:22] Trustee Allen: locations like the Sydney. And there is other locations, even Lake Couch and Duncan, that could

[1:05:30] Trustee Allen: be looked at. So I just wonder whether we should look into that in terms of expenses that Trust

[1:05:36] Trustee Allen: Council meetings? Because we have discussed that back and forth over the years.

[1:05:43] Trustee Allen: I do

[1:05:46] Voice 1: think this committee could make a recommendation

[1:05:48] Voice 1: because we are analyzing the budget to

[1:05:51] Voice 1: submit to Trust Council that one meeting

[1:05:56] Voice 1: might be held electronically. I don't think that's

[1:06:00] Voice 1: ultimately Trust Council's decision, but I think it's our job to make recommendations.

[1:06:05] Voice 1: So I think, could we do that now or no?

[1:06:07] Voice 1: through

[1:06:11] Voice 15: the chair yeah

[1:06:13] Voice 9: please could you address that director mobs

[1:06:16] Voice 15: yes so trust council will be

[1:06:19] Voice 15: setting its meeting dates and meeting locations at its next meeting in december so if there are

[1:06:26] Voice 15: recommendations coming from this committee which are appropriate financial planning committee does

[1:06:30] Voice 15: have authority to make recommendations to council associated with budget pieces and this is one of

[1:06:35] Voice 15: those things i would suggest that this recommendation go forward for december's trust

[1:06:40] Voice 15: trust council um if there's recommendation to hold uh one or more meetings electronically that

[1:06:47] Voice 15: should advance if there's recommendations on alternate locations as well that can also be

[1:06:51] Voice 15: a recommendation of this body do

[1:07:00] Voice 9: we have any trustees that want to weigh in on this i see

[1:07:02] Voice 9: trustee peterson quick

[1:07:05] Voice 18: follow-up question i note that our next fbc meeting is um uh november

[1:07:13] Voice 18: november 20th uh so time-wise director mobs um better to do it today or is november 20th

[1:07:24] Voice 18: sufficient in terms of making a recommendation to trust council

[1:07:29] Voice 15: november 20th is workable but not

[1:07:33] Voice 15: um the best option and here's why executive committee is reviewing uh trust council meeting

[1:07:40] Voice 15: meeting dates and locations at their next meeting, October 30th. And we'll choose to advance

[1:07:48] Voice 15: those suggestions to Trust Council. So recommendation today will certainly help

[1:07:55] Voice 15: executive committee with their conversation. However, if something advances from FTC in

[1:08:00] Voice 15: November, we would just advance that separately to Trust Council for December. So both are workable

[1:08:05] Voice 15: earlier is better well

[1:08:09] Voice 9: uh you've heard the director uh if there's an appetite to sort of

[1:08:12] Voice 9: make a recommendation one way or the other to trust council uh it's probably uh this is probably

[1:08:19] Voice 9: the time for somebody to make a motion to that effect and provoke the debate discussion and

[1:08:22] Voice 9: decision at this committee uh trustee graham thank

[1:08:27] Voice 5: you chair i have made this motion before

[1:08:30] Voice 5: and i think i'm quite prepared to make it again it's a considerable amount and it does show that

[1:08:36] Voice 5: we're trying to be fiscally responsible. It seems like an appropriate motion for financial planning

[1:08:41] Voice 5: to share with trust counsel and let the debate happen in December. So I'm prepared to make a

[1:08:47] Voice 5: very simple motion. I move that financial planning committee, and I'll do it slow enough that Robert

[1:08:54] Voice 5: can perhaps just catch it as I speak it, recommend to trust counsel to hold at least one meeting

[1:09:05] Voice 5: uh electronically for the next uh year we

[1:09:17] Voice 9: could have that motion on the screen thank you robert

[1:09:19] Voice 5: i

[1:09:21] Voice 9: see you there uh i see it's been reproduced yeah the cut and paste from last time would be good

[1:09:26] Voice 9: uh do we have a seconder trustee allen i see your hand up uh he is signaling that trustee

[1:09:31] Voice 9: allen is seconding that motion the motion uh is before the floor so please trustees now is the

[1:09:37] Voice 9: of time to weigh in with your votes, or sorry, your comments and observations. Trustee Patrick?

[1:09:44] Trustee Patrick: No, I support holding at least one electronically, because I think if you look at the increases that

[1:09:52] Trustee Patrick: we have for like attending ABICC and UBCM has increased. And I think there's actually,

[1:09:58] Trustee Patrick: we should have more trustees attending those type of conferences, and that going to one

[1:10:04] Trustee Patrick: when electronic frees up some money

[1:10:06] Trustee Patrick: to do something like that.

[1:10:07] Trustee Patrick: So I absolutely support this motion.

[1:10:11] Voice 9: Trustee Yates.

[1:10:15] Voice 11: Thank you, Chair Bernardo.

[1:10:17] Voice 11: I do not support the motion for all of the reasons

[1:10:19] Voice 11: I stated in previous terms.

[1:10:22] Voice 11: I think we can save money by meeting electronically

[1:10:25] Voice 11: with our committee meetings.

[1:10:27] Voice 11: And I still think it's really important

[1:10:29] Voice 11: to meet in person for council.

[1:10:31] Voice 11: Thank you.

[1:10:34] Voice 9: Trustee Allen.

[1:10:36] Trustee Allen: Yeah, thank you, Chair.

[1:10:37] Trustee Allen: Well, I also want to capture that we should, that Trust Council should explore new venues as well, and holding an in-person Trust Council. So, whether I have to make this as a separate motion, or can this be added on?

[1:10:52] Trustee Allen: I think

[1:10:53] Voice 9: it would be a separate motion.

[1:10:55] Voice 9: All right.

[1:10:58] Voice 9: It's intimately related, but quite, but it's kind

[1:11:00] Voice 9: of a different thing. So I think it would be something you could do, make that motion after we've disposed of this thing.

[1:11:06] Trustee Allen: Okay, thank you.

[1:11:06] Voice 9: Trustee Gates?

[1:11:10] Voice 2: I was going to say the same thing as Trustee Allen.

[1:11:14] Voice 9: All right. Trustee Peterson?

[1:11:18] Voice 18: I concur with

[1:11:19] Voice 18: Trustee Yates.

[1:11:23] Voice 9: Thank you. Trustee

[1:11:26] Voice 9: Lockham?

[1:11:31] Trustee Luckham: Certainly this is a conversation

[1:11:34] Trustee Luckham: at Council. However, I'm not going to support the motion because I think that the

[1:11:38] Trustee Luckham: opportunity to meet in person is invaluable. Thank you.

[1:11:45] Voice 9: Well, the difference that comes up every time we discuss this issue,

[1:11:48] Voice 9: you, this tension between trying to save dollars and the value of meeting in person. Do we have

[1:11:57] Voice 9: any further comments and people who wish to speak to the motion? All right, there's no further

[1:12:05] Voice 9: comments. I'm now going to call the vote on the motion. Those in favor of the motion, please raise

[1:12:10] Voice 9: raise your hands. Please lower your hands. And those opposed to the motion, please raise your

[1:12:31] Voice 9: hands now.

[1:12:39] Voice 6: Please lower your hands.

[1:12:47] Voice 9: I don't have the number at hand. I didn't keep track of it.

[1:12:51] Voice 9: I'm assuming staff has done that. But by my quick look, it appears to me that the motion has

[1:12:56] Voice 9: defeated. Barlow, is that right?

[1:12:59] Voice 12: That is correct. I counted

[1:13:00] Voice 12: three people, three trustees in favor and seven opposed.

[1:13:05] Voice 9: All right. Thank you. Trustee Allen?

[1:13:10] Trustee Allen: I'd like to make a motion.

[1:13:12] Trustee Allen: I'd like to move that the Financial Planning

[1:13:16] Trustee Allen: Committee recommended Trust Council to explore

[1:13:21] Trustee Allen: new venues slash locations for future

[1:13:24] Trustee Allen: Trust Council meetings.

[1:13:27] Voice 9: We have a seconder. I see

[1:13:29] Voice 9: I see Trustee Yates has raised her hand in support of that motion.

[1:13:34] Voice 9: The motion is on the floor.

[1:13:37] Voice 9: Trustee Allen, do you wish to speak to your motion?

[1:13:40] Trustee Allen: No, I think it's pretty understandable.

[1:13:42] Voice 9: Okay.

[1:13:43] Voice 9: Other trustees, do you wish to weigh in with clients' observations?

[1:13:48] Voice 9: Trustee Getty?

[1:13:50] Voice 2: I'd like it to be exploring for the purposes of significantly reducing the costs of in-person meetings.

[1:13:58] Voice 2: Mayor Mrakas, Is that

[1:14:02] Voice 9: a suggestion for an amendment to the motion if

[1:14:05] Voice 2: that's yeah I think

[1:14:08] Trustee Allen: that is friendly, I actually was going to add that, but I thought it was kind of a given, but yeah for more clarity, I have no issues with having that added if.

[1:14:21] Voice 9: this is the kind of thing where i'm gonna have to ask staff for some help here because i always get

[1:14:25] Voice 9: confused by this thing it always seems like very straightforward everybody agrees we want to tinker

[1:14:30] Voice 9: with the thing but it now belongs to the committee because it's on the floor and i get a little lost

[1:14:35] Voice 9: about what the correct process here is here um i need some guidance from staff here can we treat

[1:14:41] Voice 9: this as a friendly amendment uh if nobody objects to the amendment um

[1:14:49] Voice 15: i can oh i see robert barlow

[1:14:51] Voice 15: well

[1:14:53] Voice 12: and that exactly is a an amendment uh island's trust is fairly flexible so if you would

[1:15:02] Voice 12: like to go that route and make it a friendly amendment that is fine all you have to do is

[1:15:09] Voice 12: just identify if the committee has any objections all right thank

[1:15:13] Voice 9: you um uh trustee allen since you

[1:15:18] Voice 9: were in support of, you know, that was your intention in the

[1:15:21] Voice 9: first place, perhaps you could add some words to your original

[1:15:25] Voice 9: motion. And then we can see if it passes by consent there.

[1:15:33] Trustee Allen: Okay, so where is it my first motion? Okay, the financial

[1:15:37] Trustee Allen: money recommended customers for new venues.

[1:15:42] Trustee Allen: Directly for new venues for what was it? Daddy, you said,

[1:15:48] Voice 2: for the purposes of significant parts? Yeah,

[1:15:51] Trustee Allen: okay. Exactly.

[1:15:52] Trustee Allen: Exactly. Thank you. For the purposes of

[1:15:59] Voice 9: achieving potential significant

[1:16:04] Trustee Allen: cost savings.

[1:16:14] Voice 9: Thank you. I see Trustee Patrick has her hand up, but before we get to that,

[1:16:21] Voice 9: on the narrow question of, do any trustees object to this amendment to the motion that

[1:16:26] Voice 9: is on the floor i see no objection the motion has been amended by consent so let's get back

[1:16:33] Voice 9: to debating the motion trustee patrick well

[1:16:37] Trustee Patrick: if the executive committee at their next meeting

[1:16:39] Trustee Patrick: are supposed to be considering venues and schedules um perhaps this should be that we

[1:16:45] Trustee Patrick: would like to have this done in time to inform executive committee or that executive committee

[1:16:50] Trustee Patrick: take that into account we have done this almost every year uh have a you know that or at least

[1:16:58] Trustee Patrick: quite frequently that we look at the costs in the various venues there are tables that have

[1:17:02] Trustee Patrick: been looked at because this is like like should we go electronically this question is also asked

[1:17:07] Trustee Patrick: on a regular basis so that the data exists probably just needs to be updated but ec should

[1:17:13] Trustee Patrick: take that into account on the recommendations that they're going to be making all right any

[1:17:22] Voice 9: further comments or observations with respect to this motion all right not hearing any further

[1:17:30] Voice 9: further weighing in on this, I'm going to call the vote for it. All those in favor of the motion,

[1:17:36] Voice 9: please raise your hands. I'm now going to ask you to please lower your hands. Anybody who is

[1:17:48] Voice 9: opposed to the motion, please raise your hands. I see one hand up in opposition, so the motion

[1:18:00] Voice 9: passes. If we could now return to the agenda, please, Director Mobbs. We

[1:18:09] Voice 15: can do so, and Nancy's

[1:18:11] Voice 15: technology is back in order so she'll be sharing the agenda thank you nancy um okay so we have

[1:18:17] Voice 15: moved through just council meetings we're now looking at executive committee meeting planned

[1:18:22] Voice 15: costs so the amounts budgeted for ec meetings are 6 200 which reflects a plan to continue with the

[1:18:28] Voice 15: current complement of electronic and in-person meetings i do know executive committee recently

[1:18:33] Voice 15: has asked for a few more in-person meetings and so if that is a plan for next fiscal we will

[1:18:38] Voice 15: be needing to increase that amount. Currently, it reflects current practice of sort of one

[1:18:44] Voice 15: in-person meeting each quarter. Council committee meetings are at $0 in the draft budget. In previous

[1:18:52] Voice 15: years, it's been around $6,500, which pays for one in-person meeting of the Regional Planning

[1:18:57] Voice 15: Committee and the Trust Programs Committee, and all other committees tend to meet fully

[1:19:01] Voice 15: electronically. We've not seen a request from RPC or TPC at this juncture to hold one of their

[1:19:06] Voice 15: meetings in person next year and so we have a budget of no dollars and we'll be adjusting

[1:19:12] Voice 15: that accordingly if there are requests that come forward from the committee. LTC direct expenses

[1:19:17] Voice 15: are totaling $90,000 in the draft budget. It's slightly lower than what we've seen in previous

[1:19:23] Voice 15: years. I think this figure needs a greater look, a bit of revision and I think that figure is

[1:19:30] Voice 15: likely to increase in future iterations of the budget. I would like to have local trust committees

[1:19:36] Voice 15: directly involved in setting their budgets each fiscal year. What we have seen historically has

[1:19:43] Voice 15: been finance staff drafting LTC budgets based on historical spending and historical activities of

[1:19:50] Voice 15: local trust committees. That works only when local trust committees are undertaking very

[1:19:56] Voice 15: similar work year over year. What we're starting to see is that local trust committees are deviating

[1:20:02] Voice 15: from sort of standard normal cyclical practice that we're seeing more meetings that are planned

[1:20:07] Voice 15: for there's more pieces of work and get togethers so i'd like to give lpcs the opportunity to weigh

[1:20:12] Voice 15: into their own budgets this year finance staff are already working on drafting a template that

[1:20:18] Voice 15: can travel to local trust committees along with a request for decision template which will give

[1:20:23] Voice 15: local trust committees a chance to tell us what their needs are so that will advance at some point

[1:20:29] Voice 15: over the next few months and then those amounts will be influencing this budget number and again

[1:20:33] Voice 15: i expect that that will drive the number upwards i see trustee patrick's hand is up

[1:20:37] Voice 9: yes uh thank

[1:20:39] Voice 9: you for for pausing there um and um thank you for the interesting information that local trust

[1:20:45] Voice 9: meetings are uh are being increasingly deviant uh trustee patrick i

[1:20:50] Trustee Patrick: wanted to talk about the

[1:20:51] Trustee Patrick: increasingly deviant executive committee um that's when i raised my hand uh in-person meetings uh

[1:20:58] Trustee Patrick: Last term, we had in-person meetings, but we didn't require every one of the trustees to attend the in-person meeting.

[1:21:05] Trustee Patrick: There was one trustee that was quite expensive to travel and very difficult to get to the meetings.

[1:21:09] Trustee Patrick: And that person attended generally virtually all the meetings, even our in-person meetings.

[1:21:15] Trustee Patrick: So I would encourage the executive committee to be a bit more flexible in their definition of in-person so that the expenses of getting more distant members to travel there shouldn't be done.

[1:21:30] Voice 8: all right thank you trustee luckham yeah

[1:21:35] Trustee Luckham: i just comment that the policy does allow

[1:21:38] Trustee Luckham: for electronic participation in the in-person meetings and i do make the effort to say that

[1:21:43] Trustee Luckham: it's not necessary for everyone to attend if they can't or otherwise thank

[1:21:49] Voice 6: you i don't see

[1:21:53] Voice 6: any further questions if i may

[1:21:54] Voice 15: offer a comment chair in relation to that um

[1:21:59] Voice 15: i think most often

[1:22:02] Voice 15: the expensive member of the LTC traveling is usually the chair. There has been some

[1:22:12] Voice 15: conversation with the executive committee around how to reduce the cost of chairs traveling to

[1:22:17] Voice 15: their LTC meetings. That was a conversation that was had during last budget cycle

[1:22:22] Voice 15: with an acknowledgement that a chair attending electronically can be very difficult to manage

[1:22:26] Voice 15: an in-person meeting um but it is something that executive committee is is aware of um i think it's

[1:22:33] Voice 15: on their radar i think it's a fair comment but i did see you shaking your head trustee patrick so

[1:22:38] Voice 15: maybe i'm not oh

[1:22:40] Trustee Patrick: i i was referring to executive committee meetings uh bodies not not their

[1:22:45] Trustee Patrick: chairing role in my comment but i agree that oh i see that we should always be looking at the travel

[1:22:51] Trustee Patrick: expenses as well the chairs i

[1:22:55] Voice 15: see okay i had misunderstood i thought you were referencing

[1:22:57] Voice 15: referencing LTC meetings, you're referencing EC meetings.

[1:23:00] Voice 15: Okay, thank you for that clarity.

[1:23:03] Voice 15: I can march on if-

[1:23:05] Voice 15: Director

[1:23:05] Voice 9: Mods, if you could return to the agenda.

[1:23:09] Voice 15: Okay, so Local Trust Committee projects are all listed,

[1:23:13] Voice 15: summarized for you on page 19 of the agenda package.

[1:23:16] Voice 15: So the specific projects with business cases

[1:23:18] Voice 15: that have advanced into the budget cycle total $257,000.

[1:23:23] Voice 15: A significant amount of that relates

[1:23:25] Voice 15: to Salt Spring Island projects.

[1:23:26] Voice 15: These dollars would be funded from the LTC project specific reserve fund or a portion of them would be, to acknowledge that some of that work has actually been planned for the current year and will not be accomplished in the current year.

[1:23:41] Voice 15: Trustee Allen had noted that Hornby's business case for $31,000 is missing from this list, so that amount will increase and will be added in the next budget version.

[1:23:50] Voice 15: There are business cases for all of these projects included in the FPC agenda, again, with the exception of Hornby, but we'll see if we can find Hornby and circulate it perhaps over our lunch break so that trustees have a chance to look at it.

[1:24:03] Voice 15: And as we get into the business cases, that will be the opportunity for this committee to ask questions on those particular things.

[1:24:11] Voice 15: I see Trustee Patrick's hand again, Chair.

[1:24:14] Voice 9: Trustee Patrick, please proceed.

[1:24:16] Voice 9: I

[1:24:16] Trustee Patrick: just want, this is actually the third budget that the Salt Spring projects have come back where work has not proceeded. I think last year was $0 spent. This year to date is $0 or very close to $0 spent. So this is a project that's not gotten off the ground for a number of reasons.

[1:24:43] Voice 6: Thank you.

[1:24:46] Voice 9: Director Mobbs?

[1:24:48] Voice 15: There is an agenda package.

[1:24:50] Voice 9: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Director Mobs, Trustee Peterson has a comment.

[1:24:56] Voice 9: Just

[1:24:58] Voice 18: to do with what Trustee Patrick was saying, and of course, the Hornby case is similar.

[1:25:04] Voice 18: Is there, when we have projects that have already had approved budget that the work hasn't been completed, is there some way we can simply, whether it's an asterisk or a note or some way for not only us on FPC, but perhaps members of the public looking at these budgets,

[1:25:29] Voice 18: Just to identify that when there is not new funds being taxed, because I think it's important for everyone to understand that when that is the case. Thank you.

[1:25:45] Voice 15: We can

[1:25:46] Voice 15: absolutely do that. Actually, our internal documents do have a note beside every single one of these LTC projects to indicate if it's new tax money or coming from surplus, which indicates that it was previously taxed and not spent.

[1:25:57] Voice 15: so in future budget versions we can just include that internal column in this report which will

[1:26:04] Voice 15: help thanks for that thank

[1:26:08] Voice 10: you okay

[1:26:09] Voice 15: let's continue on there is a feasibility assessment

[1:26:15] Voice 15: included in this agenda package coming from the director of planning who takes a look at all of

[1:26:22] Voice 15: the planned projects for the planning team next fiscal year and does an assessment of whether or

[1:26:27] Voice 15: not all of the projects that are being asked for is achievable so that report's included um the

[1:26:33] Voice 15: director can speak to that if the committee wishes and uh we can dig into the methodology there if

[1:26:38] Voice 15: you wish uh local trust or sorry islands trust conservancy expenses are uh in the budget at

[1:26:45] Voice 15: just a moment

[1:26:46] Voice 15: uh

[1:26:49] Voice 9: director mobs uh trustee patrick has another comment so

[1:26:53] Trustee Patrick: the intent is we'll discuss

[1:26:54] Trustee Patrick: that report in the agenda as presented is that the idea because the feasibility committee wishes

[1:27:01] Voice 15: to have it spoken to then absolutely yeah but

[1:27:04] Voice 15: it's on the

[1:27:05] Voice 9: agenda yeah

[1:27:05] Trustee Patrick: at that time okay yeah

[1:27:07] Voice 9: so we'll deal with it when we we deal with it when we get to that particular item in fact

[1:27:12] Voice 9: if we can actually move this part of it along because you know i think we're doing some good

[1:27:15] Voice 9: work here but um getting into the nitty-gritty of some of those business cases um that's also

[1:27:21] Voice 9: going to take up a fair bit of time this is what we're doing now with the overview is extremely

[1:27:26] Voice 9: important but um let's bear in mind we don't want to short uh circuit uh the the subsequent more

[1:27:32] Voice 9: detailed work uh director mods please continue uh

[1:27:36] Voice 15: thanks sir i am also happy to um limit my

[1:27:40] Voice 15: comments on the overview with the assumption that uh folks have read it um if you wish to move

[1:27:46] Voice 15: directly into business cases well we're pretty

[1:27:49] Voice 15: we're pretty close to

[1:27:50] Voice 9: them already so you know i

[1:27:51] Voice 9: I think you should simply continue sort of moving along briskly.

[1:27:54] Voice 9: I mean, people may have their questions.

[1:27:55] Voice 9: So I think

[1:27:57] Voice 15: you've said a

[1:27:58] Voice 9: pretty good piece here with just the right balance between detail and overview.

[1:28:02] Voice 9: So just carry on.

[1:28:05] Voice 15: Okay.

[1:28:05] Voice 15: I will proceed with haste.

[1:28:07] Voice 15: So our Conservancy expenses exclusive salary amounts are in the budget at $715,000,

[1:28:14] Voice 15: which is a slight increase over last year's $655,000.

[1:28:18] Voice 15: The Conservancy Board does meet every year to talk about their budget needs,

[1:28:22] Voice 15: and they do advance their request into the budget cycle accordingly.

[1:28:25] Voice 15: Their information is included in this agenda as well,

[1:28:30] Voice 15: so that the Financial Planning Committee can see the rationale for the Conservancy's request.

[1:28:34] Voice 15: We are seeing some increases, particular to conservation planning and land securement.

[1:28:39] Voice 15: So as the Conservancy receives new land, of course,

[1:28:43] Voice 15: we would expect to see an increased cost associated with managing those pieces of land.

[1:28:47] Voice 15: We do need to update ecosystem mapping to make sure that the data that we have

[1:28:51] Voice 15: in the land management remains accurate along with all of those things receiving

[1:28:57] Voice 15: land managing land of course is legal costs and legal costs are something that

[1:29:01] Voice 15: we see increasing across the organization and the Conservancy is not

[1:29:04] Voice 15: exempt from that there is $19,000 for professional services which particularly

[1:29:10] Voice 15: relate to grant evaluation that is required as part of a grant receipt that

[1:29:16] Voice 15: that the Conservancy has received,

[1:29:19] Voice 15: as well as $8,000 to contract

[1:29:21] Voice 15: First Nations liaison and advisor.

[1:29:24] Voice 15: We do have Director Frater here today,

[1:29:26] Voice 15: as well as Conservancy board members

[1:29:28] Voice 15: who can speak to the nuance of their increase

[1:29:30] Voice 15: when we get there, if you wish.

[1:29:35] Voice 15: I will just quickly go back.

[1:29:37] Voice 15: I don't see any questions, so I will move on.

[1:29:40] Voice 15: Our office leases and associated costs

[1:29:42] Voice 15: are very similar to what we see next fiscal year.

[1:29:44] Voice 15: Usually we do see a higher increase

[1:29:46] Voice 15: in the budget for office leases.

[1:29:48] Voice 15: Of course, our landlords are seeing rising costs associated with insurance and ongoing management costs for these office spaces, and they pass those costs on to us.

[1:30:00] Voice 15: We're seeing less of an increase year-over-year in the current draft budget, and that's primarily because the new space on Salt Spring Island is giving us some monthly rental relief as part of a lease inducement, which is very common in business leases.

[1:30:15] Voice 15: And so that's helping us a little bit with the increase year-over-year.

[1:30:20] Voice 15: The office renovation and relocation for Salt Spring will be complete by next fiscal year, and so none of those costs are included in the draft budget.

[1:30:28] Voice 15: FOI and records management is at $10,000 in the draft budget, it was $5,000 in the current

[1:30:33] Voice 15: year.

[1:30:34] Voice 15: Historically it was $10,000, last year FPC and Trust Council reduced it to $5,000.

[1:30:38] Voice 15: The Director of Information Services and Legislative Services is asking for $10,000 again.

[1:30:45] Voice 15: The budget guideline that Council has passed would seek that a business case be provided

[1:30:49] Voice 15: for that and so that will be advancing in the next duration of the budget for FPC.

[1:30:53] Voice 15: Unfortunately, Director Marley is not here to speak to that particular item today.

[1:30:58] Voice 15: Recruitment and labor relations has a small budget that's mainly to fund advertisements

[1:31:03] Voice 15: for job postings and contracted human resources for the public service agency.

[1:31:08] Voice 15: There's a dramatic increase over last year's budget.

[1:31:11] Voice 15: This current year's budget was $96,000.

[1:31:13] Voice 15: Next year's budget is only $22,000.

[1:31:15] Voice 15: That's because we are not funding a recruitment agency to find a new CAO next year, which

[1:31:20] Voice 15: we were this year.

[1:31:21] Voice 15: year. No increase to payroll processing, which are amounts we pay to the PSA for processing staff

[1:31:26] Voice 15: payroll. Our insurance costs, we have an estimated 10% increase over the prior year. This is an

[1:31:33] Voice 15: estimate based on what we're hearing from our insurance provider. We are expecting that the

[1:31:38] Voice 15: actual increase will come in well below 10%. We are with the MIA Insurance Association now and

[1:31:46] Voice 15: And for the next three years, our experience rating, which is a factor that influences our premiums, will not be adjusted.

[1:31:53] Voice 15: So we are likely to see an increase that is less than 10%.

[1:31:57] Voice 15: We've been conservative and estimated at 10% for now, and we'll update that when we get more information from MIABC.

[1:32:04] Voice 15: Our legal costs are at $227,000 in total in the budget, which is an increase over last year's budget.

[1:32:10] Voice 15: so you'll recall that Trust Council made the decision, I believe at FPC's recommendation,

[1:32:15] Voice 15: to reduce legal budget and instead fund any necessary legal costs from surplus as needed.

[1:32:20] Voice 15: So we are seeing in the current year the result of that decision is that we are overspending our

[1:32:24] Voice 15: legal budget and having to use surplus funds to pay for it. There's an opportunity to take that

[1:32:29] Voice 15: same approach next year. For right now we've estimated legal costs similar to what our

[1:32:36] Voice 15: historical needs have been and we'll be updating that as we move through the budget cycle as well

[1:32:41] Voice 15: of course as new legal information comes our way. Software support and licensing expenses $186,000

[1:32:50] Voice 15: we've got a lot of software systems here at the trust we all we have a lot of departments doing

[1:32:53] Voice 15: very different work very different needs and so we have to pay annual licenses for those

[1:32:58] Voice 15: software systems that we use. The amount is reduced over a previous year and that's because

[1:33:03] Voice 15: because in the prior year, the Microsoft license cost of $34,000 was included, which is not

[1:33:09] Voice 15: included in next year's budget.

[1:33:12] Voice 15: We always have increases for upgrading computer hardware and software, no exception to next

[1:33:17] Voice 15: year's budget.

[1:33:18] Voice 15: There's a cost of $157,000 in next year's budget.

[1:33:21] Voice 15: There's a list of the capital and computer hardware pieces that will be funded out of

[1:33:26] Voice 15: that on page 21 of the agenda item.

[1:33:29] Voice 15: Most of these are fairly cyclical.

[1:33:30] Voice 15: We do need to replace the hardware as needed.

[1:33:33] Voice 15: Usually they're on a three to five year cycle.

[1:33:36] Voice 15: And so that's what is listed there.

[1:33:41] Voice 15: Contracted temporary staffing is a line where we can put costs for any sort of temporary

[1:33:46] Voice 15: agencies that we might employ to help us keep work moving when we have some staff vacancies.

[1:33:52] Voice 15: There's an estimated budget of $25,000 in the draft budget.

[1:33:56] Voice 15: And that mirrors what we saw in the previous year.

[1:34:00] Voice 15: There's a new line for professional consultant fees.

[1:34:02] Voice 15: and there's a budget of $19,000 there.

[1:34:05] Voice 15: The bulk of that is coming from the Conservancy, as we mentioned previously.

[1:34:08] Voice 15: I think it's important for us to have this budget line, which is why staff have added it.

[1:34:13] Voice 15: It helps us understand how much of our work we're farming out to professional consultants.

[1:34:19] Voice 15: Strategic plan work and projects are listed on page 21 of the agenda package.

[1:34:24] Voice 15: So most of these items have been submitted by committees.

[1:34:28] Voice 15: Of course, the Housing Action Plan and Freshwater, as I mentioned previously,

[1:34:31] Voice 15: Obviously, these are placeholders and the dollar amounts may shift as regional planning committee completes their work on that at their next meeting.

[1:34:38] Voice 15: I feel that's plenty for me.

[1:34:42] Voice 15: I've taken up a lot of airtime and now we can move into the business cases or I can take questions on what's been presented.

[1:34:49] Voice 9: Unless there are some pressing questions about the overview, I think we should dive into the business cases.

[1:34:54] Voice 9: I think we've done a pretty good pace here.

[1:34:57] Voice 9: 1130 I'm proposing that we will take a break at 12 for a half hour and then resume drilling

[1:35:04] Voice 9: into it and I see from my screen that Trustee Boland is back so let's dive into the next

[1:35:16] Voice 9: conceptual phase of this meeting which is zipping ahead to the budget submissions.

[1:35:24] Voice 9: So perhaps I'm sure Director Mott is a little tired of this, but if we could have staff

[1:35:32] Voice 9: to speak to that, please, or at least open the discussion.

[1:35:41] Voice 15: Sorry, just give me a moment here to get back to my screen.

[1:35:46] Voice 15: So Executive Committee's budget submission, the briefing that they reviewed in their dialogue

[1:35:52] Voice 15: is starts on page 26 of the agenda.

[1:35:55] Voice 15: it looks at the operational items just council programming pieces and then

[1:36:01] Voice 15: particular project pieces that are advancing into next fiscal year I think

[1:36:07] Voice 15: you know we've got all of our executive committee members here today I think if

[1:36:10] Voice 15: they wish to speak to any of the budget requests I think it's a good opportunity

[1:36:14] Voice 15: for them to do so and

[1:36:16] Voice 9: I would add for the other benefit of the other trustees

[1:36:18] Voice 9: I mean we're at the stage now at the the budget process and specifically at this

[1:36:23] Voice 9: part of the meeting. This is our opportunity to put on the green eye shades and just sort of

[1:36:28] Voice 9: drill down into the exercise we do every year of weighing what some might call discretionary

[1:36:35] Voice 9: expenditures are. And really, it's a question of looking at the robustness, as we've discussed

[1:36:42] Voice 9: before, the robustness of the business cases. So the floor is open now to start discussing

[1:36:48] Voice 9: the budget request from the executive committee and as director mox has pointed out uh executive

[1:36:55] Voice 9: committee is here president accounted for so they can answer any questions people have about

[1:37:00] Voice 9: the relative weighting they're giving to these various items so trustee allen thank you chair

[1:37:08] Trustee Allen: um i just had a question regarding with two questions one was the um page 28 the public

[1:37:14] Trustee Allen: communications piece actually in the next page 29 at the top the four thousand dollars graphic

[1:37:22] Trustee Allen: design for national day for traffic conciliation that's a chunk of money and um is that who is

[1:37:31] Trustee Allen: doing that is that a is that like who's going to be doing that graphic design i guess i mean

[1:37:38] Trustee Allen: i wouldn't hope so would be a first nations person and then on that note number 12 reconciliation

[1:37:45] Trustee Allen: conciliation action plan where would the in terms of their capacity funding for First Nations when

[1:37:52] Trustee Allen: we forward OCPLEB reviews for for them to look at is that that capacity funding is that in in

[1:38:00] Trustee Allen: any of these categories is it assumed like operations or something or that's my question

[1:38:09] Trustee Allen: thank you.

[1:38:10] Voice 9: Trustee Luckham has his hand up I'm anticipating that to respond to the inquiries

[1:38:15] Voice 9: and your executive committee capacity?

[1:38:18] Trustee Luckham: Certainly, although staff may be better suited

[1:38:22] Trustee Luckham: to address that level of detail,

[1:38:25] Trustee Luckham: but we do not have, I don't believe we have graphic

[1:38:31] Trustee Luckham: presentation material staff on board.

[1:38:34] Trustee Luckham: And so that is likely a contract,

[1:38:36] Trustee Luckham: which is what we typically do

[1:38:38] Trustee Luckham: with other public facing reporting documents.

[1:38:42] Trustee Luckham: documents. Um, and that is obviously work in support of our reconciliation, uh, uh, work at

[1:38:48] Trustee Luckham: the Islanders Trust. And so, yeah, it's not inexpensive, but it's also important work, um,

[1:38:55] Trustee Luckham: um, that the Islanders Trust needs to do. And then the other item, um, just scrolling down,

[1:39:02] Trustee Luckham: if you don't mind there on the screen, there we go. Uh, the implementation, the next question

[1:39:07] Trustee Luckham: there was with respect to the capacity funding. If I'm not mistaken, some or a lot of that funding

[1:39:18] Trustee Luckham: is actually coming out of the grant monies that we received to extend over a three-year period,

[1:39:25] Trustee Luckham: I think it was, to assist us in that work. But I would also need to seek clarity

[1:39:31] Trustee Luckham: from staff on that. But that's an in and an out. So grant monies come in,

[1:39:36] Trustee Luckham: and we're drawing upon that from within our budget to facilitate that work so if there's

[1:39:42] Trustee Luckham: anything from staff and jesse claire freighter's got her hand up which would be very helpful

[1:39:46] Voice 9: uh uh yes i think we should go to director freighter but before we do that just a point

[1:39:50] Voice 9: of clarification um director mobs out in the in the chat section here at the screen that

[1:39:56] Voice 9: uh due to some unknown technical issue she's unable to raise her hand when she wishes to

[1:40:02] Voice 9: be recognized to speak to the meeting and so she's she's having to just jump in uh

[1:40:09] Voice 9: and i think that's fine uh director freighter just or sorry director mobs um please feel free to to

[1:40:17] Voice 9: uh respond in a timely way uh and you know we'll cope with it it's a little unorthodox but just

[1:40:23] Voice 9: dive in because uh your insights are quite valuable obviously for these meetings uh director

[1:40:28] Voice 9: Dr. Freider?

[1:40:30] Voice 14: The question regarding the graphic design for the National Truth and Reconciliation

[1:40:35] Voice 14: Day, we've spoken with other representatives of local governments around the work that

[1:40:40] Voice 14: they've done in this area.

[1:40:41] Voice 14: So this is an informed estimate based on their experiences.

[1:40:45] Voice 14: This is intended to be the hiring of an Indigenous artist to undertake logo design and some other

[1:40:52] Voice 14: graphic elements.

[1:40:53] Voice 14: This is not a required activity.

[1:40:55] Voice 14: So certainly feedback from FPC to executive committee for when we bring forward that initiative or whether you wish to have it continue to be included would be useful.

[1:41:05] Voice 14: With regard to the Reconciliation Action Plan and capacity funding, this funding would not include capacity funding on individual initiatives.

[1:41:13] Voice 14: Generally, this would be for that would, it is intended that each project that is intended to provide capacity funding, bring forward any intended capacity funding within the particular project budget, we are working on a template agreement, a trust council draft trust council policy and a staff procedure relating to capacity funding that we hope to bring forward in the coming months for consideration that certainly could be considered in conjunction with the budget development.

[1:41:41] Voice 14: development

[1:41:43] Voice 9: but see patrick yeah

[1:41:47] Trustee Patrick: i'm sort of following on what um uh director freighter was

[1:41:52] Trustee Patrick: just talking about for all of these items are they just trump trust consult work or are where

[1:41:59] Trustee Patrick: where's the line i'll take communications for example um project communications i understand

[1:42:05] Trustee Patrick: that salt springs ocp project should carry money to do its own communications but then we have sort

[1:42:11] Trustee Patrick: sort of general communications about upcoming meetings

[1:42:13] Trustee Patrick: and all of those type of things or anything else that could be

[1:42:19] Trustee Patrick: odd communications that come up that need to be made.

[1:42:22] Trustee Patrick: So when we have one lump budgeting, I'm not sure what's in the LTC columns

[1:42:28] Trustee Patrick: of expenditures, even under reconciliation, action plan items.

[1:42:35] Trustee Patrick: So I think that's just my question is, is this all trust counsel

[1:42:41] Trustee Patrick: or is there some sliding?

[1:42:45] Voice 14: There has been a little bit of sliding, I would say.

[1:42:50] Voice 14: Now that there's a communication strategy in place,

[1:42:52] Voice 14: generally the communications funding is being used

[1:42:56] Voice 14: to advance the activities named in that strategy.

[1:42:59] Voice 14: The communications specialist is funded 25% of her time

[1:43:02] Voice 14: to support local trust committees.

[1:43:04] Voice 14: So there is at times a little bit of support

[1:43:07] Voice 14: to local trust committees.

[1:43:08] Voice 14: But I see generally this funding is for trust-wide initiatives,

[1:43:12] Voice 14: Which, of course, local trust committees benefit from. With regard to the Reconciliation Action Plan, we are developing a draft plan for Trust Council's consideration. My hope is that you'll have a pretty strong outline, if not a draft plan for consideration by March, which could then be used to more accurately cost against and have a more concrete sense of activities.

[1:43:31] Voice 14: activities, but that they're happening in parallel at this point. Again, primarily trust-wide

[1:43:36] Voice 14: activities, but of course the development of agreements, because agreements can only be held

[1:43:41] Voice 14: by trust council, they are often done on behalf of local trust committees, but they're considered

[1:43:46] Voice 14: trust-wide costs because council is the only entity with the authority to hold those agreements.

[1:43:51] Voice 14: So I hope that's a helpful answer.

[1:43:57] Voice 8: Rossi Boland?

[1:43:58] Voice 8: Yeah,

[1:44:04] Voice 13: I would echo the questioning of the 4000 for the graphic design. I just think it's, it seems like a lot. The one I wanted to ask about was training for staff and trustees. And so my question is, is that for culturally committed to continue that program?

[1:44:25] Voice 14: program? You will find out tonight that there will be a survey going out around the culturally

[1:44:31] Voice 14: committed contract for the reconciliation learning group. At this time, this amount would be

[1:44:38] Voice 14: insufficient to continue that contract into the next fiscal year. And we should council choose

[1:44:43] Voice 14: to increase the training budget sufficient that culturally committed might be considered,

[1:44:49] Voice 14: we would still be required to run a competitive procurement process. So it wouldn't be certain

[1:44:55] Voice 14: that they would be the selected contractor in the future but at this time no this would not be

[1:44:59] Voice 14: sufficient funding to participate in that program in the way with the number of people that we've

[1:45:03] Voice 14: currently had involved so certainly that will be a conversation coming once we've issued the survey

[1:45:08] Voice 14: and got the responses in about what the next steps might be for training so

[1:45:12] Voice 13: what is that for roughly

[1:45:15] Voice 13: what are the ideas behind that and and i do have a comment about the culturally committed go ahead

[1:45:21] Voice 14: So this is a little bit a dart at the wall number, somewhat informed by an estimate of

[1:45:25] Voice 14: bringing in various contractors, internal staff needing resources to bring in a variety

[1:45:33] Voice 14: of different contractors and a mix of staff resources to provide training.

[1:45:36] Voice 14: It may be that a business such as Culturally Committed would also be in the mix.

[1:45:41] Voice 14: I would suggest this number could easily be doubled, should you wish to take advantage

[1:45:46] Voice 14: of some of the wonderful contractors in this space.

[1:45:48] Voice 14: um but this was meant to be sort of a rough estimate again when we bring forward the

[1:45:53] Voice 14: reconciliation action plan for consideration there'll be more detail within that and we might

[1:45:57] Voice 14: be able to refine budget numbers as we go through the budget cycle okay

[1:46:01] Voice 13: i i find culturally committed

[1:46:03] Voice 13: very uh useful however it is you know it is a bit of a time commitment and i'm not sure how i know

[1:46:13] Voice 13: that you struggled in the beginning to fill the slots that were allocated so anyway i look forward

[1:46:19] Voice 13: to the survey to um to find out more okay thank you

[1:46:27] Voice 8: to getty okay

[1:46:31] Voice 2: my other phone is ringing in

[1:46:32] Voice 2: the background i'm sorry if that interferes um i would find it helpful to have this broken down

[1:46:38] Voice 2: into uh what is trust wide and what is local trust committees or um that might be of importance to

[1:46:46] Voice 2: to the Bowen Island calculations?

[1:46:52] Voice 14: Certainly we can do that.

[1:46:57] Voice 9: Perhaps we can have,

[1:46:59] Voice 9: if there's a particular need for Bowen Island,

[1:47:02] Voice 9: it might be helpful for that be sent

[1:47:03] Voice 9: to Trustee Getty directly or to Bowen Island staff directly,

[1:47:07] Voice 9: but perhaps for the benefit of the rest of the committee,

[1:47:11] Voice 9: those numbers, the greater detail

[1:47:15] Voice 9: that Trustee Getty is talking about,

[1:47:17] Voice 9: perhaps that could be included in the next iteration

[1:47:19] Voice 9: of this exercise in November.

[1:47:22] Voice 14: Yes, certainly, Chair. And as Director Mobs mentioned earlier, often there's an exercise that staff go through where we look at each budget item and make sure that we carefully evaluate it in terms of how the Bowen Island Municipality formula is applied to that particular line.

[1:47:35] Voice 14: We have not done that in detail so far in this cycle, and we will be undertaking that work, especially for items like this.

[1:47:42] Voice 9: All right, thank you. And as we continue our review, I want to remind everybody, we always get a certain amount of heartburn when we start looking later on in the process.

[1:47:53] Voice 9: of what looks like the final projected tax increase

[1:47:56] Voice 9: and we start getting desperate

[1:47:57] Voice 9: about wanting to knock it down.

[1:48:01] Voice 9: It'd be great if we could avoid that sense

[1:48:04] Voice 9: of being cornered there this time around.

[1:48:11] Voice 9: We had earlier today a discussion

[1:48:14] Voice 9: of what the projected tax increases are

[1:48:16] Voice 9: at this stage of the process.

[1:48:20] Voice 9: Most of that is, as Director Mons pointed out,

[1:48:22] Voice 9: is relates to the what we could call more or less the fixed overhead choices and she did a good job

[1:48:29] Voice 9: of reviewing that in a general way but as we're looking at these funding requests the scrutiny

[1:48:35] Voice 9: we apply the scrutiny we apply here is helpful with respect to getting to the to the final

[1:48:42] Voice 9: to potentially a final better number for the tax increases sorry to be long-winded about that but

[1:48:50] Voice 9: but I just want to emphasize that this is our opportunity

[1:48:53] Voice 9: to drill into these numbers.

[1:48:55] Voice 9: So do trustees have any further comments or questions

[1:48:58] Voice 9: about the funding requests coming from executive committee?

[1:49:09] Voice 9: Because, all right, let's move on to the next item then,

[1:49:14] Voice 9: or the next funding request.

[1:49:27] Voice 15: So this is the draft policy statement amendment project

[1:49:31] Voice 15: request for next fiscal year.

[1:49:32] Voice 15: So Director Freider is here to speak to that.

[1:49:34] Voice 15: Executive committee has not yet seen this.

[1:49:37] Voice 9: perhaps we could uh have that um i don't think we have that item on the screen yet do we

[1:49:42] Voice 9: or do we we

[1:49:45] Voice 15: do okay

[1:49:46] Voice 9: there we go i'm all

[1:49:49] Voice 9: right i'm afraid yeah

[1:49:50] Voice 14: so this is the policy statement

[1:49:52] Voice 14: amendment project business case again as director mobs mentioned it has not yet been seen by

[1:49:56] Voice 14: executive committee it differs um by um fifteen thousand dollars from what was approved in the

[1:50:03] Voice 14: the project charter for two reasons. We've begun initial conversations with potential providers of

[1:50:10] Voice 14: a survey and have come to understand that our $20,000 estimate for a trust-wide survey relating

[1:50:16] Voice 14: to a policy topic such as this was an underestimate. So we've revised that to $30,000. And we've also

[1:50:21] Voice 14: increased the legal budget amount by $5,000 to go from $5,000 to $10,000. So when we bring back

[1:50:28] Voice 14: a revised project charter to council it may include those amounts depending on your debates

[1:50:33] Voice 14: and deliberations today as noted there are a variety of options provided below but this

[1:50:39] Voice 14: budget this business case assumes that we are delivering the project as per the

[1:50:44] Voice 14: recommended and approved project charter i will note as we often note when we present on this

[1:50:51] Voice 14: topic the in-person public engagement method to inform local trust committee referral responses

[1:50:57] Voice 14: back to Trust Council is not required, but I understand it's certainly a political desire

[1:51:03] Voice 14: to undertake that work and have that visibility in communities, but it will certainly be a large

[1:51:08] Voice 14: commitment of staff time and of finances. We've allocated $20,000 to that, which if all local

[1:51:17] Voice 14: trust committees want to participate and Bowen Island Municipality is an insufficient amount of

[1:51:21] Voice 14: money, we are in the midst of providing briefings to local trust committees and Bowen Island

[1:51:27] Voice 14: municipality to ascertain their interest in having those in-person engagement events in order to

[1:51:31] Voice 14: support their referral responses back to council if we find that all of them wish to participate

[1:51:36] Voice 14: we will have to revise this business case and bring it back such that we have sufficient funding

[1:51:40] Voice 14: to offer it in every community i'd be happy to take questions trustees

[1:51:46] Voice 9: uh trustee

[1:51:49] Trustee Allen: alan thank you

[1:51:50] Trustee Allen: chair um yeah just regarding what you just said we've got the in-person public engagement i i see

[1:51:57] Trustee Allen: see that as well the trustees are definitely the local trustees should be getting out there on

[1:52:00] Trustee Allen: on the ground helping out with the engagement for sure and but I was just wondering whether

[1:52:05] Trustee Allen: possibly a webinar or something could be a substitute for public engagement in terms

[1:52:11] Trustee Allen: for this and how much cost that would be regarding versus you guys coming to the islands and stuff

[1:52:19] Voice 14: I'd be happy to answer that so we do already have two trust-wide engagement tools one is a survey

[1:52:24] Voice 14: that's planned. The other is a public or community workshop that would be planned around the policy

[1:52:29] Voice 14: statement. So there's already two online versions. The survey will be delivered online, but there'll

[1:52:34] Voice 14: also be paper copies available for people to mail back in, in every community as well.

[1:52:41] Voice 8: Leslie, Patrick?

[1:52:42] Trustee Patrick: So this is one of the challenges because one size does not fit all. Salt Spring with a population

[1:52:47] Trustee Patrick: of 12,000 people. I appreciate Trustee Allen, trustees getting out there and, you know, it's

[1:52:52] Trustee Patrick: It's like I can spend all day, all week and cover a tiny fraction.

[1:52:58] Trustee Patrick: So we do need to make sure that we have the budget to cover a larger populated island such as Salt Spring.

[1:53:08] Voice 8: Trustee Yates.

[1:53:10] Voice 11: Thank you, Chair Bernardo.

[1:53:13] Voice 11: Yeah, I won't be getting out there specifically to do this work.

[1:53:17] Voice 11: I talk about it generally at various meetings.

[1:53:20] Voice 11: And I love the idea of a webinar.

[1:53:24] Voice 11: they've been pretty successful so far as far as educational things and i had a wonderful chat with

[1:53:30] Voice 11: trustee borthwick last night about policy statements in general and reflecting back on

[1:53:36] Voice 11: the 1986 one uh which didn't require any public um sort of dog and pony show and i know times

[1:53:46] Voice 11: Times have changed, but I think this is the work that we need to do as council

[1:53:51] Voice 11: and just inform the public when we're finished.

[1:53:57] Voice 11: Thank you.

[1:54:03] Voice 18: Trustee Peterson?

[1:54:06] Voice 18: I would just note that there was significant public reaction last term to the first draft.

[1:54:14] Voice 18: um having uh been in the liskiti ltc we received the um um the options as director freighter

[1:54:25] Voice 18: outlined um uh you know so at some level it is will be up to ltcs uh to determine what's

[1:54:33] Voice 18: appropriate um one of the things i just wanted to mention that um we discussed uh on liskiti

[1:54:40] Voice 18: was the option an option not included in in the uh in the outline which was uh having a trustee

[1:54:47] Voice 18: or trustees um man an info booth so i i think that um director freighter indicated that there's

[1:54:57] Voice 18: there's uh a variety of options available for ltcs

[1:55:05] Voice 18: Trustee Boland?

[1:55:08] Voice 13: I support what's being said so far.

[1:55:10] Voice 13: I think we as trustees need to really take on this.

[1:55:18] Voice 13: And I also think that the reaction the last time was to some of the,

[1:55:26] Voice 13: what I personally would call egregious material in the draft,

[1:55:32] Voice 13: And it is a much more commonsensical document now that I think won't cause the heartburn that the last one did.

[1:55:43] Voice 13: So I think we should take that on.

[1:55:47] Voice 13: And I don't think the engagement needs the extra funding that's under discussion.

[1:55:53] Voice 13: Thanks.

[1:55:54] Voice 13: I'd

[1:55:57] Voice 9: like to point out this is exactly the kind of discussion we need to have at this stage in the sense that looking at these numbers in particular with respect to the Trust Policy Statement is really, really engaged the planning part of the Financial Planning Committee.

[1:56:11] Voice 9: It really amounts to assessing the nuances of the Trust Policy Statement project implementation and assessing those nuances for their effectiveness.

[1:56:21] Voice 9: And that's what I'm hearing people talking about that with respect to the public engagement part.

[1:56:26] Voice 9: Further comments from trustees in terms of drilling into this funding request.

[1:56:33] Voice 9: Trustee Allen.

[1:56:34] Trustee Allen: Thank you, Jared.

[1:56:35] Trustee Allen: No, I just wanted to add that in terms of more engagement, like in terms of the survey,

[1:56:39] Trustee Allen: there wasn't that great of response.

[1:56:41] Trustee Allen: And so as trustees, we can certainly get people to fill out the survey, a lot more people.

[1:56:47] Trustee Allen: So I just want to say that's another part of engagement we can do.

[1:56:52] Voice 9: Well, I'm hearing two things.

[1:56:53] Voice 9: One is, just to follow up on Trustee Allen, one is we can do a better,

[1:56:57] Voice 9: public engagement, but I'm also hearing some trustees express some skepticism about

[1:57:02] Voice 9: how much energy we should be putting into the public engagement issue as opposed to sort of

[1:57:07] Voice 9: being decisive, I guess, at our end. But we're approaching noon. I see Trustee Graham has his

[1:57:15] Voice 9: hand up. Before we go to

[1:57:16] Voice 9: Trustee Graham, I think he's going to be the last speaker before we take

[1:57:20] Voice 9: our lunch break for a half hour. And I'm going to propose that we return to this particular item

[1:57:25] Voice 9: after the lunch break, because after people have, I mean, this is a really important thing that

[1:57:30] Voice 9: we're doing, the trust policy statement, and now's the time for us to drill into that sort of thing.

[1:57:35] Voice 9: So, oh, Trustee Getty has got her hand up as well, so just in under the line, I guess. Trustee Graham.

[1:57:42] Voice 5: Thank you, Chair. I wish I had been part of the previous trust councils when you ran into all of

[1:57:49] Voice 5: that public concern, and I think Trustee Boland nailed it when she said there were a few egregious

[1:57:56] Voice 5: ideas in there that really tipped certain people over because it hit them directly.

[1:58:01] Voice 5: Most of that language has been removed. I think we've probably worn out our community

[1:58:07] Voice 5: in their interest in policy statement. I think we need to bring it home and give those that are

[1:58:14] Voice 5: engaged an opportunity, probably through the website, to make their comments. But generally

[1:58:18] Voice 5: speaking, let's get this to the finish line as quickly and as inexpensively as we can.

[1:58:23] Voice 5: Yeah.

[1:58:25] Voice 9: Trustee Getty, last meeting before we break for lunch.

[1:58:29] Voice 2: Well, I had put a suggestion in the chat room that I have to leave at 1,

[1:58:34] Voice 2: and I believe Alex said that he was leaving at 1, and I was asking that we work until 1,

[1:58:41] Voice 2: rather than take a break now and come back and then leave.

[1:58:48] Voice 9: On that issue, I guess I need to sort of canvas the group about that suggestion.

[1:58:55] Voice 9: we've all been sitting here for two hours now close to two hours I think we do need some kind

[1:59:01] Voice 9: of break at this juncture how does I see trustee Bowen has a suggestion that we simply take a short

[1:59:06] Voice 9: break now yeah let's

[1:59:08] Voice 9: think about what's the group

[1:59:10] Voice 9: think but breaking for 15 minutes and then

[1:59:13] Voice 9: returning to run until one and then maybe we'll take a lunch break then of some sort

[1:59:19] Voice 9: does anybody object to doing that can

[1:59:22] Trustee Allen: i just start chair that in terms of the both judith and i are

[1:59:26] Trustee Allen: going to be um the part of the audit committee so if we could maybe push that up or something

[1:59:33] Trustee Allen: if we're not going to get through this in time yeah that's what i have concerns about because

[1:59:38] Trustee Allen: we're leaving at one o'clock

[1:59:40] Voice 9: right uh i'm not sure you either one of you has to be present here for

[1:59:45] Voice 9: that decision to be made um i i don't see anything any it's an appointment that has to be made but

[1:59:52] Voice 9: there's no controversy about it so okay thanks

[1:59:54] Voice 9: easy about about missing that part of it so i'm

[1:59:59] Voice 9: not hearing any objections

[2:00:00] Voice 9: to my suggestion maybe 15 minutes is a bit long considering we're just taking us basically a short

[2:00:04] Voice 9: comfort break so um let's recess until 12 10 then we'll resume the meeting till one and at one we'll

[2:00:12] Voice 9: take the lunch break and that should accommodate our trustees who have to leave so

[2:00:16] Voice 9: back at 12 10

[2:00:17] Voice 9: please

[2:08:23] Voice 3: don't arrange anything you're

[2:08:36] Voice 15: not muted nancy

[2:08:37] Voice 3: oh sorry thanks hello everyone we're back

[2:10:25] Voice 9: meeting is resuming specifically we have the um executive committee funding request back on the

[2:10:32] Voice 9: screen here we go that's where we left the discussion uh before

[2:10:36] Voice 8: we take our took our

[2:10:37] Voice 8: brief break uh let the discussion continue trustee getty this

[2:10:43] Voice 2: is one of the um sections of the budget

[2:10:47] Voice 2: that bowen island is going to be um you know have part of that 33 increase is going to be

[2:10:54] Voice 2: things like this so this is a trust wide and it's important so um i think i'd be in favor of cutting

[2:11:02] Voice 2: back on the actual um people showing up and having all of the expenses for public engagement

[2:11:09] Voice 2: but that said um i think it's really important for i guess maybe because we're so far away

[2:11:17] Voice 2: from um and we don't have the local trust committee it's really hard to keep a presence of

[2:11:23] Voice 2: the Islands Trust on Bowen. So the webinar or some other way of doing, you know, what would

[2:11:31] Voice 2: be considered extensive time explaining all of the details, I think there is going to be some pushback

[2:11:40] Voice 2: possibly on the reconciliation piece and how strong that is in this policy statement.

[2:11:46] Voice 2: I'm anticipating I'm not entirely sure we did vote green so you know there's

[2:11:53] Voice 2: hope that we might be a lot more sympathetic to all those kinds of policy

[2:11:58] Voice 2: ideas but I think it's important piece that needs to have more discussion on

[2:12:05] Voice 2: Bowen not just from Sue Ellen and I but from the organization and I think that

[2:12:13] Voice 2: But not the least expensive way of doing the most bang for the buck is, you know, if we can cut back on this expense, that's pretty significant.

[2:12:23] Voice 2: But at the same time, I think it's an important issue that needs to be well and truly covered in the community.

[2:12:35] Voice 8: Trustee Patrick?

[2:12:43] Trustee Patrick: I think there needs to be a story told.

[2:12:46] Trustee Patrick: If you think of our communities and the uproar that was caused, how many years ago now? I've lost track of when that occurred. I know the pandemic was raging. There needs to be a really good story told and all the points filled in because they've heard very little.

[2:13:08] Trustee Patrick: There's been very little communications other than what constituents may have said or not said about this process. So we have to own the process. We have to show up and we have to be able to tell that story in a really authentic way to sort of gain back that trust that was lost last time.

[2:13:29] Trustee Patrick: So some of that is going to have to be through, you know, article, it's going to have to be a package of materials that are shared with our community to bring them on that journey to where we end up, so that we can explain that and hopefully have their trust that, you know, we got here in a good way.

[2:13:52] Voice 9: Thank you.

[2:13:54] Voice 9: Trustee Yates?

[2:13:57] Voice 11: Yes, I certainly agree with Trustee Patrick. Interestingly, two things are happening for me,

[2:14:03] Voice 11: anyway, for the Gabriola Local Trust Area. One is that we are in the middle of our OCP review

[2:14:10] Voice 11: update, and that's where the public is really interested in showing up and having their say.

[2:14:16] Voice 11: Every time I bring up the trust policy statement, people say to me, even real trust supporters,

[2:14:22] Voice 11: say just get that done for heaven's sakes just get it done that's what we elected you for

[2:14:27] Voice 11: so i'm just going to put that out there thank

[2:14:33] Voice 9: you um i put my hand up because i've got a comment

[2:14:37] Voice 9: instead of my chair capacity here um which is it's really a question really because i see you know

[2:14:44] Voice 9: the proposal here is sixty thousand dollars to go towards public engagement and if we look at

[2:14:49] Voice 9: the breakdown some of that is for these impersonal meetings twenty thousand but also a trust-wide

[2:14:54] Voice 9: survey of $30,000. And an anxiety I have about all surveys that we do in the trust area is about

[2:15:03] Voice 9: what the response rate is and whether or not, as a result of the survey, we get anything that even

[2:15:11] Voice 9: comes close to being a representative sampling of opinions. I'm skeptical about that. I'm anxious

[2:15:17] Voice 9: about it. And I'd like staff to address that point. And in addressing that point, Director

[2:15:21] Voice 9: Director Frater, I'd like to also speak to what looks like to me, but I don't know,

[2:15:26] Voice 9: is a kind of operational difficulty in that in the same period of time, we're contemplating

[2:15:33] Voice 9: implementing a communication strategy and then surveying people about what they think. And this

[2:15:38] Voice 9: follows up on the point that some of the other trustees have made, which is they don't know what

[2:15:45] Voice 9: to think because our communication strategy has actually been so spartan. And it takes me back,

[2:15:50] Voice 9: I'm wondering about the value of this trust area wide survey. What are we going to be asking them

[2:15:57] Voice 9: about when we still haven't really communicated the trust policy statement to them? It seems to

[2:16:02] Voice 9: me that trying to do those things simultaneously might, when they should be maybe sequentially,

[2:16:07] Voice 9: might be awkward. Sorry for the rather involved way of asking the question, but Director Frater,

[2:16:14] Voice 9: perhaps you could address those. Thank you.

[2:16:18] Voice 14: I'd be happy to. So you will note our

[2:16:21] Voice 14: Our communications at this time are somewhat spartan.

[2:16:23] Voice 14: We are in the informed stage of the public engagement process right now, which is simply

[2:16:28] Voice 14: telling the main message that we're giving communities at this point in time is, please

[2:16:32] Voice 14: continue to hold.

[2:16:33] Voice 14: Trust Council is refining the document to get it ready for your input.

[2:16:36] Voice 14: And that seems to have been a well-received message that's understood at this time.

[2:16:40] Voice 14: So there's relatively low cost and effort going into those external communications right

[2:16:44] Voice 14: now, with the exception of the occasional update out and the maintenance of the Islands

[2:16:48] Voice 14: 2050 webpage.

[2:16:49] Voice 14: page. That said, there is a robust plan for a communications strategy, which will be a

[2:16:58] Voice 14: multi-pronged approach, including a mailer to every household about what the project is about,

[2:17:02] Voice 14: how people can have their say, what are the different methods for having their say,

[2:17:07] Voice 14: all kinds of history about the different policies that council will eventually land on.

[2:17:11] Voice 14: There will be a robust amount of information in the public realm. So I think that they will be

[2:17:17] Voice 14: well covered off in terms of knowing what the project's about, being able to read the document

[2:17:20] Voice 14: and understand what it's saying and what they might be able to comment on. With regard to the

[2:17:25] Voice 14: survey, we are thinking about trying to get BC Stats to put us in the queue next year, such that

[2:17:32] Voice 14: they could be the ones delivering the survey. We understand they have a whole lot of techniques for

[2:17:36] Voice 14: achieving, you know, as much response as they possibly can using all the methods available to

[2:17:41] Voice 14: them uniquely. So that is our hope. We have our request in the queue. We won't have certainty

[2:17:46] Voice 14: until the spring, whether we're accepted as a project for them. And then it's for you politically

[2:17:52] Voice 14: determine how much weight you put into hearing from those survey results and how much they're

[2:17:57] Voice 14: going to influence your thinking, knowing that it is only one source of information. You know,

[2:18:01] Voice 14: you've got information coming from the nations, you've got staff advice, you've got your own

[2:18:04] Voice 14: understanding, you've got legislative inputs. There's a whole suite of things that come into

[2:18:08] Voice 14: that decision-making matrix for you. That I can't answer for you. So that's for you to determine for

[2:18:14] Voice 14: yourselves to what extent you want to put time and effort into seeking those results thank you

[2:18:19] Voice 8: trustee uh alan yeah

[2:18:24] Trustee Allen: thank you chair um yeah i just want to follow up on you know once again

[2:18:27] Trustee Allen: i say it's as trustees we can put a lot of push in terms of responding to the survey because

[2:18:34] Trustee Allen: i actually did that with our in terms of what what was it the webinars what kind of topics

[2:18:40] Trustee Allen: the communities like to have with the webinars and um i pushed a lot in the community in the

[2:18:45] Trustee Allen: And Hornbeam was had the biggest response. So it does kind of work.

[2:18:49] Trustee Allen: And then also, I think it's important for us to get all of this out in terms of communications, not necessarily, you know, how much cost it's going to be, but in different avenues.

[2:18:59] Trustee Allen: Because of that, you know, as often said all the time, we heard in the last Trust Council that the only kind of connection people have with Islands Trust is often just through bylaw enforcement.

[2:19:12] Trustee Allen: enforcement so we need to get away from that and so hopefully this is an exercise that will thank

[2:19:19] Trustee Allen: you well

[2:19:23] Voice 9: we've heard a variety of comments here about the nuances of implementing and

[2:19:29] Voice 9: the trust policy statement and public engagement does anybody have any thoughts that they want to

[2:19:37] Voice 9: bring forward in the form of a motion to make any changes to this proposal because it seems like

[2:19:42] Voice 9: this would be the time to sort of put that on the floor if anybody has such a thought trustee

[2:19:48] Voice 9: I

[2:19:51] Voice 13: think what I'm hearing or what I would lean to is keeping the money for the communication strategy, development of material to support people in doing their own thing on the various islands, but losing the 60,000 for the public engagement phase four.

[2:20:13] Voice 13: and and if that was a general agreement i would make a motion to i don't know how we do this in

[2:20:23] Voice 13: that it's not our business case we just make a recommendation to executive committee is that

[2:20:32] Voice 13: correct claire yeah well

[2:20:34] Voice 9: um before we dive into that i'm sorry to interrupt trustee bullen but

[2:20:38] Voice 9: but I think perhaps we should, in terms of the process about how we manage our recommendations

[2:20:45] Voice 9: with respect to these different budget requests, not separate from this one, but also the others,

[2:20:53] Voice 9: I'd like to hear from, I think it might be helpful to hear from Director Mobs about what she thinks

[2:20:58] Voice 9: is the most efficient and effective way of dealing with those recommendations.

[2:21:03] Voice 9: recommendations uh just hitting them off one by one by this or that motion i i'm not sure if that's

[2:21:09] Voice 9: a way to deal with it so director mobs could you help us out here what do you think a good strategy

[2:21:13] Voice 9: is for for us to just operationally in this meeting deal with these um uh recommend a different

[2:21:22] Voice 9: recommendations that people may wish to make uh

[2:21:26] Voice 15: well i think uh where there's multiple recommendations

[2:21:30] Voice 15: it's always best to have separate resolutions of course the trustee may agree with uh one

[2:21:34] Voice 15: recommendation and not another so grouping them together is always harder um the a resolution

[2:21:40] Voice 15: would be required um and director can nod along if she agrees um it always helps us keep track of

[2:21:47] Voice 15: what recommended changes are and then executive committee can consider those when they look at

[2:21:51] Voice 15: the business case and then trust council can do the same should

[2:21:55] Voice 9: the record should these

[2:21:57] Voice 9: resolutions or motions be directed at staff to make the changes in the draft budget or directed

[2:22:04] Voice 9: to the relevant, because what we're dealing with now

[2:22:07] Voice 9: is basically a draft request,

[2:22:09] Voice 9: or should the recommendation be directed

[2:22:11] Voice 9: towards the relevant committee?

[2:22:16] Voice 15: Well, executive committee has oversight

[2:22:17] Voice 15: for this piece of work,

[2:22:19] Voice 15: so I would suggest a recommendation

[2:22:20] Voice 15: to the relevant committee.

[2:22:25] Voice 6: All

[2:22:25] Voice 9: right, just some technical things there

[2:22:30] Voice 9: for us to think about.

[2:22:31] Voice 9: So if anybody wants to make any kind of motion,

[2:22:34] Voice 9: that's kind of creating a kind of a framework there.

[2:22:38] Voice 13: I see that-

[2:22:39] Voice 13: I

[2:22:39] Voice 9: see Lacombe.

[2:22:40] Voice 9: Yeah,

[2:22:40] Voice 13: I'll just wait, but otherwise I'll make a motion.

[2:22:43] Voice 9: All right. Thank you. Trustee Luckham?

[2:22:45] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, thank you for the opportunity.

[2:22:47] Trustee Luckham: So I certainly think a motion of some sort is a good opportunity to take advantage of that.

[2:22:55] Trustee Luckham: But from my perspective is that there's two things at play here.

[2:23:00] Trustee Luckham: One is leadership and council advancing this policy statement in the fashion that it seems appropriate to it, because certainly in the last number of months, there's been not a lot of feedback with respect to it.

[2:23:21] Trustee Luckham: but it may be that the public is waiting for a decision-making opportunity. We always have to

[2:23:27] Trustee Luckham: be cautious of that. But what we're going to do is if we don't want to spend money on doing public

[2:23:32] Trustee Luckham: outreach and finding out, getting more feedback from the public, which may or may not be necessary

[2:23:40] Trustee Luckham: at this time, then it requires us to fill that gap with the leadership to advance this work.

[2:23:46] Trustee Luckham: It's certainly ready. It is time. And the good news would be we'd have a policy statement and

[2:23:53] Trustee Luckham: we could get on with other work. But certainly, if we're going to be cutting the budget associated

[2:24:00] Trustee Luckham: with this project in any way, rather than adding more money to it, we have to know that the

[2:24:07] Trustee Luckham: The resources are limited already, and so let's just be cognizant of we need to take a stronger leadership role in advancing this if we're not going to do more public outreach.

[2:24:22] Trustee Luckham: But I'm in support of advancing this work, so my little bit.

[2:24:28] Voice 8: Chelsea, Patrick?

[2:24:29] Voice 8: Patrick?

[2:24:30] Trustee Patrick: Last term, following sort of the landing that kind of exploded, we did have a consultant

[2:24:37] Trustee Patrick: come in and evaluate what went wrong and what needed to be done. And there's a whole report

[2:24:41] Trustee Patrick: that gave advice as to how to move forward with policies of this magnitude in our communities.

[2:24:48] Trustee Patrick: I think this is the wrong time to take money away from this budget. Well, maybe we can talk about

[2:24:53] Trustee Patrick: and see how it's going to land and things. But basically, our communities have heard nothing

[2:24:58] Trustee Patrick: nothing for four years, I think, since it was last discussed. So I would not underestimate that.

[2:25:04] Trustee Patrick: And I think taking money away is going to be harder to put it back in. And if we want to

[2:25:09] Trustee Patrick: finish this project, let's leave. I think we should just leave the budget. And it may not

[2:25:14] Trustee Patrick: even be enough, but I wouldn't take away from it. All

[2:25:21] Voice 9: right. Trustee Peterson?

[2:25:23] Voice 9: I

[2:25:25] Voice 18: would just echo what Trustee Patrick just said and remind us that so far only one LTC has looked at this, and we should be cognizant of the fact that all the LTCs may want to take different approaches.

[2:25:44] Voice 9: All right. Thank you.

[2:25:47] Voice 9: So with respect to Trustee Patrick and Trustee Peterson's general point that public engagement of some sort is necessary.

[2:25:54] Voice 9: Sari. What I'm hearing from the various comments is not necessarily opposition to the idea of

[2:26:03] Voice 9: public engagement per se, but the way it's proposed in terms of that breakdown, that might

[2:26:08] Voice 9: be an issue. Trustee Bond?

[2:26:13] Voice 13: Yeah, so perhaps we need to make it really, you know, specific that

[2:26:18] Voice 13: we discussed it and we have concerns about the amount or, you know, the way it's going to unfold

[2:26:25] Voice 13: row unfold. Perhaps we should make a motion that

[2:26:29] Voice 13: FPC recommend to executive committee that the

[2:26:35] Voice 13: communication strategy public

[2:26:37] Voice 13: engagement piece is reviewed

[2:26:41] Voice 13: and a more specific

[2:26:45] Voice 13: program is discussed.

[2:26:51] Voice 13: I mean, I don't know that we're making a

[2:26:54] Voice 13: a motion now to just remove it i think would be um wrong in that i don't think it would get

[2:27:01] Voice 13: support or if it managed to get through it certainly wouldn't reflect the sort of consensus

[2:27:06] Voice 13: so perhaps what we need is more detail and to be fair claire maybe there is a lot of extensive

[2:27:13] Voice 13: detail that i haven't looked at just now and that you know really explains what that 60 000 will be

[2:27:22] Voice 13: be spent on i'm not quite sure what to do now i think i'd like to raise it as an issue but not

[2:27:29] Voice 13: necessarily remove it flag it as an issue advice claire um

[2:27:42] Voice 14: i don't have advice for you um what i

[2:27:44] Voice 14: can say i can just reiterate um there is a communication strategy that was received by

[2:27:48] Voice 14: trust council for this project in march of 23 so if you wanted to go back and look at that public

[2:27:53] Voice 14: agenda you could see with the plans there for the communication strategy as i noted it is a very

[2:27:59] Voice 14: resource intensive piece for staff to support in-person engagement. Related to that, I am

[2:28:06] Voice 14: looking at potentially requesting from some additional staff resources because we are unable

[2:28:11] Voice 14: to move forward with all the regular work of trust area services. I can't continue to hold

[2:28:16] Voice 14: down multiple jobs for just this long. So we are, I think we will be having a conversation with

[2:28:20] Voice 14: executive committee about the resourcing needs of this project and drawing their attention to

[2:28:25] Voice 14: this business case at the next meeting which is a week from now so

[2:28:29] Voice 13: in addition to the 60 000 we

[2:28:31] Voice 13: would have to have that temporary staff position as well um

[2:28:36] Voice 14: that is i'm working on that right now

[2:28:38] Voice 14: um i think that will depend on choices of executive committee and council to what extent

[2:28:43] Voice 14: they want to continue with the other activities of trust area services such as legislative

[2:28:46] Voice 14: monitoring advocacy um agreements monitoring and implementation sure but you know just finger in

[2:28:54] Voice 13: the air we would have to hire somebody for six months in addition to the 60,000. Is that what

[2:29:00] Voice 13: you're saying? Just roughly?

[2:29:02] Voice 14: Roughly and probably longer than six months because of course we have

[2:29:04] Voice 14: to plan the engagements, undertake them over six months and then report on them.

[2:29:08] Voice 13: So we're talking

[2:29:09] Voice 13: about another 60,000 estimated on top of that 60?

[2:29:14] Voice 14: Potentially and that again that assumes that

[2:29:17] Voice 14: there's a desire to continue with some of those other activities.

[2:29:19] Voice 13: Sure I understand that but all

[2:29:21] Voice 13: other things being equal this could be actually 100 000 rather than 60 000.

[2:29:26] Voice 14: yes given that i will

[2:29:28] Voice 14: say that tentatively because i'm still doing that

[2:29:29] Voice 13: work okay so um that certainly is useful

[2:29:34] Voice 13: information yeah thanks rusty

[2:29:39] Trustee Allen: allen yeah thank you chair well from what i'm also hearing is that

[2:29:43] Trustee Allen: there was an appetite for webinars and i just want to make sure that that's captured with regarding

[2:29:49] Trustee Allen: communication strategy or does that have to be more formal?

[2:29:54] Voice 14: So you'll see there in the

[2:29:56] Voice 14: engagement where you're proposing that we not that we have community.

[2:30:00] Voice 14: a community workshop and what was delivered last time was a combination of informational webinar

[2:30:06] Voice 14: but then had people in breakout groups and we had meeting recorders in those breakout groups

[2:30:10] Voice 14: taking feedback from the public and sort of we had subject matter experts in those groups to

[2:30:15] Voice 14: answer questions as well so it was an information out but also information you know feedback in

[2:30:20] Voice 14: event that was virtual so we're proposing something like that we would go to a procurement

[2:30:25] Voice 14: procurement um process to secure a contractor to support us with this so the actual specifics of

[2:30:30] Voice 14: it would be developed in conjunction with that selected contractor and then we would bring that

[2:30:35] Voice 14: back to executive committee and potentially counsel for approval prior to rollout well

[2:30:43] Voice 9: trustees we have other work to do today uh we've uh we've drilled into this quite a bit if somebody's

[2:30:48] Voice 9: got to make a motion to i think we're at the point here that i mean i've heard quite a bit of

[2:30:55] Voice 9: both reservations but also equivocations about doing anything about tinkering with

[2:30:59] Voice 9: with this part of this budget breakdown,

[2:31:02] Voice 9: but definitely some reservations

[2:31:04] Voice 9: about the public engagement part of it.

[2:31:07] Voice 9: If somebody wants, you know,

[2:31:08] Voice 9: if it's impossible to tell whether there's a general mood

[2:31:13] Voice 9: for changing it or not,

[2:31:15] Voice 9: but I would say we've discussed this enough.

[2:31:17] Voice 9: We have other things to do.

[2:31:20] Voice 9: If trustees wish to see a change to this

[2:31:24] Voice 9: in the form of a recommendation to executive committee

[2:31:26] Voice 9: to reassess public engagement or whatever,

[2:31:28] Voice 9: ever um now's the time to do it otherwise we'll move on to the

[2:31:34] Voice 8: next item trustee boland i move

[2:31:40] Voice 13: that fpc recommend to executive committee that the public engagement phase four of the trust

[2:31:48] Voice 13: policy statement revision and be considered in light of this discussion we will consider

[2:31:58] Voice 13: in light of this discussion and

[2:32:02] Voice 9: i don't know about the sufficiency of the resolution

[2:32:07] Voice 13: over concern for the cost and the need for additional staff resources and the feelings

[2:32:13] Voice 13: of trustees who believe that this belongs with the local trust committees well

[2:32:19] Voice 9: i'm going to

[2:32:20] Voice 9: have to ask you trustee bowling to phrase that in

[2:32:22] Voice 9: why don't

[2:32:24] Voice 13: i why don't i rephrase it and send

[2:32:26] Voice 13: it in an email and we just hark it for the moment and circle back if i send something that's

[2:32:31] Voice 13: adequate with that work and we can continue

[2:32:33] Voice 9: we can do that we can we can return to the resolution

[2:32:37] Voice 9: when it's available and then carry on with other work in the interim if that's all right

[2:32:41] Voice 13: okay that's fine so i'll send it to robert and claire and you yeah now

[2:32:47] Voice 9: director freighter you

[2:32:48] Voice 9: had your hand up momentarily and then took it down do you have anything to add i

[2:32:51] Voice 14: was going to

[2:32:52] Voice 14: offer to assist with wordsmithing but it appears that's now unneeded well

[2:32:55] Voice 13: i'll send it to you and

[2:32:57] Voice 13: and you can respond, Claire,

[2:32:58] Voice 13: and then we can launch it on the public, okay?

[2:33:01] Voice 9: We're going to leave it to the two of

[2:33:03] Voice 9: you to sort that out.

[2:33:04] Voice 9: We'll come back to it when it's ready.

[2:33:07] Voice 9: Director Mobbs, if we could move on, please,

[2:33:08] Voice 9: to the next funding request.

[2:33:10] Voice 9: I

[2:33:14] Voice 15: believe this is moving into Trust Programs Committee request,

[2:33:17] Voice 15: which is still Director Freider's area of work.

[2:33:21] Voice 9: Over to you, Director Freider, yet again.

[2:33:23] Voice 14: Thank you, Chair Bernardo.

[2:33:25] Voice 14: I'll keep my comments brief and note that your Trust Programs

[2:33:27] Voice 14: Committee representative today is Trustee Allen.

[2:33:29] Voice 14: Allen. This is the stewardship education program. This is being brought forward by trust programs

[2:33:35] Voice 14: committee under the assumption that the next strategic plan will include some direction for

[2:33:39] Voice 14: stewardship education. Of course, this is based off the strategic plan that's been continued

[2:33:45] Voice 14: until such time as there's a new one adopted. The committee decided on a value of their request to

[2:33:51] Voice 14: be $17,000. And the subject of the education programs would again, likely be the topics that

[2:33:57] Voice 14: would fall within the next strategic plan so potentially water fallow deer other topics that

[2:34:04] Voice 14: have been raised this is a discretionary activity and the amount as i say was derived by historic

[2:34:12] Voice 14: spending and budgeting and the desires of the committee to deliver this is a combination of

[2:34:18] Voice 14: both webinars which have been fairly successfully received and the continued mailing of the

[2:34:24] Voice 14: of the package that we sent to new purchasers in the region.

[2:34:31] Voice 14: Happy to take questions.

[2:34:33] Voice 14: And as I noted, Trustee Allen is also here.

[2:34:36] Voice 9: Yes, thank you.

[2:34:37] Voice 9: Trustee Yates.

[2:34:39] Voice 11: Thank you, Director Frater and Chair Bernardo.

[2:34:42] Voice 11: I find these are very valuable

[2:34:45] Voice 11: and I really want to keep that money in the budget.

[2:34:49] Voice 11: And the mail outs that are done for new household owners,

[2:34:53] Voice 11: those are also very valuable in fact I was just thinking that like I'm of the

[2:35:01] Voice 11: opinion that the trust policy statement needs to be completed by counsel and

[2:35:06] Voice 11: just be done with it and that's another option is to have an educational webinar

[2:35:12] Voice 11: on all of the good things about the new trust policy statement if we ever get it

[2:35:17] Voice 11: it then thank you jesse

[2:35:22] Voice 10: patrick i

[2:35:25] Trustee Patrick: i you know the webinars are good but they typically attract the

[2:35:30] Trustee Patrick: same people that watch them you know we're not i don't know really expanding our base of people

[2:35:35] Trustee Patrick: who watch the webinars yes they can be recorded and made available but i'd really like to see like

[2:35:40] Trustee Patrick: focused education that it's in multimedia not just showing up as a webinar but it's you know

[2:35:48] Trustee Patrick: It's the whole package that we are focusing on like one topic and that we use multi articles and other things and that, you know, we kind of make a blitz of that topic area to reach more people.

[2:35:59] Trustee Patrick: Otherwise, we're really, you know, just reaching a very small amount of people.

[2:36:04] Trustee Patrick: And I think there's a lot of material, a lot of really good things we should be doing, but we got to broaden our reach.

[2:36:11] Voice 9: Well, what we have before us, though, is something different.

[2:36:14] Voice 9: You're talking about changing the scope of how we do this.

[2:36:17] Voice 9: And what we have in front of us is what we have in front of us, the request for $17,000 to hire third-party contractors and, you know, to help do this stewardship education program.

[2:36:30] Voice 9: So I'm not sure this is the place to modify it in such a dramatic way.

[2:36:36] Voice 9: I don't know.

[2:36:37] Voice 9: Do other trustees have comments to make?

[2:36:39] Voice 9: do any before i uh before we go to trustee allen do specifically do any trustees have any

[2:36:50] Voice 9: reservations about this funding request now leave that question out there and turn now to trustee

[2:36:58] Voice 9: allen thank

[2:37:00] Trustee Allen: you chair um i don't know i was just curious trustee patrick can you give me some

[2:37:05] Trustee Allen: examples of what topics you'd like to see that i

[2:37:09] Trustee Patrick: i just think of taking you know it's like having

[2:37:12] Trustee Patrick: Having a webinar is a webinar is a good thing, but you need to drive people to it through a whole package of communications like articles run in the local thing, papers or social media, a whole variety of different things related to the mail out that goes to people.

[2:37:29] Trustee Patrick: It's just that the more people that are touched by it, the more likely they'll be driven to it or that there's stewardship training provided in multimedia, not just webinars.

[2:37:41] Trustee Allen: You didn't answer my question.

[2:37:43] Trustee Allen: i

[2:37:44] Trustee Patrick: i'm i'm saying a topic like do more on one topic than trying to get 20 topics i'm not telling you

[2:37:50] Trustee Patrick: which one's more important i think that would that's the committee's job all right trustee

[2:37:55] Voice 9: peterson um

[2:37:58] Voice 18: i like i like um uh trustee patrick suggestion and i think that's something that the

[2:38:06] Voice 18: committee could certainly look into um uh in the future i don't know that there's i don't know the

[2:38:13] Voice 18: the capacity for around staff for this for this round but uh i do like the idea of getting the

[2:38:19] Voice 18: word out um certainly uh again trustees in their in their own communities can can do what they can

[2:38:27] Voice 18: but um i appreciate uh your comments trustee patrick and and uh i think that would increase

[2:38:34] Voice 18: the value of what is already in a value a valuable program thank you

[2:38:38] Trustee Allen: trustee alan yeah sorry me again

[2:38:41] Trustee Allen: I just want to say that topics we've been looking at is wildfire and invasive plant species and native planting.

[2:38:49] Trustee Allen: And we're also, in terms of the people that are going to be presenting, we're really looking at our local sources,

[2:38:56] Trustee Allen: like looking at the Fire Chief and Hormony to do presentation possibly,

[2:39:01] Trustee Allen: and local committees or invasive plant committees that are on islands.

[2:39:04] Trustee Allen: So we're really looking more on having more of a local flavor to all these webinars as opposed to some random third party person in North Vancouver or something, you know what I mean?

[2:39:18] Trustee Allen: So I just want to say that it's much more local.

[2:39:22] Trustee Allen: Thank you.

[2:39:23] Trustee Allen: Trustee Yates?

[2:39:24] Voice 11: Oh, just to echo what Trustee Allen is saying, I'm already very interested in the proposed webinars that are coming up.

[2:39:31] Voice 11: And of course, I would let people on Gabriola know that these are happening.

[2:39:35] Voice 11: and one of the things I do when people show the least bit of interest in the

[2:39:40] Voice 11: islands trust is I get them to subscribe to the news releases and then I've had

[2:39:46] Voice 11: some really nice reactions from people saying oh well now I know all about this

[2:39:50] Voice 11: and now I'm getting this and that's also one of the ways that people find out

[2:39:54] Voice 11: about the webinars thank you well

[2:40:00] Voice 9: what I'm hearing is definitely opinions from

[2:40:04] Voice 9: from various trustees about how local

[2:40:06] Voice 9: or how the Trust Programs Committee should implement

[2:40:08] Voice 9: this stewardship education program.

[2:40:12] Voice 9: But I'm not hearing any objections

[2:40:14] Voice 9: to the expenditure in that direction.

[2:40:18] Voice 9: I think we've heard enough in terms of people's opinions.

[2:40:22] Voice 9: And I think the committee we've heard from Trustee Allen

[2:40:24] Voice 9: and I think that the committee has heard this input

[2:40:28] Voice 9: and they can do with it what they will.

[2:40:30] Voice 9: But at this stage, we're at the,

[2:40:32] Voice 9: Are we okay with the $17,000?

[2:40:34] Voice 9: I haven't heard any objections to that.

[2:40:36] Voice 9: And unless somebody has an objection to that particular item, I propose that we move on to the next funding request.

[2:40:45] Voice 9: Thank you.

[2:40:46] Voice 9: And I believe the next request relates to funding Secretariat Services.

[2:40:54] Voice 9: And I believe

[2:40:54] Voice 9: that would be the increasingly familiar Director Prater will address that one.

[2:41:01] Voice 14: Thank you, Chair.

[2:41:02] Voice 14: I will keep my comments brief because I believe you all know about this program.

[2:41:06] Voice 14: This is a request of $17,000 to fund the continuation of the Secretariat Services Program.

[2:41:12] Voice 14: This program is guided by a policy of trust council that authorizes Trust Programs Committee

[2:41:17] Voice 14: to select the recipients of, or not recipients, but the groups with which we wish to provide

[2:41:24] Voice 14: some administrative support for coordination funding.

[2:41:27] Voice 14: So this is the amount that's been suggested, which is somewhat in line with the request.

[2:41:32] Voice 14: I would say it is a modest amount.

[2:41:34] Voice 14: Certainly the groups could use more support, but this seems to be sufficient in terms of

[2:41:39] Voice 14: what's been desired and useful.

[2:41:43] Voice 14: I'll leave it there.

[2:41:44] Voice 14: Happy to supplement if needed.

[2:41:47] Voice 9: Any comments or questions from trustees?

[2:41:52] Voice 9: Trustee Graham.

[2:41:54] Voice 5: Thank you, Chair.

[2:41:55] Voice 5: Thank you, Director Frater.

[2:41:57] Voice 5: This is a great program.

[2:41:59] Voice 5: We get a tremendous amount of good work done by these volunteer organizations who would

[2:42:04] Voice 5: not be able to do this work without the administrative help that the trust gives them

[2:42:08] Voice 5: so i would be totally in for favor of this one i'm

[2:42:13] Voice 9: wondering if director freighter you could

[2:42:15] Voice 9: briefly go over the criteria uh that are applied when assessing which third party community group

[2:42:25] Voice 9: should receive the funding or the assistance to really the support

[2:42:30] Voice 14: happy to off the top of my

[2:42:32] Voice 14: head but i could also pull up the policy that guides this and the criteria is set out in council

[2:42:36] Voice 14: policy. But essentially, it has to be a group of which a trust body is a member. It has to be a

[2:42:43] Voice 14: group that's advancing the preserve and protect mandate. It has to be a group that conducts

[2:42:48] Voice 14: itself in a way that's compatible with our reconciliation commitments. And there may very

[2:42:52] Voice 14: well be others that I'm not pulling off the top of my head. But those are the ones that come to

[2:42:58] Voice 14: mind immediately.

[2:42:59] Voice 9: And a trust, one thing you mentioned of quite interest to me, a trust body

[2:43:05] Voice 9: needs to be a member of this advocacy group or whatever it is

[2:43:10] Voice 14: that's right so

[2:43:12] Voice 9: there's a kind of

[2:43:13] Voice 9: intimate relationship there already in the sense in terms of the communication level yes this whole

[2:43:19] Voice 14: initiative came out of a major project or trust programs committee two terms ago which i'm trying

[2:43:26] Voice 14: to think what they called it but essentially it was looking at the lack of coordination between

[2:43:29] Voice 14: regional districts and other levels of government as it related to local trust committee work and

[2:43:34] Voice 14: elected officials not talking to each other um and then this was sort of an outcome of that very

[2:43:39] Voice 14: long evaluation of what was going on and i found a great deal of my time at that time was dealt with

[2:43:47] Voice 14: um misunderstandings confusion um trying to mediate between electoral area directors mlas

[2:43:54] Voice 14: trustees i am no longer in that mix because everyone now has existing relationships

[2:43:58] Voice 14: and a defined opportunity to talk to each other regularly so by my read it's working

[2:44:05] Voice 9: trustee ball so

[2:44:07] Voice 13: um yeah my exposure to this is through the southern gulf islands forum and i

[2:44:12] Voice 13: find it a fantastically useful thing and opportunity i find secretary at services

[2:44:19] Voice 13: program is a rather boring name that doesn't really speak to the value i don't know if we

[2:44:23] Voice 13: could re-label it and re-spin it in some way um my issue would be so two things one is that

[2:44:33] Voice 13: we continue to fund something that we helped to initiate and i wonder if there come along that

[2:44:43] Voice 13: you know can't be funded because we are on this sort of you know every year we fund the same ones

[2:44:51] Voice 13: And the second thing is the Southern Gulf Islands Forum is truly, to me, a huge opportunity for other areas in the trust, which is the, you know, Elizabeth May, the local MLA, the Gulf Island, Southern Gulf Island trustees and the CRD directors come together.

[2:45:14] Voice 13: And that model, I don't know whether we as a trust could initiate suggesting it in the other trust areas, because it's, I think it's hugely beneficial. And I think it was Adam Olson who initiated it. And it would be, I think it would be a fantastic thing to have in the other trust areas if such a thing doesn't exist already. Thanks.

[2:45:43] Voice 9: All right. Thank you. This is a fairly straightforward request. We've heard various comments about it. I have not heard any objections or any particularly sharp critiques about how the money gets spent. So unless somebody has some objections they wish to air out. Oh, I see, Trustee Getty, you've got your hand up. Please proceed.

[2:46:07] Voice 9: I

[2:46:07] Voice 2: don't have an objection. I think that this is, you know, I'd like to increase this funding. These are small organizations that put in a huge amount of effort. And this is divided up between, I think, six groups. And it basically gives them a little bit of administrative help so that they can organize all of these meetings that we benefit from.

[2:46:28] Voice 2: So it's not just the trustees, it's the wider community. So I go to the Rural Island Economic Group and they do fantastic organizing conferences. So I think that this is money well spent. It's not very much.

[2:46:48] Voice 9: No, it is really on the scale things not that much, although in terms of the quantity, my preferences leave it to Trust Programs Committee to come up with the number.

[2:46:58] Voice 9: And this is the number they've come up with.

[2:47:00] Voice 9: Trustee Allen.

[2:47:01] Trustee Allen: Yeah, and I just want to add, you know, there's also the Howe Sound Forum, the Bain Sound Forum.

[2:47:06] Trustee Allen: This is a great example of collaboration, and I think we should carry on with it.

[2:47:12] Trustee Allen: And I do agree with Trustee Bullen.

[2:47:14] Trustee Allen: It's a very unfriendly term.

[2:47:17] Trustee Allen: we could have a much more cozier fun one but we'll work on that another day all

[2:47:21] Voice 9: right well we'll table the cozy fun aspect of it probably forever I think

[2:47:29] Voice 9: we've heard enough there's no objection I could see trustee Yates got her hand

[2:47:32] Voice 9: up but it's after we've heard from her it's pretty clear that there's a

[2:47:35] Voice 9: consensus here that this is fine let's move on trustee Yates thank you chair

[2:47:40] Voice 11: Bernardo I just want to agree that any collaborative efforts we can help with

[2:47:44] Voice 11: are really important for all of us thank you very

[2:47:50] Voice 9: true all right let's move on to the next item i

[2:47:52] Voice 9: believe the next item would be operational initiatives and at this stage of the budget

[2:47:56] Voice 9: process we don't actually have any uh that are available for us to consider or assess

[2:48:01] Voice 9: so i'm wondering if now is the time to go back we've got another 12 minutes before we break for

[2:48:05] Voice 9: a half hour for lunch i'm wondering if um the trustee boland's um a resolution from before

[2:48:13] Voice 9: four is ready for to be put on the floor okay

[2:48:22] Voice 13: i don't think claire would have had time to look at

[2:48:24] Voice 13: it yet because she's been oh

[2:48:26] Voice 6: okay sorry sorry about

[2:48:27] Voice 9: that sure i don't know what i was thinking

[2:48:32] Voice 9: obviously director freighter has actually been quite active right now uh let's move on to the

[2:48:37] Voice 9: next item uh which is as i mentioned it's not going to be operational initiatives there aren't

[2:48:41] Voice 9: we're we're into the long business of of well actually no uh with your indulgence uh i'm going

[2:48:50] Voice 9: to suggest that we hop ahead to something that we can do pretty efficiently and that'll make

[2:48:54] Voice 9: trustees getty and alan feel better i'm suggesting that we on the fly here um hop ahead and deal with

[2:49:00] Voice 9: item 8.1 which is the appointments of the audit committee and we'll just clear out that bit of

[2:49:07] Voice 9: housekeeping unless anybody objects i'd like to do that

[2:49:09] Trustee Allen: excuse

[2:49:10] Voice 9: me trustee

[2:49:12] Voice 2: has her hand up

[2:49:14] Voice 2: If this is a voluntold situation, I'd like to know what it is.

[2:49:21] Voice 2: What

[2:49:21] Voice 9: are the responsibilities

[2:49:22] Voice 2: for the Audit Committee?

[2:49:24] Voice 9: I haven't heard that term before, voluntold.

[2:49:26] Voice 9: I could make something up and it would sound as half-baked as it is.

[2:49:32] Voice 9: I'm going to suggest that we turn to the now well-rested Director Mobs,

[2:49:37] Voice 9: who can speak to that point about what the function of the Audit Committee is.

[2:49:42] Voice 15: It's going to take a lot more than half an hour to get me well-rested, Chair Bernardo.

[2:49:46] Voice 15: but yes happy to provide some information so the audit committee is a subcommittee a financial

[2:49:53] Voice 15: planning committee it holds responsibility for coordinating and overseeing and reviewing

[2:49:58] Voice 15: a annual audit each year so the annual audit is a legislated requirement it is the audit of our

[2:50:06] Voice 15: annual financial statement the audit committee meets twice in a year in february to plan the

[2:50:11] Voice 15: audit with the auditors and then again in may to review the results of the audit with the auditors

[2:50:15] Voice 15: There's minimal time commitment, very valuable, though.

[2:50:19] Voice 9: And I can add that those meetings that we do have, those two per year, they range in the 30-minute range per meeting.

[2:50:30] Voice 9: And Director Mobb is saying the time and work commitment is minimal may actually overstate it in the sense that the real function of this audit committee is to be there in the event, really, that the auditor discovers something heinous that has to be dealt with.

[2:50:46] Voice 9: For the most part, we hear from the auditor, everything's fine, and we do the approval and we move on.

[2:50:53] Voice 9: Trustee Getty?

[2:50:54] Voice 2: So it's all members of the FPC are members of it.

[2:50:57] Voice 2: And the only reason that Trustee Allen and I are being named in this one in terms of a specific appointment is because we're new to this committee.

[2:51:07] Voice 9: Not all members are involved.

[2:51:09] Voice 9: The executive committee is excluded.

[2:51:11] Voice 2: Okay, yeah.

[2:51:12] Voice 2: Fair enough.

[2:51:14] Voice 2: All right.

[2:51:15] Voice 9: All right.

[2:51:17] Voice 9: Um, so, uh, with that clarification, I'll trustee Peterson.

[2:51:25] Voice 18: I'm happy to make the motion.

[2:51:27] Voice 9: Please do.

[2:51:28] Voice 18: I'm, I moved that financial planning committee appoint trustee Getty and trustee Allen to

[2:51:33] Voice 18: the audit committee for the remainder of the 2022 to 2026 term.

[2:51:40] Voice 9: Do we have a seconder?

[2:51:41] Voice 9: Uh, see trustee Yates up.

[2:51:44] Voice 9: Uh, I believe she is seconding the motion.

[2:51:48] Voice 9: Uh, and, uh, the motion is now on the floor.

[2:51:50] Voice 9: Does anybody wish to speak to the motion?

[2:51:54] Voice 9: I'm going to call the vote.

[2:51:55] Voice 9: All those in favor, please raise your hands.

[2:52:01] Voice 9: Please lower your hands.

[2:52:06] Voice 9: Anyone who objects, please raise your hand now.

[2:52:14] Voice 9: All right, we still have some minutes here.

[2:52:16] Voice 9: So let's get into those.

[2:52:17] Voice 9: Let's at least start with the Local Trust Committee projects

[2:52:27] Voice 9: and perhaps we can start with the review

[2:52:28] Voice 9: of the projects list.

[2:52:30] Voice 9: I'm

[2:52:34] Voice 15: sure I can just provide very brief comments, Chair.

[2:52:37] Voice 15: So the list that is in front of you is a consolidated list

[2:52:40] Voice 15: of all of the business cases that have been received

[2:52:42] Voice 15: by local trust committees. Earlier in this meeting there was a comment that the Hornby Island

[2:52:46] Voice 15: local trust committee business case is missing. I've looked into that over our break a little bit

[2:52:51] Voice 15: and actually the recent discussions about budget with Hornby were related to a reallocation of

[2:52:56] Voice 15: funds in the current year so there is no budget submission from Hornby Island for project work

[2:53:02] Voice 15: next fiscal so this list is complete and the amount reflects that. The individual projects

[2:53:09] Voice 15: that are listed will have business cases. The allocation of $36,500 for LTC minor projects in

[2:53:16] Voice 15: the year is an approach we take every single year to provide a small amount of money for

[2:53:20] Voice 15: local trust committees to work with as minor projects might come up in the fiscal year. So

[2:53:23] Voice 15: there's no budget business cases that are advancing for those. The allocation is $3,000

[2:53:28] Voice 15: per committee, so that falls below the need for a business case. I have not dug into these local

[2:53:37] Voice 15: trust committee business cases that's traditionally not my role and i would look to the director of

[2:53:41] Voice 15: planning or the ltc themselves to be speaking to these items thank

[2:53:47] Voice 9: you i have a message from trustee

[2:53:49] Voice 9: allen in the chat board he would prefer to have an opportunity to vote on trustee boland's motion

[2:53:55] Voice 9: uh before he leaves and he's having to leave very soon uh that creates a bit of a problem um

[2:54:04] Voice 9: can we do that can we arrange that or is that just not feasible i

[2:54:11] Voice 13: did send something to claire so i

[2:54:13] Voice 13: I don't know if Claire could quickly comment on whether it's adequate

[2:54:16] Voice 13: or she really wants to rewrite it.

[2:54:21] Voice 14: Through the chair, I have sent you a draft revision back,

[2:54:24] Voice 14: Trustee Boland.

[2:54:25] Voice 13: Oh, right.

[2:54:25] Voice 13: Let me just quickly refresh my – oh, I am happy to – all right, great.

[2:54:41] Voice 13: Okay, I am ready, and I can forward it to Robert.

[2:54:46] Voice 13: Yeah, would that be correct?

[2:54:48] Voice 13: but i can read it here um that financial

[2:54:52] Voice 9: please forward it and then just uh as soon as you

[2:54:55] Voice 9: forward it please read it and we can deal with it that way

[2:55:00] Voice 13: okay done so so i'm about to read it now

[2:55:12] Voice 13: um i move that the financial planning committee recommend to executive committee that it carefully

[2:55:19] Voice 13: reconsider the policy statement amendment policy projects proposed public engagement phase four

[2:55:25] Voice 13: activities and associated costs in light of concerns raised in the october 23 october 23rd

[2:55:33] Voice 13: 2024 financial planning committee meeting do

[2:55:39] Voice 9: we have a seconder trustee eight seconds the motion

[2:55:43] Voice 9: we had a pretty full discussion about this before i see you director freighter uh and uh

[2:55:53] Voice 9: And so without repeating ourselves, trustees, if anybody wishes to speak to the motion, now's the time, but we're going to hear from Director Frater first.

[2:56:02] Voice 9: Director Frater?

[2:56:03] Voice 14: Just a small editorial comment I didn't catch in the haste of it all.

[2:56:06] Voice 14: The word policy after amendment can come out.

[2:56:09] Voice 14: It's the policy statement amendment project.

[2:56:13] Voice 9: Yeah, I think that is just a non-material change, which is fine.

[2:56:17] Voice 9: Doesn't require any dancing around.

[2:56:20] Voice 9: All right.

[2:56:21] Voice 9: All right. I'm not seeing any trustees with anything new to say. So I'm going to just simply put the point up to a vote now. Those in favor of the motion, please raise your hands. And those opposed to the motion, or sorry, please lower your hands. Those opposed, please raise your hands now.

[2:56:47] Voice 9: I want to pose the motion passes all right well that was efficiently done

[2:56:54] Voice 9: thank you all and we are now free to proceed with the local trust committee

[2:56:59] Voice 9: projects but conveniently we're landing just around our time for break so we

[2:57:06] Voice 9: will return we will recess and return at 1 30 p.m. thank you everybody

[3:29:39] Voice 9: Hello, everybody. I see it's 1.30.

[3:29:50] Voice 6: Perhaps we could have the agenda put back up on the screen before we resume.

[3:30:11] Voice 6: And

[3:30:11] Voice 9: where we were at before the break was we were just on the verge of looking at local

[3:30:17] Voice 9: trust committee projects.

[3:30:20] Voice 9: And briefly, I imagine there's a list there of the different projects, but I imagine Director

[3:30:29] Voice 9: Cermak will walk us through all of that at this stage.

[3:30:35] Voice 6: So, Mr. Barlow, do we have quorum?

[3:30:51] Voice 6: Mr. Barlow, do we have quorum?

[3:30:53] Voice 12: Yes.

[3:30:54] Voice 12: Yes, I'm assessing that now by looking at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

[3:31:04] Voice 12: Yes, you do.

[3:31:06] Voice 8: And are Director Cermak and Mob with us?

[3:31:09] Voice 8: I

[3:31:12] Voice 6: am here, Mr. Chair.

[3:31:15] Voice 6: Thank you.

[3:31:20] Voice 6: And I see Director Mob is here as well.

[3:31:24] Voice 9: All right.

[3:31:28] Voice 9: Over to you, Director Cermak, to introduce this topic area.

[3:31:33] Voice 7: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[3:31:35] Voice 7: I'm coming to you from a hotel.

[3:31:36] Voice 7: I assume you can hear and see me, so I just have you on my phone.

[3:31:41] Voice 7: So overall, you have a list before you, or it's not on that page,

[3:31:45] Voice 7: but the previous page, a list of all the LTC projects

[3:31:49] Voice 7: that have been submitted and approved by the respective LTCs.

[3:31:54] Voice 7: These are for projects that are over $5,000.

[3:31:57] Voice 7: There are various projects at various stages.

[3:32:00] Voice 7: I could walk through them one at a time, if you prefer,

[3:32:04] Voice 7: or I could go into the project feasibility.

[3:32:08] Voice 7: What would be your preference, Mr. Chair?

[3:32:10] Voice 7: Are you closing?

[3:32:22] Voice 13: You're muted, Joe.

[3:32:25] Voice 6: Sorry.

[3:32:26] Voice 9: Sorry about that.

[3:32:27] Voice 9: Before we dive into the individuals, individual projects,

[3:32:34] Voice 9: I think it might be helpful if you provided the big picture overview

[3:32:41] Voice 9: of what they all add up to,

[3:32:43] Voice 9: Because it looks like, as far as I can tell, it looks like we're headed towards a situation where, yet again, we're approving more planning work than we have the resources for.

[3:32:53] Voice 9: And I think we need to wrestle

[3:32:54] Voice 9: with that question before we get into the details.

[3:32:56] Voice 9: So why don't we do it that way?

[3:32:59] Voice 7: Okay.

[3:32:59] Voice 7: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[3:33:00] Voice 7: So, you know, in terms of the big picture, we have seven LTCs with proposed projects.

[3:33:06] Voice 7: They total up to $257,500.

[3:33:12] Voice 7: Of that, $174,000 is proposed for Salt Spring Island.

[3:33:17] Voice 7: And I think it's significant to pause on Salt Spring Island,

[3:33:20] Voice 7: as Trustee Patrick has mentioned the challenges of completing the work.

[3:33:26] Voice 7: Work is advancing there.

[3:33:27] Voice 7: The Complete Communities Grant is coming to a conclusion in the next couple months,

[3:33:33] Voice 7: which is approximately $130,000 worth of expenditure.

[3:33:37] Voice 7: And from that builds the rest of the, you know, the policy development for consideration of official community plans and land use bylaw.

[3:33:45] Voice 7: Within that, you'll see that the proposed budget is to spend this fiscal and then next to contract staff out to help get the work done in terms of facilitation of engagement with the public and then engaging the public again and the elected officials with the policy development.

[3:34:08] Voice 7: So in order to address the need for that planning resource, which seems to be ever languishing on salt spring, it's built into the project.

[3:34:16] Voice 7: So when we get feasibility assessment, that's worth considering.

[3:34:21] Voice 7: And I've made a note in there as well.

[3:34:23] Voice 7: The rest of them is, again, advocates for getting into the feasibility aspect of things.

[3:34:28] Voice 7: We have assessed approximately 3,600 hours of staff time, of which we only have about 3,100 hours of planning time.

[3:34:41] Voice 7: This does not include all the mapping services, administrative services, and the like.

[3:34:48] Voice 7: But it's usually the critical is having a senior planner do this work.

[3:34:52] Voice 7: And as I said, if the Salt Spring LTC is successful in hiring a contractor that should put a significant dent into that, still have concerns about the timing and availability of resources to accomplish all the work that's proposed before you.

[3:35:10] Voice 7: That can be accomplished by phasing of the work and what have you.

[3:35:16] Voice 7: Denman Island is ongoing work.

[3:35:19] Voice 7: work, Gambier's ongoing work, Maine's ongoing work, you know, Pender's ongoing work. So those

[3:35:26] Voice 7: are all ready to be facilitated. Or pardon me, Gabriela's ongoing work. Gambier's and Laskiti,

[3:35:34] Voice 7: especially Laskiti, is new work. And so those are the ones that we may struggle the most

[3:35:39] Voice 7: to find staff resources for. But again, you know, if the Finance Planning Committee wishes to

[3:35:46] Voice 7: to support this work going forward to EC and Trust Council,

[3:35:50] Voice 7: staff may be able to just help the LTCs by phasing their projects

[3:35:54] Voice 7: and slightly delaying it a little bit.

[3:35:57] Voice 7: And it's worth noting here too that some of the resources we have tried to build,

[3:36:03] Voice 7: there's still minor projects going on with each of the LTCs,

[3:36:07] Voice 7: and that's accomplished via a different team,

[3:36:10] Voice 7: not through the regional planning team that does the major projects,

[3:36:12] Voice 7: but through the local planning team.

[3:36:14] Voice 7: And so even if major projects are delayed a bit, the minor projects continue to advance.

[3:36:19] Voice 7: So LTC elected officials or interests are met.

[3:36:23] Voice 7: It was a bit hodgepodge, sorry, I didn't prepare my notes.

[3:36:25] Voice 7: I was actually on holiday for three weeks and here I am.

[3:36:29] Voice 7: So happy to answer any questions about the generality, but I think it may be more fruitful for me to answer questions.

[3:36:39] Voice 8: Thank you. Trustee Peterson?

[3:36:41] Voice 8: Yes,

[3:36:44] Voice 18: I'd just like to, for context, note that the Laskiti project has been underway for a couple of years.

[3:36:55] Voice 18: And the reason we have a business case before us is approximately a year ago, we were told that we needed to downscope our OCP project because we were approaching major project funding levels.

[3:37:10] Voice 18: levels um so i i'm just pushing back against the notion that this is a new project it's actually

[3:37:16] Voice 18: contains a bunch of stuff that had to get taken out last year thank you don't

[3:37:24] Voice 9: see patrick all

[3:37:27] Trustee Patrick: right um i mean our project planning which is really community planning um is really the meat

[3:37:36] Trustee Patrick: and potatoes of everything we stand for this is how the preserve and protect mandate is is realized

[3:37:45] Trustee Patrick: is uh through doing planning um in our communities and um you know we have a number of ocps and land

[3:37:54] Trustee Patrick: use bylaws that are out of date and um not current and um you know that's reflective and we we always

[3:38:02] Trustee Patrick: end up up here um you know with salt spring every year we have the feasibility work that shows up

[3:38:08] Trustee Patrick: with the budget saying either you know we can or can't or we finally get it accustomed to say yes

[3:38:12] Trustee Patrick: Yes, we can do the work.

[3:38:13] Trustee Patrick: And, you know, Salt Spring's been two budget cycles now with this OCP project that we have not, you know, we have got things advanced, but different than what we had planned on.

[3:38:24] Trustee Patrick: But I have some concern.

[3:38:27] Trustee Patrick: The Regional Planning Committee is supposed to be, in our terms of reference, advising on the provision and allocation of resources to deliver local planning.

[3:38:39] Trustee Patrick: and we we're not involved in the creation of this feasibility staff report so i do have a motion i

[3:38:47] Trustee Patrick: had sent forward because i think we should be um and as we move forward we've talked about

[3:38:54] Trustee Patrick: corporate planning till we you know we keep talking about it but as we go forward we have

[3:38:58] Trustee Patrick: to find a way of getting local trust committee projects and part embedded into the strategic

[3:39:04] Trustee Patrick: plan and planned in the beginning of the term and organized and put through to the end.

[3:39:10] Trustee Patrick: I think we have an opportunity through the regional planning committee to start exercising

[3:39:14] Trustee Patrick: that muscle a little bit by looking at these projects in terms of, can they be done this

[3:39:19] Trustee Patrick: term?

[3:39:20] Trustee Patrick: What's the work needed now through to next term?

[3:39:24] Trustee Patrick: Salt Springs is a good example where they're going out to tender for the contractor to

[3:39:28] Trustee Patrick: help do this work.

[3:39:29] Trustee Patrick: And I had raised, this is an opportunity to get the cost estimate to finish the project.

[3:39:34] Trustee Patrick: So that, you know, we can only have a budget for the money that's there now, but we should know, you know, by going out to tender, we'll have up-to-date information that we can have an accurate, you know, budget and understanding of what it'll take to finish this project this term with, you know, new numbers by going out to market.

[3:39:56] Trustee Patrick: So, I'll let the debate carry on here, but I do have a motion that I would like to see the staff report reviewed by the Regional Planning Committee at our next meeting and all of these projects, because we only saw what ones were done by September 4th, so that we can comment on the entire package and, you know, come to an alignment on that projects, as well as the feasibility of the staff to get that work done.

[3:40:19] Voice 8: Thank you. Trustee Boland?

[3:40:23] Voice 13: Thanks. I have two or three different comments on this. The first one would be the Hornby

[3:40:32] Voice 13: mess. Is that included in the feasibility, those requirements included in the feasibility,

[3:40:39] Voice 13: albeit that the business case is not there? The second one is, I want to know if the temporary

[3:40:47] Voice 13: assignment process how that influences the resources in this context because the feasibility

[3:40:55] Voice 13: refers to you know training and holidays and vacancies but the temporary assignment I looked

[3:41:02] Voice 13: at the most recent org chart and if I'm not mistaken there are one two three four planners

[3:41:13] Voice 13: who are on temporary assignment and I just I just would like to know how that comes about

[3:41:20] Voice 13: and how it influences resources you know at worst case scenario it could influence

[3:41:26] Voice 13: requests for new staff staff positions and the third thing I would like to know is why oh why

[3:41:36] Voice 13: did we renew the lease on the Salisbury Island office when we can't staff it for several years

[3:41:43] Voice 13: now the Salisbury Island projects languish because of staffing issues and it's just rolled over from

[3:41:53] Voice 13: year to year and it appears that you know having people live on Salisbury Island is a problem

[3:41:59] Voice 13: and yet we renewed and created a new office there okay thanks three things well trustee

[3:42:10] Voice 9: Bolland, your questions, I don't know if they're sharp enough for Director Cermak, but perhaps we'll give him a chance to respond.

[3:42:18] Voice 9: But some of your questions strike me as more directed towards the trustees in terms of the choices we make rather than Director Cermak.

[3:42:26] Voice 9: But Director Cermak, perhaps you could do your best to try to answer Trustee Bolland's questions.

[3:42:31] Voice 7: I believe you once called it a college try, so I'll do my best.

[3:42:34] Voice 7: the so Hornby Island I think we established I believe that was one of your questions

[3:42:40] Voice 7: is not a business case that's submitted nor does it need to be submitted so I'll just put that to

[3:42:46] Voice 7: rest there temporary assignments I'm only aware of two temporary assignments they sort of come

[3:42:53] Voice 7: out of left field when a when a planner explores an opportunity throughout the province in my

[3:42:59] Voice 7: I experienced 15 years with the trust.

[3:43:02] Voice 7: Those are the only two I've ever seen.

[3:43:04] Voice 7: So it's really hard to plan for those types of things.

[3:43:08] Voice 7: And it's a privilege of staff or an opportunity that they have working within the province to do that.

[3:43:13] Voice 7: I would not think that we would take away that ability.

[3:43:17] Voice 7: We have spoken to one ministry in perspective.

[3:43:22] Voice 7: I don't wish to get into it.

[3:43:24] Voice 7: but one of the assignments, there's a process whereby we're supposed to talk to the ministry

[3:43:28] Voice 7: staff with whom our current staff person is going to on temporary assignments. And that did not

[3:43:35] Voice 7: happen in our last process. It kind of caught us a little bit more by surprise than expected.

[3:43:39] Voice 7: So we're working on that. And I believe maybe Russ would have said that it's a muscle that we

[3:43:44] Voice 7: haven't really flexed. So we're learning how to do that better. It's really hard. I don't think

[3:43:51] Voice 7: I don't think any other business cases really accommodate for the potential for temporary assignments. So I'm not sure that it would be feasible for LTC projects to do the same. However, it is acknowledged that it's a reality. And we can find a way to at least incorporate sort of temporary expectations, especially knowing currently that there's two staff on leave.

[3:44:13] Voice 7: And we are, there's always a lag in terms of when they say they're going and we post the replacement and what have you and success for that.

[3:44:23] Voice 7: For example, we currently have an island planner opportunity posted to respond to the latest absence.

[3:44:28] Voice 7: It does affect timelines.

[3:44:30] Voice 7: It seems to be affecting Salt Spring uniquely right now.

[3:44:32] Voice 7: And that may just be a combination of factors on Salt Spring.

[3:44:36] Voice 7: We've been getting, as you said, Trustee Boland, it's difficult to get staff to live there.

[3:44:40] Voice 7: But I'd caution jumping to conclusions.

[3:44:43] Voice 7: And the reason I would say that is at one point,

[3:44:45] Voice 7: Gabriola looked to be in the same situation Salt Spring is now.

[3:44:48] Voice 7: They were having quite a difficult time staffing up.

[3:44:51] Voice 7: Staff turnover was quite great.

[3:44:54] Voice 7: Whereas you look currently, they're doing wonderfully.

[3:44:56] Voice 7: And as a matter of fact, they're bursting at the seams

[3:44:58] Voice 7: and they seem to be a very productive, happy office.

[3:45:01] Voice 7: I don't think Salt Spring is doomed yet.

[3:45:04] Voice 7: I think that they certainly have the opportunity

[3:45:07] Voice 7: to have staff come back and work in that office.

[3:45:09] Voice 7: and we're working assertively towards that.

[3:45:12] Voice 7: Thank you.

[3:45:17] Voice 13: Can I just respond?

[3:45:19] Voice 13: Yes, go ahead.

[3:45:20] Voice 13: So the org chart that was updated

[3:45:22] Voice 13: before Trust Council meeting

[3:45:23] Voice 13: has four planners on temporary assignment.

[3:45:26] Voice 13: Just a heads up, the org chart.

[3:45:30] Voice 15: I can help you here.

[3:45:31] Voice 13: Okay, go ahead.

[3:45:36] Voice 15: So, yeah, so first point of clarity,

[3:45:39] Voice 15: there's no budget request from Hornby for next year.

[3:45:43] Voice 15: that comment that was made earlier was incorrect the budget discussion at Hornby Island Local Trust

[3:45:49] Voice 15: Committee recently was in relation to reallocation of the current year's approved budget so there's

[3:45:54] Voice 15: nothing that's coming forward next budget so it's the list in this agenda is correct in relation to

[3:46:01] Voice 15: temporary assignments if you're looking at the Islands Trust org chart and you see TA after a

[3:46:06] Voice 15: staff person's name that indicates that is an Islands Trust staff person working in an Islands

[3:46:12] Voice 15: trust position temporarily. So, for example, if an island trust staff person goes on temporary

[3:46:22] Voice 15: assignment outside of island trust, the position on the org chart should reflect a vacancy

[3:46:27] Voice 15: because that position within island trust is now vacant. So, where you see all of those TAs

[3:46:33] Voice 15: on the org chart, it's just indicating that that staff person is temporarily in that role,

[3:46:40] Voice 15: that it's not their base position and so they may be moving to back to their base position in future

[3:46:46] Voice 15: so I think that's what you're seeing trustee Boland. That's

[3:46:50] Voice 13: very confusing but thank you for

[3:46:53] Voice 13: the clarification.

[3:46:56] Voice 15: Yes and maybe we

[3:46:57] Voice 15: need to leave some commentary on our public facing org chart to

[3:47:00] Voice 15: make that clear so it's helpful to know when things are not always intuitive to us internally

[3:47:05] Voice 15: for staff it might be but we need to recognize these are public facing and trustee facing

[3:47:09] Voice 15: document so we'll fix that and certainly in relation to the Salt Spring Island office that

[3:47:15] Voice 15: was a council decision as Chair Bernardo noted some of these questions are for trustees there's

[3:47:21] Voice 15: also politically a great desire to retain a staffed office on Salt Spring so the members

[3:47:27] Voice 15: of the public have a place to go and interact with staff.

[3:47:31] Voice 9: All right thank you for that I put

[3:47:33] Voice 9: my hand up because I just to be clear I'm not asking this question in my chair capacity it's

[3:47:38] Voice 9: It's just in my trustee capacity, a question for Director Cermak, just for clarification.

[3:47:47] Voice 9: You know, maybe I'm being simplistic here, but, you know, there's a 500-hour shortfall from the looks of it here.

[3:47:54] Voice 9: and um i understand just to clarify here i understand you'd be saying that the the hope

[3:48:00] Voice 9: or the if all of these projects are approved the way to sort of deal with it would be to contract

[3:48:05] Voice 9: to uh frankly just get some contract planners to come in and solve that is that right

[3:48:10] Voice 9: uh

[3:48:12] Voice 7: sort of the uh i mean we staff acknowledge that more ask more work is being asked than we

[3:48:21] Voice 7: We have the capacity to do.

[3:48:23] Voice 7: There are other solutions.

[3:48:25] Voice 7: We could add more people to the regional planning team.

[3:48:28] Voice 7: There's options that we haven't put in here.

[3:48:29] Voice 7: And at the expense of current planning.

[3:48:33] Voice 7: So applications could slow down.

[3:48:36] Voice 7: Those are options we could look at.

[3:48:38] Voice 7: What I said about contract.

[3:48:42] Voice 7: We can't go out and contract planners per se.

[3:48:44] Voice 7: There's a union environment.

[3:48:46] Voice 7: What we can do is we can contract facilitators, policy development, engagement specialists and things that planners don't do because we always have to get first crack at, you know, internal positions.

[3:49:01] Voice 7: We can't arbitrarily contract those out, but we can hive off as much as we can that specialty work.

[3:49:08] Voice 7: And that's what's been proposed for Salt Spring Island, especially when the bulk of the engagement, it really requires a skilled facilitator, which Salt Spring at the moment, internally, you know, we just don't have those resources in that team right now.

[3:49:25] Voice 7: so I

[3:49:27] Voice 9: understand you'd be saying you'd make up the gap the the hour gap by not contracting

[3:49:32] Voice 9: the planning side but contracting out the ancillary support stuff that informs that's

[3:49:38] Voice 9: necessary to inform the planning and you'd sort of you know with that rearrangement of deck chairs

[3:49:43] Voice 9: you'd be able to fill in that gap but it still involves contracting people and that's my second

[3:49:48] Voice 9: question which is in your experience bringing in someone from the outside to do that work

[3:49:54] Voice 9: work um just as a general matter that would give me a certain amount of anxiety and uncertainty

[3:50:00] Voice 9: about the efficiency and the effectiveness of um what you're getting value for money you know you

[3:50:06] Voice 9: don't have the staff you hire somebody to do this support and salary work uh i'd be anxious that

[3:50:13] Voice 9: there's just it's just an end way of things that they're that those people would be just not as

[3:50:18] Voice 9: effective and efficient i mean has that been your experience or am i just anxious about something

[3:50:22] Voice 9: it doesn't exist no

[3:50:24] Voice 7: fair comment um that's i think there's been many different experiences

[3:50:28] Voice 7: on different islands and broadly in planning in general it's um it's preferred that the um

[3:50:35] Voice 7: the community engagement is done by planners in the community who know the community who work

[3:50:41] Voice 7: with the community and then of course on the other side work within the organization effectively and

[3:50:46] Voice 7: efficiently project management as i'm sure most of this team knows uh this committee um is a skill

[3:50:53] Voice 7: unto itself and you know just because you contract somebody doesn't mean you've got good contract

[3:50:58] Voice 7: management in staff and um and so it has its own host of issues um so it's it's not ideal um it is

[3:51:07] Voice 7: it is i'd say less effective to some degree but it's not ineffective it's just um i think when

[3:51:13] Voice 7: When you have more capital than you do staff, I think that's kind of the approach.

[3:51:17] Voice 7: And you may lose a little bit, but you will gain in terms of the quality of the materials that are presented.

[3:51:24] Voice 7: You just won't have that particular community insight and engagement that, for example, I live on Salt Spring Island.

[3:51:31] Voice 7: I can't go out as none of you can in your communities without talking about issues of the day.

[3:51:35] Voice 7: And that sort of depth of personal relations and engagement is sort of intangible, which a contractor flying in on a Harbour Air jet just can't do.

[3:51:48] Voice 5: Thank you.

[3:51:50] Voice 5: Trustee Graham.

[3:51:53] Voice 5: Thank you, Chair.

[3:51:53] Voice 5: And thank you, Director Cermak.

[3:51:55] Voice 5: You mentioned a possible solution, which I recall about 10 years ago when I was a trustee,

[3:52:02] Voice 5: The Demand Local Trust Committee had reached a point where there was insufficient staff to do the work involved.

[3:52:08] Voice 5: And at the local trust committee table, we directed staff to reduce the amount of time being used on applications and add time that was being spent on projects.

[3:52:24] Voice 5: And that seemed to work really well.

[3:52:26] Voice 5: Now, in a way, it's unfair to the individual, but there's a benefit to the community.

[3:52:32] Voice 5: So, there was a larger benefit because it was community benefit versus an individual's.

[3:52:39] Voice 5: And in fact, some of the applicants who had rather complicated development applications opted to pay themselves to have a planner come in and direct that application, which was another creative solution to take that off the Islands Trust Planners plate.

[3:52:55] Voice 5: So, I like your idea of flushing, of getting some more people on the regional planning team because that's the process you're using now for these projects.

[3:53:01] Voice 5: and I like that. But if they're understaffed, let's look at reducing the amount of time that

[3:53:07] Voice 5: some of our island planners are spending on applications and give them that extra time

[3:53:11] Voice 5: to work on projects. And also in Demand's situation, we managed to carve off a small

[3:53:18] Voice 5: piece of our major project. We reformatted it as a minor project so that our island planner

[3:53:24] Voice 5: could be working on that. That's almost done. And I know when that's done, our island planner,

[3:53:29] Voice 5: we're not going to give that island planner any more work to do because we're really focused on

[3:53:33] Voice 5: our major project and they've assured me that they'll be able to help out on the major project

[3:53:37] Voice 5: work so there there's some nuance and creativity there that has been used in the past because this

[3:53:43] Voice 5: is not a new phenomena where we don't have the staff capacity to do all the projects that trustees

[3:53:48] Voice 5: want at the same time i'm i think we need to be cognizant that the overall budget the amount of

[3:53:55] Voice 5: of money that is spent on island plans, on project is very, very low. It's not even 4%

[3:54:01] Voice 5: of an overall $10 million budget. And I really think we need to, I don't know, have some time

[3:54:09] Voice 5: to workshop or whatever mechanism we need to implement, but we need to get that figure up,

[3:54:15] Voice 5: like into double digits, at least. I think that sends a really strong message to our communities

[3:54:21] Voice 5: that we're that islands trust is working for you community members even though the projects that

[3:54:27] Voice 5: have overall trust area implication are huge and important i i don't i don't say they aren't but

[3:54:33] Voice 5: they don't have that individual attachment that community members are always looking for i think

[3:54:39] Voice 5: i've spoken thank you thank

[3:54:42] Voice 9: you well i think we're we're on our way to framing the the challenge with

[3:54:46] Voice 9: this in this particular area we've got this 500 hour shortfall and gotta figure out what to do

[3:54:51] Voice 9: with it how to deal with it um trustee patrick yeah

[3:54:56] Trustee Patrick: no thank you trustee graham i i agree i mean

[3:54:59] Trustee Patrick: this you know half of the our budget is basically planning um and um you know and we need to get up

[3:55:10] Trustee Patrick: and get planning because the world is not getting easier and our communities are are challenged i do

[3:55:16] Trustee Patrick: have a motion that i sent to robert because i think the it is unfortunate the regional planning

[3:55:21] Trustee Patrick: committee has not had we did not have this full deck of cards in front of us we had three of them

[3:55:26] Trustee Patrick: i think and september 4th and we didn't have the feasibility uh report from from stephan at that

[3:55:33] Trustee Patrick: at that meeting either so i think um that this is work that this committee needs to do the regional

[3:55:39] Trustee Patrick: planning committee needs to see all of these projects and matched with the resource uh issue

[3:55:45] Trustee Patrick: you and really have a hard conversation at our next meeting as to, you know, where do we, you

[3:55:51] Trustee Patrick: know, what do we recommend, you know, for the solution. So I do have a motion I sent to Robert.

[3:55:59] Trustee Patrick: I don't know if I can read it off. And please don't second it right away because we should

[3:56:06] Trustee Patrick: make sure the wording is sufficient. I see he's screen sharing. Thank you so much, Robert.

[3:56:12] Trustee Patrick: Robert, I'll go ahead and make the motion.

[3:56:15] Trustee Patrick: And like I said, please, let's wordsmith it.

[3:56:18] Trustee Patrick: I move that the Financial Planning Committee request the Regional Planning Committee to

[3:56:23] Trustee Patrick: review and provide comments on the Planning Services Project Feasibility Assessment Report

[3:56:27] Trustee Patrick: and include consideration of the feasibility of completing the projects this term.

[3:56:35] Trustee Patrick: Now, I don't know if this is the right wording.

[3:56:37] Trustee Patrick: if there's some i'd love to have suggestions on making this work before it's seconded

[3:56:44] Trustee Patrick: if

[3:56:46] Voice 9: i can ask a question trustee patrick uh i understand you know the the interest and

[3:56:53] Voice 9: frankly need for regional planning committee to weigh in on this area that's responsibility really

[3:56:58] Voice 9: uh but um is it your uh intent that um through that review process assuming the resolution

[3:57:08] Voice 9: passes that you that rpc would be able to come back to fpc with some recommendations about

[3:57:14] Voice 9: um frankly how to deal with the 500 hour shortfall but

[3:57:20] Trustee Patrick: yes because

[3:57:23] Voice 9: okay and

[3:57:24] Trustee Patrick: that's and the reason why

[3:57:25] Trustee Patrick: I also put for finishing the projects this term,

[3:57:29] Trustee Patrick: that opens the door as we look at requests

[3:57:31] Trustee Patrick: that have been there.

[3:57:32] Trustee Patrick: Can these projects be done this term as well?

[3:57:35] Trustee Patrick: Not just this budget year,

[3:57:37] Trustee Patrick: but we've got, you know,

[3:57:38] Trustee Patrick: basically we'll have a year and a half

[3:57:41] Trustee Patrick: from the next when this budget's approved.

[3:57:44] Voice 8: Great.

[3:57:44] Voice 8: All right.

[3:57:45] Voice 8: Thank you for clarifying that.

[3:57:47] Voice 9: All right, trustees.

[3:57:48] Voice 9: Trustees, do you understand the motion?

[3:57:52] Voice 9: Do you have any quibbles about language?

[3:57:54] Voice 9: Trustee Graham.

[3:57:56] Voice 5: Yeah, thank you. I understand where you're coming from, Trustee Patrick. My only concern is that it'll end up looking like the Regional Planning Committee is making the cuts.

[3:58:09] Voice 5: And I think that's why we have a Financial Planning Committee. They're supposed to find the money to do the work that the Regional Planning Committee says must get done.

[3:58:19] Voice 5: done. That's how I kind of read it. And I remember the conversation at regional planning. We had some

[3:58:25] Voice 5: disagreements in our committee as to what projects we were going to forward, because in the agenda

[3:58:31] Voice 5: that we looked at, there was an acknowledgement that we don't have the staff to do these projects.

[3:58:36] Voice 5: And my argument was, that's not our problem from the regional planning committee. We put forward

[3:58:42] Voice 5: plans that must be done. Our local trust committee said they must be done. Our constituents say they

[3:58:48] Voice 5: they must be done, and the timing of some of these old OCPs and LUBs demand that they get done.

[3:58:53] Voice 5: How it's paid for, that's not our problem. That's Financial Planning Committee's problem,

[3:58:57] Voice 5: fortunately, because that's the tough one. So my only concern, I know where you're coming from,

[3:59:02] Voice 5: I just don't want it to look like, I don't want Financial Planning Committee to think, oh good,

[3:59:07] Voice 5: we won't have to look at projects that aren't sourced, because regional planning will kick

[3:59:11] Voice 5: those out. But that's not what you're saying, I understand.

[3:59:15] Voice 9: But we're going to go directly to

[3:59:16] Voice 9: To Trustee Patrick, who is eager to answer.

[3:59:21] Trustee Patrick: No, I think we're supposed to be helping allocate resources.

[3:59:27] Trustee Patrick: So that's working with staff to say we're working on these projects.

[3:59:30] Trustee Patrick: If there's a 500 hour shortfall, then we should say it's a shortfall on this project, whatever Project X.

[3:59:37] Trustee Patrick: And that would come back to, you know, financial planning committee is that, you know, that's either a project that's not going to be funded.

[3:59:44] Trustee Patrick: we're not recommending it be funded because there isn't resources to put toward it it will have to

[3:59:49] Trustee Patrick: come from someplace else so we need to do that work to look at you know the staff resources

[3:59:53] Trustee Patrick: alignment with projects and we need to do that work as a committee um first and we haven't looked at

[4:00:00] Trustee Patrick: like I said, the whole package. That's how I see it.

[4:00:04] Voice 9: All right. Well, let's remember that

[4:00:08] Voice 9: Trustee Patrick is on the verge of making a motion, but hasn't quite done it yet because

[4:00:12] Voice 9: she wants to stress test the language here. I'm going to suggest we focus on that narrow question

[4:00:18] Voice 9: of the language of the motion, so then we can simply deal with the business of having it

[4:00:24] Voice 9: discussed and decided. So does anybody have any comments about the actual language that Trustee

[4:00:29] Voice 9: trustee patrick is proposing if we just stay on that narrow question for now i think your

[4:00:37] Voice 9: intention is pretty clear here trustee patrick so it's up to you what you want to do with this

[4:00:42] Trustee Patrick: well i've read the motion if someone wants to second it i

[4:00:47] Voice 9: see the trustee graham is now

[4:00:48] Voice 9: seconding the motion uh the motion has has been made and is now before the floor uh and uh further

[4:00:56] Voice 9: debate on the actual substance of this kicking this material back to rpc so that it can weigh in

[4:01:01] Voice 9: on relative emphasis or priorities

[4:01:06] Voice 9: with respect to these projects.

[4:01:08] Voice 9: Just these comments.

[4:01:13] Voice 9: Okay, we have the proposal.

[4:01:15] Voice 9: It's all pretty clear.

[4:01:16] Voice 9: I'm going to put it to a vote then.

[4:01:18] Voice 9: All those in favor of this motion,

[4:01:22] Voice 9: please raise your hands now.

[4:01:31] Voice 8: Please lower your hands.

[4:01:36] Voice 8: Anyone who is opposed to this motion,

[4:01:38] Voice 8: please raise your hands.

[4:01:40] Voice 9: I see none.

[4:01:41] Voice 9: The motion carries.

[4:01:44] Voice 9: So that takes care of that aspect of it.

[4:01:47] Voice 9: but of course we we're still not done yet we still have the detailed things to go through as well I

[4:01:54] Voice 9: mean it's like the detailed review of these funding requests is integral to this larger

[4:01:59] Voice 9: question but I see trustee Bowen you put your hand up so we're going to go to you first

[4:02:03] Voice 13: thanks just it doesn't necessarily have to be answered here but here's a question

[4:02:08] Voice 13: 500 hours we're short and I'm in a kind of process loop in my head where like 500 hours

[4:02:15] Voice 13: i approximately estimate at a hundred dollars an hour that's fifty thousand dollars so i don't see

[4:02:25] Voice 13: is there a way that that can be captured as you know we're already talking about contractors

[4:02:31] Voice 13: consultants etc etc etc so how come those hours aren't applied across the projects

[4:02:40] Voice 13: in terms of contractor hours is my question.

[4:02:44] Voice 13: But let's leave it for the regional planning.

[4:02:47] Voice 13: But I just wanted to say 500 hours shortfall

[4:02:50] Voice 13: is, I think, approximately 50,000

[4:02:53] Voice 13: in consultant contractor costs.

[4:02:56] Voice 13: Thanks.

[4:02:58] Voice 8: Thank you.

[4:03:00] Voice 9: Other trustees, comments?

[4:03:06] Voice 9: Well, actually, I've got a general comment to make,

[4:03:09] Voice 9: and it's in keeping with what some of the other trustees

[4:03:11] Voice 9: have mentioned, which is really the direction Trustee Graham was going.

[4:03:18] Voice 9: It's no news to anybody how we spend money.

[4:03:20] Voice 9: It reflects our priorities.

[4:03:21] Voice 9: Our core mission is planning, and the LTCs are where the planning happens.

[4:03:27] Voice 9: So the proposed funding for LTC projects is $294,000 all in for both specific and kind

[4:03:35] Voice 9: of discretionary minor projects.

[4:03:38] Voice 9: It's frankly a mystery to me.

[4:03:39] Voice 9: it has been since i started this thing as to why such a small proportion of a 10.8 million dollar

[4:03:44] Voice 9: budget goes towards that um basically to that core business of looking at ocps and lvbs

[4:03:53] Voice 9: um certainly there's you know we all know this lots of trustees are kind of frustrated about

[4:03:57] Voice 9: how long it takes for them to get their local initiatives moving but i'm going to solve that

[4:04:03] Voice 9: riddle today but it seems to me it's it's this is this fact that we're having this discussion and

[4:04:08] Voice 9: we're looking at this shortfall problem is a reminder of of why we need corporate planning

[4:04:15] Voice 9: about the question ought not to come it ought not to arrive to us at this stage we ought to

[4:04:21] Voice 9: be balancing out our resource capacity against our demands well before this happens with that

[4:04:29] Voice 9: little moral lecture i see uh director mobs has her has her hand up please director mobs

[4:04:39] Voice 15: Thanks, Chair.

[4:04:40] Voice 15: I just want to remind the committee that this dollar figure is not representative of all the dollars Islands Trust is directing towards local trust committee work.

[4:04:47] Voice 15: The vast majority of our salaries cost is associated with planning staff, and planning staff are working on these projects.

[4:04:56] Voice 15: So millions of dollars are going towards advancing local trust committee projects.

[4:05:01] Voice 15: projects these are just the pieces of the project that are not related to staff salaries that are

[4:05:08] Voice 15: more for you know perhaps communications materials or some legal review or some engagement work so

[4:05:15] Voice 15: to look at this and think that's all we're spending on local trust committee projects I think

[4:05:19] Voice 15: is not the right view also I need to temper our expectations for corporate planning a little bit

[4:05:26] Voice 15: I've heard for a couple of years corporate planning is going to solve everything

[4:05:29] Voice 15: thing. Corporate planning is not going to solve our dilemma where we are wanting to do more for

[4:05:33] Voice 15: less. That isn't solved with corporate planning. Corporate planning helps you plan what you want

[4:05:39] Voice 15: to do in advance. It doesn't necessarily mean it's going to cost you less. It gives you more time to

[4:05:46] Voice 15: do long-term financial planning associated with the work you want to undertake. But all it will

[4:05:51] Voice 15: do is shift the difficult conversations to a consolidated early point. It won't solve

[4:05:58] Voice 15: some of our problems now early planning will create some efficiencies within the organization

[4:06:03] Voice 15: and that will naturally generate some savings but yes I don't think some of what we struggle

[4:06:10] Voice 15: with will be solved with a revised corporate planning process so I hate to be the bearer

[4:06:15] Voice 15: of bad news but I also want to temper expectations a little bit well

[4:06:20] Voice 8: it's a good

[4:06:20] Voice 15: conversation I'm

[4:06:21] Voice 15: happy to hear it

[4:06:22] Voice 9: yeah no it's a fair comment because the end of the day whether it's corporate

[4:06:25] Voice 9: planning on the current arrangement or the current arrangement it's it's on us as trustees to

[4:06:30] Voice 9: actually make decisions about resource allocation when there is insufficient resources to meet all

[4:06:35] Voice 9: demands but there is a great virtue in having that discussion very early on uh in the process

[4:06:44] Voice 9: and have trustees engaging with it very early on rather than at the back end of the budgetary

[4:06:49] Voice 9: process so um but point well taken other trustees do we have comments uh about uh about this issue

[4:06:56] Voice 9: or should we uh simply dive into the individual uh projects uh if there's an appetite for that

[4:07:04] Voice 9: it would involve us diving into those individual projects would involve us scrutinizing the pros

[4:07:13] Voice 9: and cons of these different budgetary requests that are coming to us from ltcs

[4:07:21] Voice 9: i've actually got a question for the group whether or not that's going to be productive

[4:07:24] Voice 9: do we think that's useful trustee graham thank

[4:07:28] Voice 5: you chair i just want to follow up on director

[4:07:31] Voice 5: mob's very um clear um examination of the money amount of money the millions of dollars that are

[4:07:38] Voice 5: spent on our islands doing that planning and so for us to look at these smaller amounts and decide

[4:07:45] Voice 5: that they're not i don't know they haven't budgeted enough or they're not important enough

[4:07:49] Voice 5: That doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know why we would look at these individual projects and try to assess whether they've put enough money in for legal review or they've put enough money in for the community outreach or the various other components that make up these budget items.

[4:08:07] Voice 5: These don't belong to us. These belong to the local trust committees that have put this work together with their island planner and the history that they have of doing this kind of work. We should just accept that this is what it's going to cost, personally. That's my feeling.

[4:08:24] Voice 9: Thank you. Trustee Peterson?

[4:08:25] Voice 9: Yeah,

[4:08:28] Voice 18: thank you. Given the motion that we just passed for RPC to give us back some recommendations, I don't know. I'm a little doubtful about the utility of spending a lot of time delving into these individually when we may get recommendations back from RPC that perhaps different from what we see today.

[4:08:52] Voice 18: day just my thought

[4:08:54] Voice 9: that's basically why i asked the question trustee bowman um

[4:09:01] Voice 13: i like this

[4:09:03] Voice 13: discussion i found it very difficult i did read each one of them and you know i noticed that

[4:09:09] Voice 13: you know the estimated time the strategic directions that they supported blah blah blah

[4:09:16] Voice 13: were quite repetitive I see the need to generically review OCPs and LUBs and I see that sometimes

[4:09:26] Voice 13: particular items come up that are unique to a particular island that trigger these reviews

[4:09:33] Voice 13: I think the one where they've just done a review but it threw up a whole lot of other issues and

[4:09:38] Voice 13: they have to circle back was a bit dispiriting in a way but what i question is um like whether we

[4:09:48] Voice 13: need we need some sort of overarching like okay here's my question is there ever a review of an

[4:09:56] Voice 13: ocplub that says no it's still good enough we don't need to do anything and we're in a constant

[4:10:04] Voice 13: cycle of renewing these documents and whether there's a better way to budget for that and is

[4:10:14] Voice 9: that question directed to director mobs yes

[4:10:17] Voice 13: director

[4:10:21] Voice 8: mobs please uh

[4:10:24] Voice 15: thanks sorry just getting

[4:10:25] Voice 15: to my mute button um i would think that a local trust committee would be acknowledging their

[4:10:32] Voice 15: existing OCP and doing some at least rudimentary analysis to understand if it needs update before

[4:10:41] Voice 15: advancing a project and a funding request for undertaking an update and I'm seeing Director

[4:10:48] Voice 15: Cermak nod subtly so oh sort of maybe. I would think that would happen because LTPs are very

[4:10:57] Voice 15: familiar with their OCPs and their land use bylaws and they should know if something is outdated or

[4:11:02] Voice 15: or not before advancing our request for work.

[4:11:06] Voice 15: We are in a cycle right now where a lot of OPPs

[4:11:09] Voice 15: are old and are outdated.

[4:11:12] Voice 15: So we're seeing a lot of advancement come forward

[4:11:14] Voice 15: sort of altogether.

[4:11:15] Voice 15: And I think that's generating some of this pressure

[4:11:18] Voice 15: perhaps with staffing resources and perhaps dollars.

[4:11:22] Voice 15: Director Cermak may have some additional comments

[4:11:26] Voice 15: to supplement.

[4:11:27] Voice 15: I think I heard your question correctly, Trustee Boland.

[4:11:30] Voice 15: And if I haven't hit it, please correct me.

[4:11:33] Voice 9: Director Cermak, do you have anything to add to those remarks?

[4:11:38] Voice 7: Sorry, I'm also finding my mute button.

[4:11:42] Voice 7: I could, this is, you know, a deep subject, you know, whether an OCP is old or not has been reviewed.

[4:11:49] Voice 7: A couple of perspectives.

[4:11:50] Voice 7: Generally, it's the community that decides that it's not meeting their needs.

[4:11:54] Voice 7: And of course, that's voiced through the elections and the elected officials.

[4:11:57] Voice 7: officials. Staff do generally maintain tracking sheets, bylaws, especially OCPs and land use

[4:12:06] Voice 7: bylaws to see what's out of date, you know, what needs technical housekeeping. Most of you who've

[4:12:11] Voice 7: been around for a few cycles, a few cycles, a few terms, will know that we, you know, staff will

[4:12:18] Voice 7: bring technical amendments and it reflects that monitoring. And most of your bylaws, you'll see

[4:12:24] Voice 7: that there's a monitoring implementation and monitoring component to it.

[4:12:27] Voice 7: So staff maintains spreadsheets and things like that.

[4:12:30] Voice 7: So we're aware often if there's something technical that needs amending

[4:12:35] Voice 7: or if there's like a provincial change.

[4:12:37] Voice 7: And so we've been driven most of the changes for some time now

[4:12:42] Voice 7: based on provincial changes, Bill 44, Bill 33, et cetera, et cetera, Bill 16.

[4:12:47] Voice 7: And so sometimes we're just caught in this loop of trying to keep up

[4:12:51] Voice 7: with what the province is dictating must happen.

[4:12:54] Voice 7: And so I think we've been in that loop for quite some time.

[4:12:58] Voice 7: But I'd also like to emphasize the policy statement project.

[4:13:02] Voice 7: Internally, we talk about that a lot, that this provides a great opportunity that hasn't been taken advantage of for a long time.

[4:13:08] Voice 7: Whereby once the policy statement presumably is updated and amended, then most are official.

[4:13:15] Voice 7: That provides a ripe opportunity for us to amend our official community plans in a wholesome way.

[4:13:20] Voice 7: And how that happens, you know, aligned with corporate planning and your strategic planning kind of should come together at the same time, along with, you know, some of the provincial asks for funding and support.

[4:13:34] Voice 7: And internally, seeing where that dial is going, certainly myself and some planning services are hopeful that we can take a more wholesome look.

[4:13:45] Voice 7: And regional planning committee does do this to a degree with the spreadsheet that they have, but we haven't really exercised the muscle, but they have the information.

[4:13:53] Voice 7: And that is that with the policy statement update, with the corporate planning in place, and with the conclusion almost of this term, that it gives us that timing then to look at a wholesale way.

[4:14:05] Voice 7: How do we actually go by amending as many OCPs as are deemed necessary and maybe even capturing some of those smaller communities that have now gone through such a great transition, primarily from COVID and what have you?

[4:14:20] Voice 7: So we're always on top of that.

[4:14:21] Voice 7: We're always monitoring that.

[4:14:22] Voice 7: And we're always sort of planning towards that.

[4:14:24] Voice 7: So don't think that we're not aware of where your OCP is at and how old it is and stuff.

[4:14:29] Voice 7: And frankly, some communities are really delighted to have an old OCP.

[4:14:33] Voice 7: Some of them love it.

[4:14:34] Voice 7: And I'm sure most of you will probably be aware of those people.

[4:14:38] Voice 7: So those are my further comments.

[4:14:40] Voice 7: I don't want to go too much more.

[4:14:42] Voice 9: Thank you.

[4:14:42] Voice 9: Trustee Yates.

[4:14:44] Voice 11: Thank you, Chair Bernardo.

[4:14:45] Voice 11: And thank you, Director Cermak, for those statements.

[4:14:48] Voice 11: They're very helpful.

[4:14:49] Voice 11: But we're also required by the province to update our OCPs quite a bit more frequently

[4:14:55] Voice 11: than we were required previously.

[4:14:57] Voice 11: So we have to consider that too.

[4:14:59] Voice 11: I have one specific question with regard to the Gabriola OCP update and I'm going to ask it now

[4:15:08] Voice 11: of Director Cermak just in case we don't get to it before I have to leave at three o'clock

[4:15:14] Voice 11: and it has to do with the mapping for phase three and I'm wondering if that mapping includes

[4:15:22] Voice 11: includes the scale of 1 to 10,000, rather than what we're using now, 1 to 20,000,

[4:15:31] Voice 11: mostly for the deep development permit areas. Thank you if you can answer that.

[4:15:40] Voice 7: I cannot answer that. I'm sorry. I don't know about the scales of maps in terms of

[4:15:44] Voice 7: 1 to 10,000 or 1 to 20,000, what could be applied. But if you would like a more detailed map at that

[4:15:51] Voice 7: at that more detailed resolution i recommend going to the gabriel ltc making that resolution

[4:15:58] Voice 7: clear so that then staff can apply it um and perhaps one more

[4:16:05] Voice 7: comment i'll forward your

[4:16:07] Voice 7: your thoughts immediately to staff uh

[4:16:12] Voice 9: anything else to add director cermak no uh you're you're

[4:16:21] Voice 9: muted sorry

[4:16:22] Voice 7: no i'm shaking my head thank

[4:16:25] Voice 9: you thank you uh uh trustee peterson thank you um

[4:16:31] Voice 18: I think the thing is, is that there are there's there's two different or there's more than one way to look at OCP reviews.

[4:16:43] Voice 18: In a lot of cases, LTCs haven't had a comprehensive review in 20 or more years.

[4:16:50] Voice 18: In a lot of cases, there's been small targeted reviews more recently.

[4:16:55] Voice 18: The thing is, is that the longer you go without the comprehensive review, the more work there is to do.

[4:17:04] Voice 18: So, all OCPs are not equal in terms of age, in terms of how much they're out of date.

[4:17:11] Voice 18: And that's, it's just how it is in this interesting and diverse federation.

[4:17:20] Voice 8: Thank you.

[4:17:21] Voice 18: Trustee Patrick?

[4:17:23] Trustee Patrick: Oh, I've been waiting for the trust policy statement to get around to that last part called the implementation plan, because that's where I had a lot of questions.

[4:17:32] Trustee Patrick: Look forward to our community of the whole on that.

[4:17:36] Trustee Patrick: Um, there's a lot of opportunity. I think that's something as we're moving, um, toward,

[4:17:42] Trustee Patrick: I think the regional planning committee has got to start thinking of this to help set up the next

[4:17:47] Trustee Patrick: term for success of looking at all of this more holistically, because there's wills and interests

[4:17:55] Trustee Patrick: of updating your OCP. Are you ready? You know, is your community ready? Is your partners ready

[4:18:02] Trustee Patrick: The other agencies that have their fingers in various jurisdictions on your island. So there's a lot we could do to help establish sort of what sets this is ready to happen for an OCP.

[4:18:18] Trustee Patrick: OCP, and I think they've talked about, well, there's a special tax requisition if you're

[4:18:22] Trustee Patrick: outside the base service. What is agreed to be a base service? What are the OCPs that the trust

[4:18:30] Trustee Patrick: consul agree are ready to be updated? A community could still come forward and say, I want it done

[4:18:35] Trustee Patrick: anyway. And is that then sets up for a special tax requisition? So we've got a lot of conversations

[4:18:42] Trustee Patrick: to have of how to make these decisions, and I think that the trust policy statement is that

[4:18:50] Trustee Patrick: opportunity, because we can't change 21 OCPs in one term. There's going to have to be a plan.

[4:19:02] Voice 9: Trustees, further comments about this area?

[4:19:09] Voice 8: All right, if we could have the agenda put back up

[4:19:11] Voice 8: on the screen, please.

[4:19:31] Voice 6: All right, here we go.

[4:19:34] Voice 9: As you can see, I mean, we've been talking,

[4:19:36] Voice 9: And I think fruitfully and usefully, I think we've been talking about the big picture, really.

[4:19:43] Voice 9: And I think that's, properly speaking, that is the speed at which this committee ought to be operating at.

[4:19:51] Voice 9: And I appreciate Trustee Patrick's point and her motion to have the specific grinding through of these things.

[4:19:59] Voice 9: is this committee needs the input of RPC

[4:20:03] Voice 9: before it can then go on

[4:20:05] Voice 9: and make an actual funding recommendation

[4:20:07] Voice 9: to the larger board, to the trust council.

[4:20:11] Voice 9: From what I've heard from people today,

[4:20:14] Voice 9: I don't see a tremendous amount of utility

[4:20:17] Voice 9: for us to go through the individual funding requests

[4:20:22] Voice 9: at this juncture.

[4:20:23] Voice 9: I can see us having to engage in them later

[4:20:26] Voice 9: after we hear from RCP.

[4:20:29] Voice 9: uh or rbc sorry so uh unless i hear uh otherwise or any objections to that i propose that we move

[4:20:38] Voice 9: on to item 7.2.4 islands trust conservancy board budget request and that director freighter is

[4:20:49] Voice 9: speaking to that yes

[4:20:56] Voice 14: i'm pleased to uh so this is the budget request of the board that's coming for

[4:21:01] Voice 14: consideration it does differ from what the board saw at their last meeting there was a salary number

[4:21:07] Voice 14: wrong in the version that they saw, which has led to a much larger increase than the board was

[4:21:11] Voice 14: expecting. We are taking that back to the board for reconsideration at their next meeting just

[4:21:17] Voice 14: for their information. You will note a couple of major increases in a few areas, one of which is

[4:21:23] Voice 14: safety. We are moving to a new device across the organization, and we're just reporting out the

[4:21:29] Voice 14: costs differently in terms of the monthly monitoring costs. Since this was produced,

[4:21:35] Voice 14: we have decided that the team likely only needs three.

[4:21:37] Voice 14: So that contribution will go down to $3,300 from $4,400.

[4:21:43] Voice 14: And I would also note you will see an increase in costs in conservation planning.

[4:21:49] Voice 14: That is to enable conservation planning and land securement.

[4:21:53] Voice 14: So that is a regular cost.

[4:21:55] Voice 14: It is a quirk of the contribution agreement we have with Environment Canada

[4:21:59] Voice 14: Canada that we have committed in this fiscal year to $26,000. Oh no, what was it? We have committed

[4:22:07] Voice 14: to $37,000 to conservation planning. Given the scope of multi-year agreement, we can't reduce

[4:22:15] Voice 14: that at this point in time without revisiting the entirety of the agreement. So that will be used

[4:22:20] Voice 14: towards the mapping products, land securement costs, and other pieces related to the protection

[4:22:24] Voice 14: of species at risk we did look at could we reduce that but it's not the way the agreement balances

[4:22:30] Voice 14: out the contributions from the various parties it is not achievable to do so at this time

[4:22:35] Voice 14: you'll note also an increase to legal and general increases to professional services as the

[4:22:42] Voice 14: director or that director of administrative services noted earlier

[4:22:47] Voice 14: there are some costs for evaluation of the species at risk grant we are heading into the final year

[4:22:53] Voice 14: year of the grant next fiscal, as well as some contracted First Nation liaison advisor as it

[4:23:00] Voice 14: relates to species at risk specifically, again, grant funded. So I'll just leave it there and be

[4:23:06] Voice 14: happy to take any questions. Oh, and the final thing I will note before I hand it back for

[4:23:10] Voice 14: questions is around property management. There is a formula that drives every time there's a new

[4:23:14] Voice 14: property that drives the funding needed for property management. And so the increases you

[4:23:19] Voice 14: see there relating to what's produced by that formula um i'll take questions if there's any

[4:23:25] Voice 14: further questions if there's any questions okay

[4:23:29] Voice 9: colleagues this is your chance to drill into the

[4:23:33] Voice 9: conservancy's budget do

[4:23:38] Voice 6: you have any comments let's

[4:23:45] Voice 8: see boland uh

[4:23:47] Voice 13: what's the timeline on the

[4:23:49] Voice 13: species at risk funding when will it cease and how will

[4:23:54] Voice 13: that impact the budget

[4:23:55] Voice 14: it expires in

[4:23:57] Voice 14: in March 31st of 2026. So this next fiscal year is anticipated to be the last year of that grant.

[4:24:04] Voice 14: The one point you will notice is the grant is currently in this fiscal is contributing $110,000

[4:24:10] Voice 14: towards our salaries. So that is where you will see that grant, you know, impact in the following

[4:24:17] Voice 14: fiscal year after this one, where that will then have to come back in to be funded by taxation.

[4:24:21] Voice 14: but you have benefited from six years of having that funded externally so

[4:24:26] Voice 13: that would impact

[4:24:27] Voice 14: but

[4:24:28] Voice 13: but we did have to match that funding so I'm assuming that the funding once it's removed

[4:24:38] Voice 13: anything it paid for would like it would it would just be removed from the budget rather than that

[4:24:45] Voice 13: costs would be transferred back into the general budget so i'm just asking so were staff hired on

[4:24:54] Voice 13: a permanent basis on the basis of the grant funding or how

[4:25:00] Voice 14: does that work um no no we have

[4:25:02] Voice 14: hired a coordinator who manages the species at risk program and so that that position will not

[4:25:08] Voice 14: continue is not anticipated to continue at the end of the program if it's not funded and we have

[4:25:13] Voice 14: used the funding also for the co-op student that co-op student has become sort of an integral part

[4:25:18] Voice 14: of the delivery of the service now so that is one we would recommend continue if it can't continue

[4:25:24] Voice 14: we're going to have to advise that we need another administrative position so the co-op student we

[4:25:30] Voice 14: are going to advise will need to continue we are not anticipating that the coordinator position

[4:25:34] Voice 14: would keep going so

[4:25:36] Voice 13: the 115 000 would just disappear it wouldn't theoretically the 220

[4:25:44] Voice 13: disappears but um yeah i'm a bit concerned about the fact that that having had grant funding for

[4:25:52] Voice 13: six years and having to match it that when it ceases we would be left in a position of having

[4:25:59] Voice 13: having to carry on with some things but that's a conversation for next year but just thanks thanks

[4:26:06] Voice 13: Claire

[4:26:07] Voice 14: through the chair I can just respond to that so you we have matched it we have matched

[4:26:11] Voice 14: it with operating costs so there haven't been really taxpayer dollars put into much additionality

[4:26:16] Voice 14: with the exception of the conservation planning land securement budget this fiscal but those are

[4:26:21] Voice 14: activities that need to be undertaken at some point so essentially they're getting funded this

[4:26:25] Voice 14: fiscal than in you know past or future years looking

[4:26:32] Voice 9: at your chart director uh it appears i

[4:26:34] Voice 9: mean we can go into these details as the trustees want but it's pretty clear that the change from

[4:26:41] Voice 9: the last budget to this one the material by a big distance the material difference is

[4:26:47] Voice 9: is the additional 85 7 000 or so in salary and benefits uh that's the bulk of what's a

[4:26:56] Voice 9: that accounts for the increase in the total draft budget.

[4:27:02] Voice 9: So no need to comment on that.

[4:27:04] Voice 9: Just an observation for the benefit of our colleagues here.

[4:27:07] Voice 9: Trustee Graham?

[4:27:08] Voice 5: Thank you, Chair.

[4:27:10] Voice 5: Considering the Islands Trust Conservancy is the most effective tool

[4:27:15] Voice 5: for the preservation and protection of the natural environment,

[4:27:18] Voice 5: I think we're getting a tremendous value for a relatively small amount of money.

[4:27:23] Voice 5: So congratulations to the Conservancy, and I like the budget.

[4:27:29] Voice 9: And that feels like a good point to end this particular discussion, so we can just leave this thing alone and move on to the next item on our agenda.

[4:27:40] Voice 9: We've taken care of the appointments to the Audit Committee, so we have some proposed meeting dates to discuss and a proposal that staff be directed to schedule all these meeting dates as electronic.

[4:27:54] Voice 9: And after that, we have a potentially interesting discussion about tax notes insert.

[4:28:00] Voice 9: But let's deal with item 8.2 first, please.

[4:28:04] Voice 9: Could have that request for decision up there.

[4:28:14] Voice 8: I see Director Mobbs helpfully has her hand up.

[4:28:18] Voice 8: Her hand has become available.

[4:28:21] Voice 3: It is available.

[4:28:22] Voice 9: Please step in, Director Mobbs, to inform us about this item.

[4:28:26] Voice 9: them.

[4:28:28] Voice 15: Okay, so this is a request for decision that comes to financial planning committee on

[4:28:33] Voice 15: an annual basis to set the meeting dates for next year. The historical planning for meeting dates

[4:28:39] Voice 15: has been on a calendar basis. We are moving planning to a fiscal year, it aligns better

[4:28:46] Voice 15: with our financial planning, it aligns better with all of our corporate process. So in this

[4:28:50] Voice 15: particular year of transition you are looking at meeting date setting for 15 months instead of just

[4:28:57] Voice 15: 12 so we need to plan for January February March which is the end of the current fiscal year and

[4:29:03] Voice 15: then the 12 months of next fiscal year. The approach to drafting these meeting dates has

[4:29:08] Voice 15: not changed from historical process so we are making sure that we are aligned with trust council

[4:29:13] Voice 15: meeting dates and related executive committee dates. This year we have also planned other

[4:29:19] Voice 15: committee proposed dates to hopefully align other committee work to inform

[4:29:25] Voice 15: financial planning committee budgets which should mean that next budget

[4:29:30] Voice 15: cycle we won't see some missing pieces in the first draft of the budget but for

[4:29:35] Voice 15: FPC's benefits these meeting dates are here for your consideration we also

[4:29:39] Voice 15: include that key items review to each those meetings for information setting

[4:29:43] Voice 15: the meeting format is important as of course in-person meetings have a dollar

[4:29:47] Voice 15: cost and electronic meetings do not. And we've got two resolutions for you.

[4:29:55] Voice 9: Before we dive into the resolutions, and somebody's going to have to make them, do any...

[4:30:00] Voice 9: of any of the trustees have any

[4:30:01] Voice 9: reservations about the proposed

[4:30:03] Voice 9: meeting dates? I'm not hearing any.

[4:30:10] Voice 9: I think we need a resolution from somebody

[4:30:12] Voice 9: about the, with respect to

[4:30:14] Voice 9: both of these items here. I might as well start

[4:30:16] Voice 9: with the first one. Trustee Graham.

[4:30:19] Voice 5: Happy to make that motion.

[4:30:20] Voice 5: I move that the Financial Planning Committee

[4:30:22] Voice 5: adopt the proposed

[4:30:23] Voice 5: meeting dates

[4:30:26] Voice 5: of January 22nd,

[4:30:29] Voice 5: 2025,

[4:30:30] Voice 5: February 19th, 2025,

[4:30:33] Voice 5: May 28th, 2025,

[4:30:34] Voice 5: august 20th 2025 october 22nd 2025 november 12th 2025 and february 18th 2026

[4:30:44] Voice 5: um and i need i need the motion back please for the three oh i'm sorry i should only have given

[4:30:57] Voice 5: the dates for three months i apologize nope

[4:31:01] Voice 15: you've got

[4:31:02] Voice 15: it you're fine i've

[4:31:03] Voice 5: got it uh months

[4:31:04] Voice 5: remaining in the 2024-25 fiscal year and the 2025-26 fiscal year. I see.

[4:31:12] Voice 9: At the risk, before anybody seconds that, at the risk of being difficult, I think

[4:31:18] Voice 8: Trustee Graham

[4:31:20] Voice 8: missed the second to last item, the January date in his recitation.

[4:31:26] Voice 5: I think you're right. I didn't see it. January 21st. Thank you, Chair Bernardo.

[4:31:32] Voice 5: no

[4:31:34] Voice 9: i earned my coin today so uh i think we can take it as given that that was um included in

[4:31:42] Voice 9: the recitation uh intended to be included in the recitation by trustee graham as it is in fact

[4:31:48] Voice 9: documented in the request for decision so now may i have a seconder for this motion i see trustee

[4:31:55] Voice 9: luckham has his hand up hopefully uh do we have a discussion uh is a discussion necessary about

[4:32:01] Voice 9: this. Does anybody have any comments? I will put the matter to a vote then. All of those in favor

[4:32:08] Voice 9: of the motion, please raise your hands.

[4:32:13] Voice 6: Please lower your hands.

[4:32:20] Voice 9: Would the mad people opposed

[4:32:23] Voice 9: to the resolution please raise their hands? None. Moving on to the second resolution.

[4:32:32] Voice 9: Again, if anything counts as housekeeping, this is it. Trustee Kralekum.

[4:32:38] Voice 9: I

[4:32:39] Trustee Luckham: move the Financial Planning Committee directs draft to schedule all adopted FPC meeting dates

[4:32:45] Trustee Luckham: as electronic meetings.

[4:32:49] Voice 9: I see Trustee Yates has her hand up. I believe she is seconding the motion.

[4:32:52] Voice 9: Thank you. And I don't believe there's any discussion required here. Those in favor,

[4:33:01] Voice 9: please raise your hands. Now, please lower your hands. Anybody opposed, this is your opportunity

[4:33:09] Voice 9: to voice your objection none both resolutions have passed and we now accelerate towards the

[4:33:21] Voice 9: close to the end of this meeting but we do have one remaining item i believe to address here

[4:33:27] Voice 9: before we adjourn and that is item

[4:33:33] Voice 6: 8.3 so

[4:33:39] Voice 9: uh director freighter could you please speak to this

[4:33:43] Voice 9: Yes,

[4:33:44] Voice 14: happy to. You might remember at an earlier meeting this year, you discussed the property tax notice insert, and we had provided information that we, for the first time, have information on the impact of taxation to individual taxpayers for two prior fiscal years.

[4:34:01] Voice 14: And that generated a discussion that there might be a desire to deliver different information, potentially in a different format, with the tax notice insert that we're able to provide to all borough tax notice recipients, which is only within local trust committees, not Bowen Island Municipality.

[4:34:18] Voice 14: So this is being brought to you to generate a conversation and seek input as to what you might like us to design for the next year.

[4:34:26] Voice 14: the final approval of this document though is with executive committee which has the responsibility

[4:34:32] Voice 14: for communication products but certainly i think it's valuable to seek your insights and preferences

[4:34:37] Voice 14: to provide to them so we've attached the last year's notice as an example of what's been provided

[4:34:43] Voice 14: in previous years and would welcome your input well

[4:34:50] Voice 9: i can actually help start off uh oh hang on

[4:34:53] Voice 9: i won't because i see trustee peterson has a handout trustee peterson please uh

[4:34:58] Voice 18: thank you as

[4:34:59] Voice 18: As most of you know, I've been hammering away on the tax notice insert, and I think that this recommendation from staff is helpful, providing the average increase or the increase on average property and what the tax looks like.

[4:35:16] Voice 18: I think that's very useful, and I appreciate it.

[4:35:20] Voice 18: Thank you.

[4:35:27] Voice 8: Rosie Patrick.

[4:35:28] Voice 8: Patrick?

[4:35:30] Trustee Patrick: My only, I mean, I watch this with faded breath and take it out of the little paper when

[4:35:36] Trustee Patrick: it shows up and the CRD has theirs in there too. And I always put them two and I save them in a

[4:35:41] Trustee Patrick: file together. The only thing that I, I know we don't have a lot of space, but this is our

[4:35:50] Trustee Patrick: opportunity to educate people. And I think we've done a fair bit of this from like what the island's

[4:35:55] Trustee Patrick: trust is but we have local trust committees is who they probably hear from more and i think we

[4:36:02] Trustee Patrick: just need to find a way to explain that you know there isn't space to say how to contact them or

[4:36:08] Trustee Patrick: anything but i think there needs to be a bit of a a description toward the top of you know trust

[4:36:17] Trustee Patrick: there's there's islands trust there's trust council there's local trust committee so there

[4:36:22] Trustee Patrick: There needs to be, I think, a little bit of the structure.

[4:36:24] Trustee Patrick: And then there's the trust conservancy.

[4:36:26] Trustee Patrick: So we either make a little picture or something that sort of shows the various pieces so that

[4:36:32] Trustee Patrick: we can help educate the people who do bother to unfold that piece of paper that shows up

[4:36:37] Trustee Patrick: in their notice.

[4:36:39] Trustee Patrick: All right.

[4:36:44] Voice 9: Thank you.

[4:36:45] Voice 9: I've actually got a comment I'd like to throw out, which is that I think percentages are

[4:36:54] Voice 9: always uh they're helpful to a certain extent but they're they're um they they they don't allow the

[4:37:01] Voice 9: average reader to get a tangible feeling for what they really mean and i think it would be extremely

[4:37:08] Voice 9: helpful if when we're talking about average tax increases uh if we actually put in a hard number

[4:37:16] Voice 9: you know put the percentage but also some hard numbers about that you know we project it's going

[4:37:22] Voice 9: going to turn out to be, you know, or your average tax increase, the average tax increase

[4:37:27] Voice 9: in the trust area has resulted in, you know, it's a difference of $10 or $12 or whatever

[4:37:34] Voice 9: it happens to be.

[4:37:36] Voice 9: I think that goes a long way to help take down the temperature because you can have

[4:37:41] Voice 9: a percentage number that says, oh, it's an 8% increase.

[4:37:43] Voice 9: I'm like, what the hell?

[4:37:44] Voice 9: What's that all about?

[4:37:45] Voice 9: Rate of inflation is less than that.

[4:37:46] Voice 9: What am I blah, blah, blah.

[4:37:47] Voice 9: People get their shirts in a knot about it.

[4:37:49] Voice 9: But the reality is there's all sorts of different contingencies that take you outside of the rate of inflation.

[4:37:55] Voice 9: And the average person, once they realize that 8% is translating into like, you know, something less than $20, you know, I think the excitement level goes down quite a bit.

[4:38:05] Voice 9: And anything that takes the temperature down might be helpful.

[4:38:09] Voice 9: So that's my suggestion.

[4:38:09] Voice 9: Let's actually put some hard cash numbers in there in terms of what people are actually can expect to pay out of pocket as well as the percentage.

[4:38:18] Voice 9: Trustee Yates?

[4:38:22] Voice 11: uh thank you chair bernardo i just really appreciate the program spotlight of

[4:38:27] Voice 11: strengthening housing affordability and i think anyone who does unfold it and read it as i always

[4:38:32] Voice 11: do will also appreciate that so thank you for that trustees

[4:38:41] Voice 9: as trustee peterson pointed out this is

[4:38:43] Voice 9: uh this is actually a uh potentially powerful form of communication with our constituents

[4:38:49] Voice 9: constituents so it we do have the time to think and discuss uh discuss this uh director freder

[4:38:57] Voice 14: uh certainly just in response to trustee yates um comment we would welcome ideas this is what

[4:39:02] Voice 14: we featured last year in the spotlight um if there's different elements of the trust you'd

[4:39:06] Voice 14: like featured next year we'd welcome those suggestions or whether you'd like us to continue

[4:39:09] Voice 14: with this is the spotlight um let us know um and you will see up in the briefing um this is the

[4:39:15] Voice 14: the first time we will be able to provide examples. I will leave it to Director Mobs or

[4:39:21] Voice 14: Interim CAO Mobs, whichever hat she has on right at the moment, to comment. I don't know that we'll

[4:39:25] Voice 14: have that information with, you know, with the budget not decided until March. I don't think

[4:39:30] Voice 14: we can get the exact kind of average impact analysis done in time for this, which is due

[4:39:36] Voice 14: by March 31st. But certainly we can provide illustrative examples of what it's looked like

[4:39:40] Voice 14: over the last two years. We will know better in March of what's possible, but I would temper

[4:39:45] Voice 14: for expectations there that we'll be able to do it for the budget that's being approved you know

[4:39:48] Voice 14: 10 days or so before this has to go

[4:39:50] Voice 9: out well retrospective hard numbers would also be helpful

[4:39:54] Voice 9: i mean it gives people a feel for what's going on yeah agreed

[4:39:57] Voice 14: so i'm very excited about that as well

[4:39:59] Voice 14: thank you thank

[4:40:00] Voice 9: you uh trustee grant

[4:40:03] Voice 5: director um yeah thank you uh well actually the the

[4:40:08] Voice 5: information that uh director freighter gave makes your suggestion perhaps not doable but if it is

[4:40:14] Voice 5: is doable, and you're going to use a slightly larger number so that they'll actually see a

[4:40:21] Voice 5: decrease. Sometimes that always helps under promise and over deliver. That figure could

[4:40:25] Voice 5: go as a third column in that little property tax change 10-year history, and you could base it all

[4:40:30] Voice 5: on a million-dollar property. You could say that that's what it was on each of those years. So

[4:40:35] Voice 5: that's just a suggestion.

[4:40:39] Voice 8: Professor Peterson?

[4:40:44] Voice 18: Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to ask the

[4:40:48] Voice 18: the director if we wanted to incorporate um the averages uh from the briefing there in that little

[4:40:58] Voice 18: table uh would you need a resolution for that so i think it's a great idea uh

[4:41:05] Voice 14: no resolution needed

[4:41:06] Voice 14: that is indeed our intention to do the best we can great

[4:41:10] Voice 18: thank you yeah i

[4:41:14] Voice 13: like the uh the proposal

[4:41:16] Voice 13: of the table with the actual hard numbers i do have a sort of a small concern which is this um

[4:41:23] Voice 13: you know the um what what do you call it again the non new construction and development i mean

[4:41:30] Voice 13: that goes up and down and i'm not entirely sure that we as financial planning or trust

[4:41:38] Voice 13: Just let's say we don't we don't tailor the budget, you know, to accommodate that.

[4:41:49] Voice 13: It seems to have quite an impact. And, you know, I think from year to year, it varies enough to have a big positive or negative impact.

[4:42:01] Voice 13: So it sort of softens the blow quite a bit in a good year.

[4:42:06] Voice 13: chair um should we actually explain what that is or forecast what it could be or is that completely

[4:42:13] Voice 13: impossible and crazy um

[4:42:16] Voice 14: through the chair i'll just say i think it might be a bit technical in

[4:42:19] Voice 14: nature for this very general public communications product um and our audience often the main

[4:42:25] Voice 14: question is what's in it for me what does this mean for me what's the bottom line um so that's

[4:42:29] Voice 14: i think the key message we're striving to achieve which in the past we as i say couldn't do we

[4:42:33] Voice 14: couldn't tell them it was a $10 increase or a $500 increase. Now we can. And I think at the end

[4:42:38] Voice 14: of the day, that's what most people are looking to find out. Non-market change is a bit of a nuanced

[4:42:42] Voice 14: thing to explain that likely isn't of high interest to many people.

[4:42:50] Voice 9: Thank you. Any further comments, trustees? Ah, Trustee Yates.

[4:42:55] Voice 11: Yeah, just following up on what Director said about the non-market changes, certainly

[4:42:59] Voice 11: when Director Mobs gives us her explanation, it's always made very clear in that explanation. So

[4:43:06] Voice 11: So if we need to explain it to anybody, it's always there.

[4:43:12] Voice 8: Thank you.

[4:43:14] Voice 9: Further comments, trustees, or further suggestions

[4:43:18] Voice 9: for the staff on this item?

[4:43:22] Voice 9: It doesn't look like it.

[4:43:25] Voice 9: So let's move along to the last bits of housekeeping here.

[4:43:35] Voice 9: So we don't have any new business here.

[4:43:40] Voice 9: Next meeting's already scheduled for November 13th.

[4:43:43] Voice 9: So no need to deal with that.

[4:43:45] Voice 9: we're not having a closed meeting and there's nothing to rise to the report so

[4:43:50] Voice 9: unless trustees anyone my view has anything further you would like to add

[4:43:54] Voice 9: just as a kind of a final point I think we're ready to adjourn this meeting okay

[4:44:03] Voice 9: well thank you everybody I think this is a productive business like meeting and

[4:44:08] Voice 9: that was great so thank you all for your contribution and all the constructive

[4:44:12] Voice 9: work we've done today and the meeting is now adjourned thank you everybody thank

[4:44:17] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Joe.