Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee regular meeting, January 22, 2025

[0:00:06] Voice 13: And we're now live streaming, live streaming and recording.

[0:00:12] Voice 6: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. This is the financial planning meeting.

[0:00:17] Voice 6: And I'm currently in Dublin, but I am normally, I am the Citerna Island, one of the two trustees for Citerna Island.

[0:00:31] Voice 6: I'm glad to live in that trust area where many First Nations lived for many years and took care of the land.

[0:00:39] Voice 6: And we're fortunate to have such a beautiful place.

[0:00:43] Voice 6: And I'm opening the this meeting because I'm the vice chair.

[0:00:49] Voice 6: The chair, Joe Bernardo, Trustee Bernardo, has resigned.

[0:00:54] Voice 6: And so I will open the meeting right now and we'll have a round of introductions.

[0:01:01] Voice 6: Then we'll move on to an election of a chair. I'd just like to mention also that Trustee Fast has volunteered and been appointed as a new member of the Financial Planning Committee.

[0:01:20] Voice 6: um per the process which is that the chair of the trust council of the trust um appoints somebody

[0:01:29] Voice 6: from volunteers that step forward so um with that i will move on to a round of introductions

[0:01:38] Voice 6: and i will do my best to call out names in the order of the um of the pictures but sometimes it

[0:01:48] Voice 6: goes adrift. So apologies if I miss anyone, just speak up after the fact. So let's start with

[0:01:56] Voice 6: Trustee Fast,

[0:01:58] Voice 5: please. Thank you, Vice-Chair. My name is Sue Ellen Fast. I'm a municipal councillor

[0:02:04] Voice 5: and Islands Trust trustee from New Clarelichwam, Bowen Island in the territory of Squamish Nation.

[0:02:10] Voice 5: Thank you.

[0:02:14] Voice 5: Trustee Maud.

[0:02:15] Voice 15: Good morning.

[0:02:17] Voice 15: David Maud, elected on Main Island, traditional home of the WSANIC people, and vice chair of Islands Trust.

[0:02:26] Voice 6: Thank you.

[0:02:27] Voice 6: Trustee Elliott.

[0:02:31] Voice 19: Hello, everyone.

[0:02:33] Voice 19: Trustee Elliott here, elected on Gabriela Island in Seneamuk First Nation Territory.

[0:02:39] Voice 19: Trustee Graham.

[0:02:43] Voice 10: Morning all from Devon Island.

[0:02:45] Voice 10: David Graham, locally elected.

[0:02:47] Voice 10: Trustee Traditional Territory of the Comox and the Qualicum.

[0:02:53] Voice 6: Thank you. Trustee Getty.

[0:02:56] Voice 12: Hi, good morning. Bowen Island, the Qualicum,

[0:02:59] Voice 12: the Traditional Territory of the Squamish people.

[0:03:04] Voice 18: Trustee Patrick.

[0:03:06] Voice 18: Laura Patrick, Salt Spring Island,

[0:03:08] Voice 18: territories of the many Coast Salish Nations, First Nations.

[0:03:12] Voice 18: And thank you. Trustee Peterson.

[0:03:16] Voice 9: Good morning from Huete, also known as Liskety Island,

[0:03:20] Voice 9: territory of many Coast Salish peoples

[0:03:23] Voice 9: and the treaty territory of the

[0:03:25] Voice 9: Tla'aman Nation.

[0:03:27] Voice 6: And then Chair

[0:03:29] Voice 6: Luckham?

[0:03:31] Trustee Luckham: Well, Trustee Luckham,

[0:03:33] Trustee Luckham: Executive Committee,

[0:03:35] Trustee Luckham: this particular

[0:03:37] Trustee Luckham: opportunity, and so

[0:03:40] Trustee Luckham: indeed elected on Thetis Island

[0:03:42] Trustee Luckham: in the Thetis Island Trust Area, which

[0:03:44] Trustee Luckham: is the home of the Penelakut

[0:03:46] Trustee Luckham: and Laiakson.

[0:03:49] Voice 6: So

[0:03:49] Voice 6: So on the line, we also have many staff members.

[0:03:55] Voice 6: And I'll just quickly call out your names and you could just say hello and introduce yourself.

[0:04:00] Voice 6: So staff, Robert Barlow.

[0:04:06] Voice 13: Good morning. I'm delighted and happy to be living and working in the Lekwungen speaking territory.

[0:04:12] Voice 13: I'm the legislative services clerk and the recorder for this committee.

[0:04:19] Voice 6: Staff, Nancy Rogers.

[0:04:21] Voice 6: Rogers. Good morning. I'm the finance officer, Nancy Rogers.

[0:04:28] Voice 6: Staff David Marler.

[0:04:31] Voice 1: Hello, good morning. I'm the director of legislative and information services

[0:04:36] Voice 1: and I'm coming to you from Lugongwin speaking territory.

[0:04:41] Voice 6: Staff Jason Eumanns.

[0:04:47] Voice 8: Morning folks, policy advisor. I'm just tuning in with one ear in case there's anything that

[0:04:52] Voice 8: comes up that I can provide some information on. Thanks.

[0:04:56] Voice 6: Thank you. Mr. Julia Mobs,

[0:05:02] Voice 6: your

[0:05:07] Voice 16: audio chair has gone a little strange, but I think I was next in line. I'm Julia Mobs,

[0:05:14] Voice 16: the Director of Administrative Services at the Islands Trust. I'm joining today from the Home

[0:05:18] Voice 16: of the Withstandish People. It

[0:05:34] Voice 8: appears we've lost our acting. Oh, she's back again.

[0:05:42] Voice 6: I hit the wrong

[0:05:43] Voice 6: button in my efforts to check my audio i apologize um so we were at um so ceo uh reuben browning

[0:05:51] Voice 6: browning would you like to introduce yourself please good

[0:05:54] Voice 2: morning yeah i'm the the new cao

[0:05:56] Voice 2: for the islands trust and joining this morning from the territory of the kongan speaking peoples

[0:06:00] Voice 2: thank you

[0:06:01] Voice 6: and uh staff stefan cermak good

[0:06:07] Voice 14: morning everybody stefan cermak director of planning

[0:06:09] Voice 14: services coming to you from salt spring island the traditional and unseated territory of many

[0:06:14] Voice 14: many Coast Salish First Nations.

[0:06:16] Voice 6: Okay, so with that,

[0:06:19] Voice 6: with the introductions completed,

[0:06:21] Voice 6: I would like to hand over

[0:06:24] Voice 6: the election of the FPC chair process

[0:06:30] Voice 6: to David Marler.

[0:06:33] Voice 1: Okay, thank you and good morning.

[0:06:35] Voice 1: So the FPC chair position is now vacant

[0:06:39] Voice 1: and despite what it actually says

[0:06:42] Voice 1: in the agenda there,

[0:06:43] Voice 1: there isn't actually any policy restriction on members being the chair so it can

[0:06:49] Voice 1: be any voting

[0:06:49] Voice 1: member i think just traditionally it's always been somebody that's been appointed probably more from

[0:06:54] Voice 1: a workload point of view so what i'll be doing is asking three times for nominations of a member to

[0:07:02] Voice 1: be the chair of the financial planning committee and then that nomination will need to be seconded

[0:07:09] Voice 1: by another member, and I'll ask that member if they are willing to stand for chair. If there is

[0:07:16] Voice 1: more than one interest in running for chair, then we'll do an election by secret ballot, and I'll

[0:07:23] Voice 1: let you know how that works if we get to that. And then once we have done that, if the vice chair

[0:07:30] Voice 1: position then becomes vacant, then we would run an election for the vice chair. So like I said,

[0:07:35] Voice 1: and anybody is eligible. So with that, I can just ask for a nomination for Chair of Financial

[0:07:44] Voice 1: Planning Committee. And I see that Trustee Maude has his hands up. So go ahead, Trustee Maude.

[0:07:49] Voice 15: I would like to nominate Trustee Fast as a welcoming gesture.

[0:07:53] Voice 1: Thank you. Okay. And I need a second there for that nomination for Trustee Fast. I see Trustee

[0:07:59] Voice 1: Trustee Elliott. Thank you. And I just want to ask Trustee Fass, would you be willing to stand

[0:08:05] Voice 1: for Chair of FPC?

[0:08:11] Voice 4: Yeah, thank you.

[0:08:13] Voice 1: Okay. We have one nomination. I'm going to ask a second time

[0:08:17] Voice 1: for nominations for Chair of FPC, and I see Trustee Patrick.

[0:08:22] Trustee Patrick: I nominate Trustee Boland.

[0:08:24] Voice 1: Okay, thank you. I need a seconder for that nomination of Trustee Boland.

[0:08:28] Voice 1: and i see trustee peterson has seconded that i assume and trustee boland would you stand for

[0:08:34] Voice 1: chair of financial planning committee okay i can't hear you but i think that's yes that's yes

[0:08:44] Voice 1: okay thank you i'm going to ask a third and final time for any further nominations for chair of

[0:08:50] Voice 1: financial planning committee okay trustee peterson i

[0:08:57] Voice 9: nominate uh trustee graham although i haven't

[0:09:00] Voice 9: ask him or talk to him at all but

[0:09:02] Voice 1: okay i

[0:09:03] Voice 9: know he's good on this

[0:09:03] Voice 1: well that's for a second day

[0:09:06] Voice 1: for trustee i

[0:09:07] Voice 6: would second that and

[0:09:08] Voice 1: that is trustee boland second thank you trustee graham would you

[0:09:14] Voice 1: stand for chair of financial planning committee i

[0:09:18] Voice 10: i appreciate the gesture i would rather not

[0:09:21] Voice 1: stand thank you okay so we will take you off that list i am going to ask again is there any further

[0:09:28] Voice 1: further nominations for Chair of Financial Planning Committee. Okay, so seeing none,

[0:09:37] Voice 1: we have two trustees running for chair. We have Trustee Fast and Trustee Boland.

[0:09:44] Voice 1: And what I will do is, because this is electronic, I'm going to ask all the members to email me

[0:09:52] Voice 1: your choice. You can just indicate the last name, first name, doesn't matter. Just send an email to

[0:10:00] Voice 1: my email address, which is dmahler at islandstrust.bc.ca. I'm also going to ask the

[0:10:09] Voice 1: members to appoint a scrutineer. That's one of the trustees who is not nominated for being

[0:10:17] Voice 1: fpc chair and that person will then join me offline to go through the votes and count them

[0:10:26] Voice 1: and confirm that i'm counting them correctly and then we'll come back and announce who

[0:10:32] Voice 1: is the successful candidate if there is a tie because there's only two it will go to drawing

[0:10:41] Voice 1: drawing of lots so just so you're aware is there any questions on the process does everybody have

[0:10:48] Voice 1: access to an email so you can email me anybody have problems with doing that okay normally we

[0:10:56] Voice 1: just uh have a box and you know you write your name down and put in there but we can't do it

[0:11:00] Voice 1: that way so it will have to come by email okay so with that if you can just in the next couple

[0:11:07] Voice 1: couple minutes send me an email with your choice and I'll just wait a few minutes and then once

[0:11:15] Voice 1: we've done that I'll get you to appoint a scrutineer thank you first confirm that there

[0:12:29] Voice 1: are nine trustees is that correct I think that's correct that's what I'm counting okay I have your

[0:12:38] Voice 1: votes can I get a scrutineer so just somebody nominate a scrutineer second and then you just

[0:12:46] Voice 1: can vote um as you normally would for a scrutineer so can i get a nomination for somebody to be

[0:12:51] Voice 1: scrutineer trustee luckham nominate david maude hey david maude can i get a seconder for that

[0:12:57] Voice 1: nomination a second

[0:12:59] Voice 1: okay and can i just get everybody in favor to please vote by raising

[0:13:05] Voice 1: your hand on screen that would be great okay so i see everybody's hand i think it looks like it's

[0:13:19] Voice 1: up thank you okay so david uh can you drop out of zoom here and i will invite you to another zoom

[0:13:28] Voice 1: meeting and then we can have a look at it and for everybody else uh if you just want to take a few

[0:13:34] Voice 1: minutes break talk amongst yourselves we'll get back to you all

[0:13:39] Voice 15: right thank you all right i'll

[0:13:41] Voice 1: send you an email david with the link okay thanks how

[0:14:14] Voice 10: many of us are pet owners and uh decide whether

[0:14:18] Voice 10: whether it's cold by looking at the dish of water that's outside the front

[0:14:22] Voice 10: door to see if it's frozen.

[0:14:27] Voice 19: For me,

[0:14:28] Voice 19: it actually happens the night before when I have to put the water heaters

[0:14:32] Voice 19: in the horse trough.

[0:14:34] Voice 12: I have one of those too.

[0:14:36] Voice 12: Not the heater, the frozen panel water.

[0:14:40] Voice 12: The frozen water?

[0:14:41] Voice 17: Sorry?

[0:14:42] Voice 10: I keep a rock on the bench beside my water ball so that I can break the top

[0:14:46] Voice 10: of the ice so that my dog can get the water.

[0:14:48] Voice 19: Interesting.

[0:14:49] Voice 19: That's a new method.

[0:14:50] Voice 19: my

[0:14:52] Voice 12: dog prefers rainwater yeah as does mine

[0:14:56] Voice 12: i've

[0:14:58] Voice 19: got a little um you know those plastic um

[0:15:01] Voice 19: strainers and so i smash all the ice and laboriously strain it out because it's quite a big

[0:15:07] Voice 19: bin but uh the horses don't like drinking freezing cold water no

[0:15:13] Voice 10: i have a bowl inside the house but

[0:15:16] Voice 10: But Louis refuses to drink it.

[0:15:18] Voice 10: And in fact, he prefers rainwater puddles, anything other than prepared water, even though we have wonderful well water here on Denman.

[0:15:25] Voice 10: I don't get it anyway.

[0:15:29] Voice 6: Maybe he knows something you don't.

[0:15:31] Voice 10: He probably does.

[0:15:32] Voice 10: I know he does for a fact, Mary.

[0:15:36] Voice 17: I

[0:15:37] Voice 10: started drinking a large glass of water after my meal, after watching Louis for eight years.

[0:15:41] Voice 10: He eats his dry food.

[0:15:43] Voice 10: Then he has a drink of water.

[0:15:44] Voice 10: And I said to my friend, you know what?

[0:15:45] Voice 10: I'm going to start doing that.

[0:15:46] Voice 10: He obviously knows more than I do.

[0:15:48] Voice 10: And so that's what I do.

[0:15:50] Voice 13: If I may, I just wanted to remind the committee that we continue to live stream.

[0:15:56] Voice 17: I

[0:15:57] Voice 13: have a notice up on that we're currently conducting an election.

[0:16:01] Voice 13: That's good.

[0:16:02] Voice 13: Not that I don't want to hear about your pet stories.

[0:16:07] Voice 12: Well, it's more fun than politics,

[0:16:09] Voice 12: let me tell you.

[0:16:10] Voice 12: Can't really discuss business right now without everybody else.

[0:16:13] Voice 12: at

[0:16:15] Voice 6: least we're not streaming cat videos so chatting about your what your pets is much

[0:16:22] Voice 6: is preferable that i

[0:16:25] Voice 6: thought you

[0:16:26] Voice 12: just reminded me of that um meme that somebody put up when uh

[0:16:31] Voice 12: somehow or other you could change the face of somebody to a talking cat i am

[0:16:36] Voice 6: not a cat yes

[0:16:40] Voice 6: oh it was the guy who couldn't his grandchildren had done it and he couldn't figure out how to

[0:16:45] Voice 6: you undo it

[0:16:46] Voice 17: yeah we've

[0:16:48] Voice 6: all learned a lot through covid zoom sessions i think

[0:16:51] Voice 17: way

[0:16:52] Voice 6: more than we would

[0:16:53] Voice 6: like to know about zooming etc that's

[0:16:56] Voice 12: why you make best friends with a 13 year old yeah yeah

[0:17:03] Voice 12: true seen

[0:17:17] Voice 12: any good movies lately yes

[0:17:20] Voice 6: i saw conclave which was very beautiful

[0:17:26] Voice 6: beautiful and great twist at the end i'd really recommend it great acting

[0:17:32] Voice 6: the

[0:17:32] Voice 19: young woman in the sea but the first woman to successfully cross the english channel

[0:17:38] Voice 19: is brilliant it is such a beautiful film highly recommend i

[0:17:46] Voice 12: facetiously asked and now i gotta

[0:17:48] Voice 12: write all these down you

[0:17:51] Voice 6: can just watch the recording

[0:17:53] Voice 6: we all

[0:17:57] Voice 19: love watching recordings of our meetings we

[0:18:00] Voice 17: are back

[0:18:23] Voice 1: okay all right so uh the new chair

[0:18:29] Voice 1: of the financial planning committee is sue allen fast thanks

[0:18:36] Voice 5: everybody yes yeah i'm surprised

[0:18:40] Voice 5: eyes, but I'm happy. Congratulations.

[0:18:45] Voice 1: Okay. So we do not need any further work on this. We'll

[0:18:49] Voice 1: update the records and Sue Allen over to you. And thank you, Trustee Boland for stepping in there

[0:18:57] Voice 1: and keeping the meeting going. Appreciate that. Indeed.

[0:19:02] Voice 5: Okay. Well, thanks everybody. I didn't

[0:19:06] Voice 5: expect this. So please bear with me if I stumble around a little bit. I'm hoping that Trustee

[0:19:12] Voice 5: Boland, you're going to stay on as vice chair. Sure. Yep. Great. I just wanted to confirm that.

[0:19:22] Voice 5: If just so I know who's who. That's great. And, and then going on from there, then

[0:19:33] Voice 5: uh i guess we're on to number three agenda and uh any late items to consider i think there's

[0:19:41] Voice 5: something about the audit committee robert i got a note from um robert when i was uh informed

[0:19:54] Voice 5: that i had been um appointed to this committee and he said please note you and the committee

[0:20:00] Voice 5: need to consider uh if you will also become a member of the audit audit committee um it's not

[0:20:07] Voice 5: automatic so we need to pass a motion i'd be happy to sit on that committee and uh so if somebody

[0:20:13] Voice 5: would like to move that i sit on the audit committee thank you tim and uh secondary um i

[0:20:19] Voice 9: was just gonna say i i think that mr barlow suggests that this should come under new business

[0:20:24] Voice 9: under section 10 that

[0:20:27] Voice 13: is correct i think that would be a likely more appropriate place to deal

[0:20:31] Voice 13: with the issue oh

[0:20:32] Voice 4: i see this is oh okay thank you you see and

[0:20:36] Voice 1: if i may uh chair fast yeah yeah just

[0:20:40] Voice 1: a bit of context so under the policy all members of the committee except for the executive are

[0:20:46] Voice 1: members of the audit so normally they would appoint all of those members so as you're new

[0:20:51] Voice 1: and not a member of the executive it makes sense that they consider appointing you to the

[0:20:56] Voice 1: the audit committee okay

[0:20:58] Voice 5: so we'll deal with that at number 10 gotcha any other adjustments to the

[0:21:03] Voice 5: agenda uh hearing none then can they assume uh if there's no objections we'll adopt this agenda by

[0:21:15] Voice 5: consent i'm seeing some thumbs up nobody is putting up their hand okay so by consent the

[0:21:22] Voice 5: agenda is adopted and uh public comments do we we don't have any public attendees or do we have

[0:21:31] Voice 5: anybody? Hearing none, I'm going to move on to delegations none, correspondence none.

[0:21:41] Voice 5: Draft minutes from the previous meeting that I wasn't at. This is starting on page four of nine

[0:21:49] Voice 5: and can I have any adjustments that are needed for the minutes or a motion to approve? I see Judy's

[0:22:02] Voice 5: hand up as approval

[0:22:03] Voice 12: of the agenda as are the minutes as circulated okay thank

[0:22:10] Voice 5: you

[0:22:11] Voice 5: uh peter luckham uh any discussion okay all in favor thank you any objections i guess i should

[0:22:26] Voice 5: have asked first thanks the motion uh the minutes are passed unanimously except um yeah except i

[0:22:35] Voice 5: I wasn't here, but I voted in favor.

[0:22:36] Voice 5: Trustee Elliott, you've got your hand up.

[0:22:41] Voice 5: Oh, it's gone.

[0:22:42] Voice 5: My hand is

[0:22:43] Voice 19: very low.

[0:22:44] Voice 19: I'm going to take my video off.

[0:22:45] Voice 19: Sorry.

[0:22:47] Voice 5: Okay.

[0:22:49] Voice 5: Thank you.

[0:22:50] Voice 5: And then we're on to follow-up action list 7.3, page 10 for review.

[0:22:55] Voice 5: Are there questions for staff or people want to comment on the follow-up action list?

[0:23:06] Voice 5: Oh, lots of discussion today.

[0:23:08] Voice 5: I see no hands.

[0:23:09] Voice 5: um so i'm assuming that we're going to move right on then to uh business arising so budget changes

[0:23:23] Voice 5: briefing page uh sorry section 8.1 we're on page 12 somebody slow me down if i'm doing something

[0:23:32] Voice 5: wrong there's a lot of silence here and uh i'm going to turn it turn it over to um staff to

[0:23:39] Voice 5: present the briefing thank

[0:23:43] Voice 16: you chair uh so i'll be taking us through this briefing today at a very

[0:23:47] Voice 16: high level um so as everyone is aware our budget continues to change and be amended and revised as

[0:23:54] Voice 16: we move through our budget cycle oh i see uh trustee boland is her hand up you want me to pause

[0:24:00] Voice 16: chair yeah

[0:24:02] Voice 6: just a

[0:24:03] Voice 16: question trustee boland

[0:24:04] Voice 6: yeah sure thank you a question about process

[0:24:08] Voice 6: and may we ask questions as uh director mobs goes through in which case maybe whenever you

[0:24:17] Voice 6: think it's appropriate you might pause and just say any questions otherwise we'll interrupt and

[0:24:23] Voice 6: i'd rather like interrupt when it's asked for if that makes sense thanks

[0:24:29] Voice 5: i i think it would be

[0:24:32] Voice 5: better if we hold our questions till the end and let her make her briefing so we all have the same

[0:24:38] Voice 5: info if you don't mind and I'll put you down first on the speakers list okay go ahead Julia

[0:24:46] Voice 5: Director Mobs thanks

[0:24:49] Voice 16: Chair Fast okay so we're on page 12 of the agenda as I was mentioning our

[0:24:54] Voice 16: budget continues to be amended and massaged as we move through the budget cycle as new data and new

[0:24:59] Voice 16: information becomes available to us so this briefing is summarizing the changes that have

[0:25:05] Voice 16: taken place to the budget since it was last reviewed at Trust Council. We have a high level

[0:25:10] Voice 16: summary of the changes. We like to give everyone a sense of the big picture before we dive into

[0:25:14] Voice 16: the details. So at a high level, we are seeing that our revenues, our estimated revenues have

[0:25:19] Voice 16: increased by $73,000. The primary reason for that is we have seen a shift in non-market change

[0:25:26] Voice 16: percentage for local trust areas. And so we have a greater portion of taxation coming from those

[0:25:33] Voice 16: factors. And consequently, we are seeing a reduction in local trust area general tax

[0:25:37] Voice 16: percentage increase, moving from 6.8% in the previous draft to 5.97% in the current draft.

[0:25:45] Voice 16: Bowen Island's municipal tax levy has shifted from about $461,000 to $469,000. And we'll talk

[0:25:53] Voice 16: a little bit about the factors influencing that as we get into the details of changes.

[0:25:57] Voice 16: Our external revenue sources, primarily from investment income, we've reduced that in the

[0:26:02] Voice 16: draft budget, as of course, forecasted interest rates are continuing to come down. So we're

[0:26:07] Voice 16: expecting to collect less investment earnings on our investments next year. On the expense side of

[0:26:14] Voice 16: things, our total planned spending has increased from $10.9 million to $11 million. And the primary

[0:26:21] Voice 16: drivers of those increases are changes in our estimates for legal expenses. So by law enforcement,

[0:26:30] Voice 16: legal costs have been increased over the last budget version by $83,000. Litigation defense

[0:26:36] Voice 16: has increased by $29,000. And that's primarily due to updates and estimates. So you'll remember

[0:26:42] Voice 16: last fiscal year, we approved reduced legal budgets with the anticipation that overages

[0:26:48] Voice 16: would be funded from surplus. That's not a recommended approach for next fiscal year,

[0:26:52] Voice 16: as there's some pressures on our minimum surplus balance. And so staff have adjusted those amounts

[0:26:57] Voice 16: upwards, and we can talk a bit about that as we move through the reporting as well.

[0:27:01] Voice 16: So, Council gave direction in December to increase funding for the Policy Statement

[0:27:05] Voice 16: Amendment Project by $33,000, and we've reflected that as well. So, the changes to the budget are

[0:27:11] Voice 16: therefore changing our budget shortfall. It's increased from $270,000 to $303,000 in the draft

[0:27:17] Voice 16: budget, and the increase in the shortfall is funded by an additional draft and surplus fund.

[0:27:24] Voice 16: Getting into the details of things, we'll look at some of the changes that have arisen to our

[0:27:29] Voice 16: planned spending. So you'll remember in December, Trust Council requested that all standing

[0:27:34] Voice 16: committees review their budget requests with the error of looking for potential reductions.

[0:27:40] Voice 16: Executive Committee has met and they've looked at their budget requests and in total have revised

[0:27:44] Voice 16: their budget request by $15,200. So they've reduced the request by that amount. It's primarily

[0:27:51] Voice 16: due to a reduction in amounts for conferences, a reduction in public communications, a reduction

[0:27:56] Voice 16: in amounts for easy training and associated travel for training. The Conservancy Board

[0:28:03] Voice 16: met yesterday. There was a proposed reduction of $3,000 for their board training. I have not

[0:28:10] Voice 16: heard whether or not there were additional changes coming out of that conversation at

[0:28:14] Voice 16: the Conservancy Board. So I'd look to the ICC rep to update us there.

[0:28:21] Voice 19: if

[0:28:21] Voice 16: we take a moment no

[0:28:22] Voice 19: additional changes that were made yesterday great

[0:28:28] Voice 16: so the amount that's

[0:28:29] Voice 16: reflected as a reduction from the conservancy board will be accurate then uh so legal expenses

[0:28:34] Voice 16: as i mentioned this area has increased quite a bit over the last version of the budget

[0:28:39] Voice 16: so we have taken a look at what current spending trends are for legal right now so that's looking

[0:28:44] Voice 16: at what we've currently spent to date in the current fiscal year what we are anticipating

[0:28:48] Voice 16: to spend for the year and then looking at any knowns for next fiscal year. And the knowns

[0:28:53] Voice 16: are really difficult when we're looking at things like litigation defense. It's very difficult for

[0:28:58] Voice 16: us to forecast what claims might come against us next fiscal year. Things like litigation for

[0:29:03] Voice 16: bylaw enforcement are a little bit easier to estimate. We do have some known approved funding

[0:29:09] Voice 16: for bylaw enforcement litigation for next fiscal year. And so we've incorporated those knowns in

[0:29:14] Voice 16: in those amounts as well.

[0:29:16] Voice 16: But as mentioned, that's one of the primary drivers

[0:29:18] Voice 16: of increase in spending in this version of the budget.

[0:29:22] Voice 16: We've taken a look at actual spending trends

[0:29:24] Voice 16: in the area of local trust committee work,

[0:29:26] Voice 16: and there's been a small increase reflected overall

[0:29:28] Voice 16: for local trust committee expenses of $1,400.

[0:29:32] Voice 16: There's been some reductions in particular areas

[0:29:35] Voice 16: which is offset by an increase in funding

[0:29:38] Voice 16: based on a resolution from the Salt Spring Island

[0:29:40] Voice 16: local trust committee looking to send

[0:29:42] Voice 16: both of their local trustees to both UBCM and AVICC this year. We've adjusted office costs

[0:29:50] Voice 16: primarily due to new information based on actual costs that we're seeing passed on to us from

[0:29:55] Voice 16: our leases. Salaries and benefits still remain

[0:30:00] Voice 16: the largest expense in the island's just budget but it has come down slightly by $32,000. So we've

[0:30:05] Voice 16: had a few staff competitions that have completed which means that we know salaries for those roles

[0:30:11] Voice 16: now and we could update the budget accordingly. We also have some staff retirement coming up and

[0:30:15] Voice 16: so we've adjusted some of those salaries for those roles downwards as longer service employees tend

[0:30:21] Voice 16: to be earning at the higher end of their salary range as opposed to new staff who tend to come

[0:30:26] Voice 16: them in at the lower end. And as a result of those reductions, we're seeing a reduction in the

[0:30:30] Voice 16: benefit costs as well. Trustee remuneration has changed by a very negligible amount, but we have

[0:30:36] Voice 16: updated it for new information from BC assessments. That's primarily for the number of folios in each

[0:30:43] Voice 16: local trust area. And we've also updated for consumer price index that's reported as of

[0:30:48] Voice 16: November 2024. So we will have to update for CPI again in the next version of the budget.

[0:30:54] Voice 16: Trust Council's policy says that the December figure will be used.

[0:30:58] Voice 16: It's not yet available and so we've relied on November's figure.

[0:31:01] Voice 16: We have no new requests for project funding but as I mentioned we do have an

[0:31:06] Voice 16: increase in policy statement funding at the direction of Trust Council.

[0:31:10] Voice 16: Our software support and licensing is increased by $6,500

[0:31:13] Voice 16: and that's for software associated with the Islands Trust Freshwater Strategy.

[0:31:18] Voice 16: So there's a modeling software connector which will allow Islands Trust to

[0:31:22] Voice 16: to communicate freshwater data with the public

[0:31:25] Voice 16: and with trustees and with other staff.

[0:31:27] Voice 16: I've been in touch with Director Cermak

[0:31:29] Voice 16: about putting together information

[0:31:32] Voice 16: in a business case associated with that,

[0:31:34] Voice 16: as of course there were guidelines indicating

[0:31:36] Voice 16: that new funding does require that.

[0:31:39] Voice 16: We've seen a small increase in tech support services

[0:31:41] Voice 16: as our staff intranet needs the maintenance.

[0:31:44] Voice 16: And so we've had to increase our budget for that.

[0:31:48] Voice 16: BC Assessment has released new information.

[0:31:51] Voice 16: So there's updated roles as of December 2024 for net taxable values in the trust area.

[0:31:56] Voice 16: And that information is used primarily to understand how much taxation might be coming from the various local trust areas and also to help us in calculating the Bowen Island tax levy.

[0:32:07] Voice 16: So when we look at that piece of the pie, Bowen Island in the previous draft was contributing 16.94% based on net taxable values, and that's been reduced slightly.

[0:32:21] Voice 16: or sorry, it was 16.55% and it's increased slightly to 16.94%.

[0:32:26] Voice 16: So what that says is that Bowen Islands is holding a slightly bigger piece of the property value pie in the Islands Trust

[0:32:32] Voice 16: and that will therefore lead to a slight increase in the Bowen Island levy.

[0:32:37] Voice 16: As I've mentioned, we're seeing some changes in BC assessment data related to non-market change.

[0:32:43] Voice 16: So when we're looking at Bowen Island Municipality, the expected non-market change in the previous version of the budget was 1.1%.

[0:32:51] Voice 16: It's now reflected at 1.2%.

[0:32:53] Voice 16: So that's not a significant difference.

[0:32:56] Voice 16: And so that means that the portion of Bowen Island's tax levy that is expected to be collected

[0:33:02] Voice 16: on new construction is about 1.2%, and that's very similar to what it was in the previous

[0:33:07] Voice 16: draft budget.

[0:33:08] Voice 16: We're seeing a more significant change for local trust areas, however.

[0:33:12] Voice 16: The previous version was expecting only half a percent would be collected on new construction.

[0:33:16] Voice 16: the new data is showing a higher percentage for non-market change at 2.5%.

[0:33:21] Voice 16: And so what that means is more of our tax dollars are coming up from new construction

[0:33:26] Voice 16: and therefore is not an increase borne by your average property owner.

[0:33:33] Voice 16: Moving to changes in revenues, so our expected revenues from investments, as mentioned,

[0:33:38] Voice 16: is coming down due to continued reduced interest rates.

[0:33:42] Voice 16: The Bowen Island tax levies calculated at $469,000, a slight increase over the previous budget.

[0:33:49] Voice 16: as mentioned. Local trust area taxation has been reduced. The previous version of the budget had

[0:33:55] Voice 16: 6.8% in a general local tax area taxation percentage, and now it's reflected at 5.97%.

[0:34:03] Voice 16: So looking at the changes in revenue and the changes in expenses leads us to a change in our

[0:34:09] Voice 16: shortfall. Our shortfall in the budget has increased to 303%, which is, I think, around a

[0:34:15] Voice 16: $33,000 increase over the previous budget version, and that entire increase will be funded from an

[0:34:22] Voice 16: additional draw from the General Revenue Surplus Fund. When our budget is put together, we always

[0:34:27] Voice 16: need to do an estimate of how much money we might have in the General Revenue Surplus Fund at the

[0:34:34] Voice 16: end of next fiscal year to make sure that we are in compliance with policy minimums. Currently,

[0:34:39] Voice 16: Currently, the minimum balance per policy is estimated at about $2.1 million, and we're expecting a balance of $1.9 million.

[0:34:48] Voice 16: So that is falling short of the policy minimum by about 10%.

[0:34:52] Voice 16: The hope is that with quarter three forecast, we will see slightly less spending in the current year than we were expecting,

[0:35:00] Voice 16: and those monies would therefore flow into surplus and become available.

[0:35:03] Voice 16: That tends to be what happens at Island Trust, so I'm expecting that may take place again.

[0:35:09] Voice 16: and this number or this calculation will also be updated with the next version of the budget

[0:35:15] Voice 16: we'll stop there and i can take any questions at this time thank

[0:35:22] Voice 5: you very much director mobs

[0:35:24] Voice 5: and uh i'm going to start with um uh trustee boland and then trustee graham i'll get you next

[0:35:31] Voice 5: i'm going to keep a speaker's list okay

[0:35:35] Voice 6: thank you i have uh three questions um the first one is

[0:35:41] Voice 6: um the 60 i think it's about a 60 increase in legal which is a bit alarming and i suppose

[0:35:48] Voice 6: there are two components one is we were very lean and mean last year but if we had not been

[0:35:56] Voice 6: lean and mean there would still have been an increase i believe that would have been quite

[0:36:00] Voice 6: surprising and is this trend going to continue if we actually had done as usual last year would

[0:36:08] Voice 6: would we still be in a situation of having to apply a big uplift this year?

[0:36:15] Voice 6: And the second one is the reserve being depleted is quite a headline.

[0:36:21] Voice 6: And the third one is the freshwater software.

[0:36:28] Voice 6: I believe that business case should really go to the Regional Planning Committee.

[0:36:34] Voice 6: I don't believe we've seen a business case mentioning that.

[0:36:37] Voice 6: It says that it was planned for, but I don't remember that.

[0:36:43] Voice 6: I mean, there's generic planning for coming from the freshwater strategy, but I don't remember this explicitly being mentioned.

[0:36:55] Voice 6: So three things. Number one, comment on the large increase in legal.

[0:37:01] Voice 6: How does that, you know, will that continue?

[0:37:03] Voice 6: continue. I suppose the reserve being depleted is just a fact, but the freshwater software,

[0:37:09] Voice 6: I think the business, which is the planning. Thanks.

[0:37:14] Voice 6: Director Moffs?

[0:37:16] Voice 16: I'm happy to respond. So yes, our legal percentage increase is higher than expected because,

[0:37:25] Voice 16: as I mentioned, in the current fiscal year, we had budgeted quite low and we took that same

[0:37:31] Voice 16: same approach in the first couple of versions of the budget. But as we move through the budget

[0:37:37] Voice 16: cycle and move through the year, we're looking at how much we're actually spending in the current

[0:37:42] Voice 16: year in legal, which is quite a bit more than what was in the budget, which means that we are

[0:37:48] Voice 16: using up our surplus to pay for that, which was the plan for the current year. It therefore means

[0:37:54] Voice 16: that there is less surplus available next year, excess surplus. And so taking that same approach

[0:37:59] Voice 16: next fiscal is not advisable so we've brought the estimates for legal spending next year

[0:38:04] Voice 16: up to the spending levels that we're seeing in the current fiscal year and then adjusted them for any

[0:38:11] Voice 16: sort of known or if there's significant expenses in the current fiscal year that won't be taking

[0:38:17] Voice 16: place next year we've adjusted for that as well so if you look at the quarter two forecast numbers

[0:38:22] Voice 16: for legal for the current year you'll see they're actually higher than what we've got in the budget

[0:38:26] Voice 16: for next fiscal um so but yes the the comparison figure the percentage increase does look um

[0:38:34] Voice 16: alarming because of the approach we took in the previous versions of the budget

[0:38:38] Voice 16: is that a reasonable response i can move on to the freshwater piece and

[0:38:45] Voice 6: it is but and i don't

[0:38:47] Voice 6: expect you to but i answer this but really as a whole body we should be considering whether

[0:38:53] Voice 6: whether legal costs are just going to continue to spiral.

[0:38:57] Voice 6: You know, is there any way to look at that

[0:39:00] Voice 6: and really figure out if we're on the right track?

[0:39:05] Voice 6: But I don't expect you to answer that.

[0:39:08] Voice 6: Thank you.

[0:39:10] Voice 16: Well, I can provide a sort of a high level response.

[0:39:14] Voice 16: You know, in the

[0:39:15] Voice 16: areas of our legal spending,

[0:39:18] Voice 16: litigation defense is the one that's hard to estimate

[0:39:21] Voice 16: and also the one that you probably don't want to

[0:39:25] Voice 16: skimp out on you know if you if you've got a claim against you you want to defend yourself

[0:39:29] Voice 16: where we have a bit more control over spending is legal general and bylaw enforcement litigation

[0:39:36] Voice 16: so bylaw enforcement litigation you know we could choose to reduce the level of enforcement

[0:39:41] Voice 16: litigation that we take on you know that's if you're the islands trust and you have bylaws in

[0:39:48] Voice 16: place you probably do want to be enforcing them so there are consequences if you choose not to

[0:39:53] Voice 16: you know, fund by law enforcement litigation. Legal general is really to help us in our

[0:40:01] Voice 16: everyday work, make sure that we are understanding our legislation correctly and applying it

[0:40:06] Voice 16: correctly in our context. So again, we do have some leeway there to spend less, but

[0:40:10] Voice 16: it could have implications on our work. We may not be able to rely on legal counsel as

[0:40:15] Voice 16: frequently as needed for things like setting policy or various pieces of work, which could

[0:40:21] Voice 16: could have far greater implications down the road

[0:40:23] Voice 16: if we don't, you know, seek proper legal counsel when needed.

[0:40:28] Voice 16: So I'll leave that there.

[0:40:29] Voice 16: The freshwater piece, I would look to actually to Director Cermak

[0:40:33] Voice 16: to speak to that and whether or not his plan is to run a business case

[0:40:37] Voice 16: through regional planning committees.

[0:40:38] Voice 16: Of course, they are overseeing that work.

[0:40:42] Voice 14: Thank you.

[0:40:43] Voice 14: And through the chair, yes, I have a draft project, pardon me,

[0:40:48] Voice 14: a draft business case to be presented at the next regional planning committee.

[0:40:53] Voice 14: And I did mention that at the regional planning committee we just had, that that would be forthcoming.

[0:40:58] Voice 14: So I verbally sort of expressed that there's a bunch of things coming, and that was one of them.

[0:41:03] Voice 14: It was sort of a known cost, potential cost in that we were preparing for a business case in September.

[0:41:11] Voice 14: But that, as you know, the grant application really consumed a lot of staff time and we were unable to get it forward.

[0:41:17] Voice 14: So slight delay on our part.

[0:41:19] Voice 14: and the costs, anyways, here it is.

[0:41:22] Voice 14: You'll be getting a business case for you

[0:41:24] Voice 14: in the next meeting shortly

[0:41:26] Voice 14: and you can comment and decide at that moment

[0:41:29] Voice 14: and I'll explain more about the project at that point

[0:41:32] Voice 14: and the benefits or not at that point.

[0:41:36] Voice 5: Thank you, Director Cermak.

[0:41:40] Voice 5: I don't think you were asking for a question

[0:41:44] Voice 5: about the reserve being down, Mari.

[0:41:47] Voice 5: Okay, thank you.

[0:41:48] Voice 5: And so we're going to go on now to Trustee Graham.

[0:41:51] Voice 10: Thank you, Chair.

[0:41:53] Voice 10: And thank you, Director Mobs, for that high-level review.

[0:41:56] Voice 10: I'm just looking at the first page where you look at the large revenue increases and the

[0:42:02] Voice 10: large expense increases.

[0:42:03] Voice 10: And it looks to me as if the revenue outstrips the expenses, but the shortfall increases.

[0:42:09] Voice 10: I'm assuming that difference is all the little expense increases and revenue expense increases

[0:42:16] Voice 10: increases or decreases that makes up the difference.

[0:42:19] Voice 10: But when you just look at that first page, it doesn't add up.

[0:42:22] Voice 10: And I have a comment, if I may, after you answer that regarding the surplus.

[0:42:27] Voice 4: Thank you.

[0:42:28] Voice 4: Director Moms?

[0:42:31] Voice 16: I think I understand what you're getting at.

[0:42:37] Voice 16: And what we're seeing, it all balances.

[0:42:42] Voice 16: I'll give you that assurance right off the bat.

[0:42:45] Voice 16: And what's happening when we see the bullet that says local trust area,

[0:42:49] Voice 16: general tax increase has shifted downwards. The assumption is that less tax revenue is coming in.

[0:42:57] Voice 16: That's not the case. There's additional tax revenue coming in, but more of it is being

[0:43:04] Voice 16: funded from non-market change. And so it's not an actual increase to the average homeowner.

[0:43:12] Voice 16: And so that percentage is only reflecting what's expected to be a true increase to the average

[0:43:17] Voice 16: rich homeowner. And so that percentage has come down, but then more revenues are being collected

[0:43:21] Voice 16: from non-market change. And so that's why the shortfall is less than what the changes in

[0:43:30] Voice 16: expenditures are, is it's offset by those revenue pieces.

[0:43:33] Voice 10: I knew there would be an explanation. I

[0:43:35] Voice 10: appreciate that. My comment on the general revenue surplus, and I'm just pulling a line from your

[0:43:42] Voice 10: report. It says historic norms will unfold in current year. And so that seems to be our fiscal

[0:43:48] Voice 10: plan to always maintain the policy requirement of, in this case, 2.1 million. But that doesn't

[0:43:56] Voice 10: seem like a very, I don't know, scientific way to maintain that surplus. And I'm worried that

[0:44:03] Voice 10: your forecast is there will be no surplus to add. There'll be no surplus in the budget to add to

[0:44:09] Voice 10: this and we'll be once again at this threshold where we're probably under policy unless as you

[0:44:16] Voice 10: say the historic norms unfold but i i think we need to look at this in a more i don't know

[0:44:24] Voice 10: purposefully uh calculated way i'm suggesting that at some point we need to start building

[0:44:30] Voice 10: that surplus up in a more thoughtful manner and i'm really concerned with legal litigation also

[0:44:34] Voice 10: So thank you.

[0:44:37] Voice 5: Thank you very much, Trustee Graham.

[0:44:39] Voice 5: And on to Trustee Patrick.

[0:44:44] Trustee Patrick: Oh, Trustee Graham, we've been talking about this

[0:44:46] Trustee Patrick: and expecting this reliance on Source Plus

[0:44:49] Trustee Patrick: to come to an end for many, many years.

[0:44:52] Trustee Patrick: I'm glad that we're finally getting to the point

[0:44:55] Trustee Patrick: where we are budgeting properly.

[0:44:56] Trustee Patrick: But I think as we do our hard work in various committees,

[0:45:00] Trustee Patrick: we need to look at better fund management

[0:45:02] Trustee Patrick: for long-term planning and other things

[0:45:04] Trustee Patrick: so that we have to do that and get out of this reliance.

[0:45:08] Trustee Patrick: But I'm looking forward to those conversations.

[0:45:11] Trustee Patrick: My question is, I know this isn't the time

[0:45:13] Trustee Patrick: to consider requesting more analysis from staff,

[0:45:17] Trustee Patrick: but it was a recent learning to me to understand

[0:45:20] Trustee Patrick: we're currently doing development permit areas

[0:45:24] Trustee Patrick: through guidelines in our official community plans.

[0:45:28] Trustee Patrick: And when we need to litigate those or to enforce that,

[0:45:31] Trustee Patrick: that. We have no choice but to use the courts to do that. Reading the Local Government Act

[0:45:39] Trustee Patrick: and conversations with staff, realizing that, yes, the map needs to be in our OCP,

[0:45:43] Trustee Patrick: but we could be regulating through our land use bylaws instead of guidelines through the OCP,

[0:45:49] Trustee Patrick: which bring in a host of other legal tools or bylaw enforcement tools rather than just the

[0:45:56] Trustee Patrick: courts. So I don't want to put a motion on the floor today other than to plant that, you know,

[0:46:01] Trustee Patrick: maybe it could be a high level look-see to see how much of our legal budget is being used by

[0:46:07] Trustee Patrick: defending our development permit areas in the courts versus could there be savings if we move

[0:46:12] Trustee Patrick: to our land use bylaws as a mechanism for imposing those regulations rather than guidelines. So

[0:46:18] Trustee Patrick: that's more of a longer term question that I just wanted to put out there.

[0:46:23] Trustee Patrick: In regards to the local trust committee expenses, I think our cost of Salt Spring attending UBCM and AVICC this year can be reduced.

[0:46:37] Trustee Patrick: When it's on the island, I do not stay in hotels. I travel and come back home every night, so that can be reduced.

[0:46:43] Trustee Patrick: and I don't think any question has been posed to Trustee Harris whether he intends to go or not

[0:46:49] Trustee Patrick: and that question should be posed and there is a because he has not confirmed he is intending to

[0:46:57] Trustee Patrick: attend or not and finally again just a data point of interest this non-market change data is

[0:47:06] Trustee Patrick: intriguing to me and I think we're missing an opportunity to really understand you know we

[0:47:11] Trustee Patrick: we have these big bumps and we get more money than we expect from non-market change, that means more

[0:47:15] Trustee Patrick: houses were built. And I'm intrigued by that data and want to understand that data more. So I guess

[0:47:21] Trustee Patrick: this is more of a hint to Director Cermak. I think we're missing some data points here that

[0:47:26] Trustee Patrick: would be quite interesting. Anyway, thanks. Thank

[0:47:30] Voice 5: you. Thank you, Laura. Thank you,

[0:47:33] Voice 5: Trustee Patrick. Director Mobs, do you have some answers or some comments?

[0:47:37] Voice 5: uh

[0:47:39] Voice 16: yes a little bit of both so um thanks trustee Patrick for raising you know it's not always new

[0:47:44] Voice 16: construction and the non-market change piece that is certainly a factor but that changes in land use

[0:47:49] Voice 16: also impacts that percentage as well um and so you know if we have a lot of that going on

[0:47:56] Voice 16: um in a particular period of time that will influence um those percentages as well in relation

[0:48:01] Voice 16: to uh estimates for UBCMAVACC for Salt Spring Island trustees thank you for that information

[0:48:07] Voice 16: We do have a trustee training policy which requests that trustees when they're seeking funding, you know, and getting resolutions from the local trust committees will actually put together a cost estimate with their training form and then it's sent through, which would help us understand those pieces and then we can massage this piece of the budget to be aligned a little more accurately.

[0:48:28] Voice 16: currently right now we're sort of flying blind on some of the information and just

[0:48:32] Voice 16: relying on historical costs so i can connect with you trustee patrick and we can get that

[0:48:36] Voice 16: organized and amend that thank

[0:48:41] Voice 5: you and any uh do any staff want to comment on the development

[0:48:46] Voice 5: permit areas enforcement idea or we'll just save that for later okay and um i'm going to move on

[0:48:57] Voice 5: oh sorry director sermac there's your hand please go ahead sure

[0:49:02] Voice 14: thank you just a quick comment um i

[0:49:03] Voice 14: I think that's an excellent point about development permit areas.

[0:49:07] Voice 14: Absolutely correct.

[0:49:09] Voice 14: We can put guidelines in land use bylaws.

[0:49:11] Voice 14: In fact, the model OCP in land use bylaws we've been developing do just that.

[0:49:15] Voice 14: So staff have crafted it to be that way.

[0:49:18] Voice 14: And there are LTCs that have that structure already.

[0:49:21] Voice 14: So that is the way to go.

[0:49:23] Voice 14: I believe Gabriel is the one that immediately comes to mind, but there are others.

[0:49:27] Voice 14: Thanks.

[0:49:28] Voice 5: Thank you.

[0:49:30] Voice 5: Very good.

[0:49:30] Voice 5: Good. Trustee Patrick, did you have anything else or can I move on? Okay. Trustee Getty.

[0:49:36] Voice 12: Hello. Thank you. I have a whole lot of questions on a number of these items that I'm assuming that

[0:49:44] Voice 12: we'll go through all of the rest of the pages in this agenda point by point. So this is sort

[0:49:49] Voice 12: of high level comments on this briefing. That's a good question.

[0:49:59] Voice 5: Being new to this

[0:50:00] Voice 5: committee i'm not sure how uh it's preferred and i'll ask director mobs how she'd like to

[0:50:07] Voice 5: proceed we're going brief she's given her high level overview briefing how would you like to

[0:50:12] Voice 5: proceed director mobs thanks

[0:50:15] Voice 16: chair so typically we wouldn't go through the next item in the agenda in

[0:50:20] Voice 16: detail that's the budget overview of course this group has seen that uh briefing three times now

[0:50:27] Voice 16: or you know

[0:50:28] Voice 16: this would be the fourth time that it's showing up in this agenda and some of the

[0:50:31] Voice 16: numbers have simply been updated for the changes and the changes have been noted in the changes

[0:50:36] Voice 16: briefing it's here of course just to remind everybody and be a reference point as to what

[0:50:42] Voice 16: is influencing various pieces and absolutely we can talk about anything that's in there and I can

[0:50:47] Voice 16: answer any questions but traditionally we wouldn't go through it I'll leave that up to you chair if

[0:50:52] Voice 16: if you agree with that or not.

[0:50:54] Voice 5: Thank you, Director Mobs.

[0:50:55] Voice 5: I think maybe, Judy, why don't you bring your first three questions,

[0:50:58] Voice 5: and then we'll see if others have questions,

[0:51:01] Voice 5: and sort of do them in groups of three,

[0:51:03] Voice 5: and other hands are welcome, too, if others have questions.

[0:51:07] Voice 5: Go ahead, Judy.

[0:51:08] Voice 12: All right.

[0:51:09] Voice 12: So, first of all, high level or higher level,

[0:51:13] Voice 12: you've indicated a couple of times that the,

[0:51:16] Voice 12: I think it was with respect to trustee remuneration,

[0:51:19] Voice 12: that the cpi that their policy says uh that we look at the december numbers would it be better

[0:51:25] Voice 12: to change the policy to look at september numbers or some other month so that we've got that um

[0:51:32] Voice 12: tied down a little bit earlier rather than waiting until december um

[0:51:39] Voice 16: i mean ultimately through the

[0:51:41] Voice 16: chair it's the decision of council if you wish to make that change i think the december value

[0:51:47] Voice 16: makes sense because it captures the change for the full year prior. It normally is available

[0:51:54] Voice 16: in time for our January FPC meetings. This time around, it just seems to be a bit delayed.

[0:52:01] Voice 16: It will, of course, be updated in time for February's meeting. In years past, sort of

[0:52:08] Voice 16: prior to my joining the Islands Trust, the number in the budget for CPI and a few other

[0:52:14] Voice 16: their data points remained what it was in the previous year's budget until the new data became

[0:52:20] Voice 16: available. I found that quite challenging in years where there were significant changes in those

[0:52:25] Voice 16: data points. And so the approach we're taking now is to update those data points continually

[0:52:30] Voice 16: throughout the budget cycle because it's more likely to reflect what's going to be upcoming.

[0:52:36] Voice 16: All

[0:52:39] Voice 12: right. So the smaller points with respect to all the legal expenses, there's bylaw enforcement and there's litigation defense. The bylaw enforcement then is, and I'm focusing now in terms of the Bowen Island contingent.

[0:52:57] Voice 12: So that has, we have our own bylaw enforcement issues and expenses in terms of, we're not part of this.

[0:53:08] Voice 12: This is like a planning bylaw enforcement, which is separated out.

[0:53:12] Voice 12: So I'm assuming that that distinction has been made.

[0:53:17] Voice 12: Is it the same for the litigation defense work in terms of that coming up through bylaw and bylaw enforcement and land use planning?

[0:53:28] Voice 12: Or is it broader?

[0:53:29] Voice 12: So I understand the legal advice, but I'm not as clear in terms of the litigation defense.

[0:53:37] Voice 5: Director Moms, is that a question for you or somebody else?

[0:53:43] Voice 16: It's probably a question for me.

[0:53:45] Voice 16: If I understand you, Trustee Getty, you're asking if Bowen Island is contributing to those full costs.

[0:53:50] Voice 12: Right.

[0:53:53] Voice 16: Anything that relates solely to Island's trust work, which is generally planning, which would then be bylaw,

[0:54:00] Voice 16: Bowen Island would not be contributing to so those by law enforcement legal costs Bowen Island's not

[0:54:04] Voice 16: contributing to litigation general certainly there is a contribution to general as well as

[0:54:11] Voice 16: litigation defense I'm going to check on litigation defense but I believe they're contributing

[0:54:15] Voice 16: it's acknowledging that not all of the spending in those areas will be related to council work

[0:54:24] Voice 16: and some may be related to planning work,

[0:54:27] Voice 16: that's acknowledged in the contribution rate

[0:54:30] Voice 16: that's worked into the Bowen Islands calculation.

[0:54:35] Voice 16: But yes, anything that's related to planning

[0:54:39] Voice 16: and bylaw enforcement is removed.

[0:54:43] Voice 4: Is which?

[0:54:43] Voice 5: Sorry?

[0:54:45] Voice 5: It's Jim.

[0:54:46] Voice 16: Is

[0:54:46] Voice 5: that last word of Director Mobs?

[0:54:49] Voice 5: Anything related to planning and bylaw enforcement is?

[0:54:53] Voice 16: Removed.

[0:54:54] Voice 16: So Bowen Island's not contributing

[0:54:55] Voice 5: to bylaw enforcement litigation, that's right.

[0:54:57] Voice 5: Thank you very much. I'll turn my sound up.

[0:55:00] Voice 5: Okay, and Councillor Getty, do you have one more?

[0:55:04] Voice 12: I have several on my list.

[0:55:06] Voice 12: And maybe what would help is when we look at all the numbers that are on like page 26 of the agenda,

[0:55:14] Voice 12: if there could be another column perhaps in terms of which ones Bowen is included in or deleted from,

[0:55:22] Voice 12: which is general, which is part of the calculations.

[0:55:27] Voice 12: And that would help sort out a lot of this.

[0:55:31] Voice 12: You know, with respect to office lease costs and Salt Spring and Gabriel

[0:55:35] Voice 12: and some of the other islands, and the same with the CityView bylaw portal,

[0:55:40] Voice 12: which has to do with planning.

[0:55:43] Voice 12: Oh, in the executive committee, the $25,000 for planning application sponsorships

[0:55:50] Voice 12: and some of these other smaller items that, you know,

[0:55:58] Voice 12: you have to sort of pick it apart.

[0:55:59] Voice 12: And I'm wondering if that could be,

[0:56:03] Voice 12: it would be helpful in terms of my being able to explain it to people

[0:56:06] Voice 12: and to understand it in terms of having that picked apart ahead of time.

[0:56:12] Voice 12: Is that possible?

[0:56:13] Voice 16: Absolutely.

[0:56:14] Voice 12: Yeah,

[0:56:15] Voice 16: so all of that detail is shared with the finance staff

[0:56:19] Voice 16: at Bowen Island under a protocol agreement so I mean I can absolutely

[0:56:26] Voice 16: include our Bowen Island trustees on that communication or if there's

[0:56:31] Voice 16: particular pieces that you'd like highlighted in the public agenda we can

[0:56:35] Voice 16: make that change as well but we do have it all broken out we have a very

[0:56:39] Voice 16: specific template that help us in the calculation to make sure that pieces

[0:56:44] Voice 16: Bowen should contribute to they're contributing to and pieces that they

[0:56:47] Voice 16: shouldn't be are removed um so that data is available and i'm happy to provide it in the

[0:56:53] Voice 16: format you prefer so

[0:56:55] Voice 12: it has been provided and i can get it from kristin or it's coming it has been

[0:56:59] Voice 16: yes um i can forward those emails to you or you can get it from kristin great

[0:57:04] Voice 12: thank you thank you

[0:57:07] Voice 5: um i'm going to go to trustee luckham now thank

[0:57:12] Trustee Luckham: you i i just wanted to chime in on that last note

[0:57:15] Trustee Luckham: that Trustee Municipal Councillor Getty has raised.

[0:57:20] Trustee Luckham: It's great that that information is available

[0:57:23] Trustee Luckham: and I was aware of that being shared

[0:57:26] Trustee Luckham: with the municipality staff.

[0:57:29] Trustee Luckham: But I think there's a broader question

[0:57:31] Trustee Luckham: about general transparency for everybody else

[0:57:35] Trustee Luckham: that doesn't necessarily have access to that information

[0:57:38] Trustee Luckham: that is circulated in a different way.

[0:57:40] Trustee Luckham: And so if it wasn't a significant thing

[0:57:44] Trustee Luckham: to undertake to have a check mark that says Bowen yes or no on those elements. It would help

[0:57:51] Trustee Luckham: the trustees on Bowen to be able to explain it to the public as well to say, well, if you look at

[0:57:57] Trustee Luckham: the Bowen column, it'll tell you right there which things you're contributing to or not.

[0:58:03] Trustee Luckham: So I would not remove that idea from the table if it was at all possible.

[0:58:10] Trustee Luckham: Thank

[0:58:12] Voice 5: you, Peter Luckham. I'm going to put myself on the speaking list here briefly, just to say I agree. It's really challenging as a trustee for about 10 years now to figure out what is Bowen contributing to and what isn't and how to communicate that to the Bowen public who've had questions over the years, not so many at the moment.

[0:58:39] Voice 5: And so maybe to start with, if you could just send what you or we'll get it.

[0:58:47] Voice 5: Judy and I will get it from Kristen and then we'll start getting more of the staff to staff pipeline or bridging established rather than trustees trying to take on those different kinds of roles.

[0:59:06] Voice 5: goals, but an extra column right in here so that all trustees on the financial planning committee

[0:59:11] Voice 5: can understand what Bowen is contributing to would be really helpful. That's one thing I wanted to

[0:59:18] Voice 5: say. The next thing I wanted to, I have a couple of questions. I'm new to the committee, so forgive

[0:59:22] Voice 5: me, everybody, if this is really basic or if it's out of bounds. But I too have been looking at the

[0:59:29] Voice 5: costs rising uh and i'm not just the legal costs and the worry about surplus uh as trustee graham

[0:59:37] Voice 5: mentioned and others but the um um election in the states the coming uh um belt tightening that

[0:59:48] Voice 5: may be happening among granting agencies or um costs going up for things that staff need to do

[0:59:55] Voice 5: their jobs.

[1:00:00] Voice 5: concerned about uh uh civility in some um municipal and uh regional district and islands

[1:00:12] Voice 5: trust all kinds of elected bodies are having this problem and i'm wondering about the trust council

[1:00:20] Voice 5: council meetings line item of 135,000 and whether one meeting next year or maybe this is better for

[1:00:33] Voice 5: to think about future years whether one meeting of trust council could be all online whether that

[1:00:41] Voice 5: would say what how much would that save and in terms of dollars and would it also bring benefits

[1:00:48] Voice 5: benefits around equal participation on trustees who are attending remotely, as opposed to those

[1:00:56] Voice 5: who are attending in person. Because in my experience, attending remotely as a trustee

[1:01:04] Voice 5: at Trust Council, it's hard to participate as fully or be recognized when you've got a point

[1:01:13] Voice 5: of order or something like that. Also, I think it may be, and I'm looking to our recent Committee

[1:01:23] Voice 5: of the Whole meetings now, which have been held all online, it may lead to better discussion and

[1:01:29] Voice 5: more participation among more reticent trustees, because the atmosphere is different when we're

[1:01:40] Voice 5: all together online and that's just an observation from our recent uh committee the whole all online

[1:01:48] Voice 5: meetings and i'm noticing that some uh other uh communities in canada here's sarnia

[1:01:56] Voice 5: council hasn't met in person since may due to what the mayor has said are complaints from the

[1:02:02] Voice 5: public councillors and staff about their safety in the workplace all meetings including the one

[1:02:07] Voice 5: on Health Monday or Health Online. It seems to me that a bunch of issues, and I won't go into all

[1:02:15] Voice 5: kinds of civility details. I actually started thinking about this in terms of civility.

[1:02:20] Voice 5: But my question for this committee is, and the director, if we dropped one in-person trust

[1:02:30] Voice 5: council meeting um can you tell me offhand uh would that help us with the uh worries about

[1:02:37] Voice 5: surplus and the legal costs rising thank you director mobs so

[1:02:44] Voice 16: one meeting held electronically

[1:02:46] Voice 16: would save about thirty three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars uh that's just shy

[1:02:53] Voice 16: of half a percentage point in terms of tax increase of about 0.4 percent uh bowen would

[1:02:58] Voice 16: benefit from that as well contributing to that cost there would be no change to uh surplus

[1:03:08] Voice 16: because the draw from surplus is currently not funding the trust council meetings however

[1:03:15] Voice 16: it does give you the opportunity to redirect um some funds if you wanted to um to assist in the

[1:03:23] Voice 16: the surplus because of course like you could choose not to reduce taxation and instead reduce

[1:03:29] Voice 16: the amount that you're drawing from surplus thank

[1:03:32] Voice 5: you and then i have another uh just a related

[1:03:36] Voice 5: question excuse me for uh not understanding this but um in looking at those uh budget figures on

[1:03:44] Voice 5: uh page 26 and 27 i think that is uh can can you show where did the committee the whole meetings

[1:03:51] Voice 5: the online meetings that we've been recently adding um are they showing up on this budget and

[1:03:58] Voice 5: which line so

[1:04:01] Voice 16: they they're not reflected there because there's no cost to us uh for committee

[1:04:05] Voice 16: the whole is of course they're held electronically right now thank

[1:04:09] Voice 5: you very much okay um over to

[1:04:12] Voice 5: trustee patrick well

[1:04:17] Trustee Patrick: i just that that last question on the committee the whole there might

[1:04:19] Trustee Patrick: be not a direct cost of holding our meetings but we've been holding many of those meetings

[1:04:24] Trustee Patrick: in the evenings isn't there overtime and other costs being incurred by staff to attend those

[1:04:29] Trustee Patrick: meetings so

[1:04:32] Voice 16: all excluded staff do not earn overtime so we are volunteering when these

[1:04:37] Voice 16: meetings are held in the evening our union staff do incur overtime and so where we have

[1:04:44] Voice 16: you know union positions assisting so lisa for example if she's taking minutes for us or

[1:04:50] Voice 16: if there's other union positions they would be incurring overtime we do have an overtime budget

[1:04:54] Voice 16: it that each director manages for their staff so it's assumed it's included that no

[1:04:59] Trustee Patrick: that's why i

[1:05:00] Trustee Patrick: just wanted to note that that the meeting costs are broader than just physical meeting space um

[1:05:07] Trustee Patrick: uh trust trustee fast sort of triggered me to mention a couple of things the comments about

[1:05:15] Trustee Patrick: bowen's contribution they're not the only island that contributes more than it receives salt

[1:05:21] Trustee Patrick: Salt Spring is one of those islands.

[1:05:22] Trustee Patrick: I think this is an issue for the survey.

[1:05:24] Trustee Patrick: And when we get to the survey conversation talking about how does the community feel

[1:05:32] Trustee Patrick: they're getting that information, if they understand that information, how can that

[1:05:34] Trustee Patrick: information be portrayed better of where their tax dollars are going?

[1:05:44] Trustee Patrick: The other issue, the cost of meetings.

[1:05:47] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Fast, we've voted on this many times.

[1:05:49] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Graham has, I think, brought this up a couple of times for us to vote on having the meeting, and it's failed, which is surprising.

[1:05:59] Trustee Patrick: And, again, I think this is a question for the survey to hear from, you know, that's our opinion that we need to meet and be in person.

[1:06:05] Trustee Patrick: And does our constituents have that same feeling at a cost of $30,000 a pop?

[1:06:10] Trustee Patrick: They may not.

[1:06:11] Trustee Patrick: So I think that is definitely a question that we'd want to have on the survey of frequency of meeting and methods of meeting.

[1:06:17] Voice 5: So thanks.

[1:06:17] Voice 5: Thank you. And I hope you bring that up when we're at that part of the agenda again. Thank you. Trustee Boland again.

[1:06:25] Voice 6: Hi. With respect to the meetings in person, I would favour one, or if not two, being electronic.

[1:06:33] Voice 6: I know that we have voted and Trust Council has voted, I've lost track now, to confirm, no, it should be four in person.

[1:06:42] Voice 6: However, given the changes to the budget, you know, I don't see that there wouldn't be an opportunity to recommend to Trust Council that they reconsider, because in the context of a budget, which, you know, the reserve, the legal costs, etc., it would make sense to put a bit of scrutiny on that again.

[1:07:05] Voice 6: So, I would be happy to make a motion to recommend the Trust Council revisits the request to have four meetings face-to-face per year.

[1:07:20] Voice 6: How does anybody else feel about that?

[1:07:23] Voice 5: I'm just looking through. I'm not as familiar with how this committee works, and I'm looking through all those business cases.

[1:07:30] Voice 5: Is there a business case that this would be better to refer to?

[1:07:35] Voice 5: otherwise I

[1:07:37] Voice 6: believe it'll be under the executive committee budget director moms

[1:07:43] Voice 6: so

[1:07:46] Voice 16: this budget is driven by trust council's decision directly so in December trust council

[1:07:51] Voice 16: to decide to meet in person four times a year financial planning committee could make a

[1:07:58] Voice 16: recommendation that council you know revise its decision and hold one or more of its meetings

[1:08:03] Voice 16: meetings electronically that would need to be a distinct recommendation of this body

[1:08:07] Voice 16: because of course trust council has already made that call and we probably wouldn't adjust the

[1:08:14] Voice 16: budget to reflect that until trust council had had a conversation and made that decision

[1:08:19] Voice 16: but that's why it's for in person council's made that yeah

[1:08:23] Voice 5: thank you that's what i thought we had

[1:08:26] Voice 5: but things are changing and that seems to be the role of this committee is to say well how are we

[1:08:31] Voice 5: we going to what are some solutions to the problems that we're looking at trustee peterson

[1:08:35] Voice 5: um

[1:08:39] Voice 9: thank you chair this is a question for director marler and it's it's related to

[1:08:46] Voice 9: questions like this that pop up um repeatedly and i know in some instances when a resolution

[1:08:55] Voice 9: has passed and um you know we can't propose a resolution that's directly opposed to a previous

[1:09:05] Voice 9: or if a resolution fails you can't bring another one up just like it at what and maybe this is too

[1:09:11] Voice 9: long for today but i'm wondering at what point is it reasonable to not rehash questions that have

[1:09:17] Voice 9: have been decided by council or in fact this committee like repeatedly so like i have no

[1:09:25] Voice 9: problem sort of questioning these numbers and stuff but just from that process period i know

[1:09:31] Voice 9: there are some um rules about sort of revisiting questions that have already been decided and i

[1:09:38] Voice 9: just wonder if you could give us some guidance on that today thank you yeah

[1:09:43] Voice 1: excuse me uh normally

[1:09:45] Voice 1: we'd look to your bylaw uh initially on any direction for that and then if there's nothing

[1:09:51] Voice 1: there then rubbish rules of order and the intent of rubbish rules of order is just to keep the

[1:09:57] Voice 1: business moving and stop members from trying to rehash something that's already been decided and

[1:10:04] Voice 1: just keep going over and over and over it i'd have to look into more detail about the nuances

[1:10:09] Voice 1: around your question because this is about budgeting more so than about the

[1:10:14] Voice 1: actual specific resolution. So you have direction from Council, there's new

[1:10:21] Voice 1: information and that information was not considered by Council so I think if you

[1:10:26] Voice 1: have new information it's fair to say to Council given this new information we

[1:10:31] Voice 1: would recommend that you reconsider or you do something different. I think

[1:10:37] Voice 1: that's fine um because you got new information that i think is the key in this instance i think

[1:10:45] Voice 1: what you're referring to is more where there's a resolution where a decision's been made

[1:10:49] Voice 1: somebody doesn't like that decision um maybe just from a political point of view not really on its

[1:10:55] Voice 1: merits and then tries to get it overturned that's not what's happening here so there's some nuances

[1:11:02] Voice 1: answers to that question and the answer but I would suggest if you've got new information

[1:11:08] Voice 1: then council should be provided that information and given an opportunity to change direction if

[1:11:16] Voice 1: it wants to do so okay

[1:11:19] Voice 5: thank you for that

[1:11:19] Voice 1: thank

[1:11:20] Voice 5: you very much both and trustee Boland I'm going

[1:11:24] Voice 5: to come back to you then shortly but first I'll go to trustee Getty thank

[1:11:31] Voice 12: you this is separate

[1:11:34] Voice 12: Separate from the Bowen Island considerations, but there's a business case from the Trust Area Services, I believe, page 56.

[1:11:47] Voice 12: Okay,

[1:11:48] Voice 5: is this a different topic?

[1:11:49] Voice 12: Yes.

[1:11:50] Voice 5: Okay, can I ask you to hold on to that thought for a minute?

[1:11:53] Voice 5: And I'm going to ask Trustee Bowen, let's see if we can just wrap up this little bit.

[1:11:57] Voice 5: Trustee Bowen, did you want to formalize your motion?

[1:12:02] Voice 5: Yes.

[1:12:03] Voice 5: Yes, I

[1:12:04] Voice 6: would say the Financial Planning Commission recommends that Trust Council revisit the decision to have four face-to-face Trust Council meetings in light of the budget difficulties or the budget increases.

[1:12:21] Voice 6: Or the new information.

[1:12:23] Voice 6: In light of the new budget, yeah.

[1:12:27] Voice 6: Okay, thank you. Did you get that, Robert?

[1:12:30] Voice 6: Is that okay? Or do you want, you don't want me to send it to you? Do you think it's fairly quick?

[1:12:37] Voice 6: I just want to make sure

[1:12:38] Voice 5: staff have.

[1:12:40] Voice 13: Yeah, yes, sure. I do have it. It's rough. Would you like me to show it on screen? Or you're okay with it as is?

[1:12:49] Voice 17: Sure.

[1:12:50] Voice 6: Yeah, there are a couple of hands up. And if anybody wants to tidy it up.

[1:12:54] Voice 5: I'll just,

[1:12:54] Voice 5: yeah, if you could put it on the on the screen, that would be great.

[1:13:05] Voice 5: Okay. And if you can make it bigger, that would be great. I know it's tricky. Oh, okay. Thank you. And I'm wondering, here's a motion and the mover has asked if there's input. So I saw Trustee Graham's hand first. Trustee Graham, did you have some input? Or go ahead.

[1:13:33] Voice 5: I

[1:13:33] Voice 10: appreciate this motion, and I'm happy to second it.

[1:13:39] Voice 5: Okay. So now we have a motion moved and seconded.

[1:13:44] Voice 5: So if we change the wording, it'll need to be an amendment.

[1:13:48] Voice 5: Trustee Elliott.

[1:13:50] Voice 19: Yeah, I was hoping to suggest a revision before we seconded, but I suggest we be more specific.

[1:13:57] Voice 19: specific, we could make a recommendation to Trust Council that one Trust Council meeting

[1:14:03] Voice 19: be held electronically for a savings of $33,000. It makes it clearer what we're trying to achieve.

[1:14:20] Voice 19: And so, I don't know. But this has already been made and this is adequate, I think, as well.

[1:14:27] Voice 19: Okay.

[1:14:28] Voice 5: Thank you. And I think if all of us on Financial Planning Committee are prepared to speak to this, or staff will probably put some notes together, I have a motion moved and seconded on the floor. Trustee Peterson?

[1:14:47] Voice 9: Yeah. I just feel like there should be some more information in light of the new budget. A quick perusal shows that the proposed tax increase is actually lower than the last time Trust Council looked at it. So what are we in light of? Again, I feel like there's, if we're making a case, then what are we making the case based on?

[1:15:15] Voice 6: I think the bone island increases are one thing and the other one is the

[1:15:21] Voice 6: reserve, the impact on the reserve.

[1:15:24] Voice 5: Can we use hands, please? Because I had...

[1:15:27] Voice 5: Oh, sorry. Yeah.

[1:15:29] Voice 5: I'm going to ask Peter Lockham, did you wish to speak? I see a little hand up in a

[1:15:37] Trustee Luckham: sheet of

[1:15:38] Trustee Luckham: green. There we go.

[1:15:39] Trustee Luckham: You've got me. I don't know why my video is not working, but there we go. Life's like that

[1:15:43] Trustee Luckham: that some days. I'm just going to say that I'm not going to vote in favor of this. I think we

[1:15:49] Trustee Luckham: undermine our ability to govern by not meeting in person. And as Tim has pointed out, is our budget

[1:15:59] Trustee Luckham: increase over and above whatever some standard might be that is determined? I just, I feel that

[1:16:11] Trustee Luckham: that we are constantly cutting budget in areas

[1:16:15] Trustee Luckham: where we need to do work.

[1:16:16] Trustee Luckham: And it seems like a race to the bottom sometimes.

[1:16:18] Trustee Luckham: So I think we should continue to meet in person.

[1:16:22] Trustee Luckham: I think it's very, very valuable.

[1:16:25] Voice 5: Thank you very much, Trustee Luckham.

[1:16:27] Voice 5: Trustee Patrick.

[1:16:30] Trustee Patrick: I'll offer another opinion.

[1:16:31] Trustee Patrick: I think we can govern just as well and virtual

[1:16:34] Trustee Patrick: and that this is an easy way to cut the budget

[1:16:36] Trustee Patrick: and demonstrate cutting.

[1:16:39] Trustee Patrick: cutting I think even you know two meetings would be a year in in person versus virtual is plenty

[1:16:46] Trustee Patrick: but I absolutely support the motion thank

[1:16:50] Voice 5: you very much trustee Patrick I'm going to speak

[1:16:52] Voice 5: now in support of the motion as well from my civility notes here in recent committees of the

[1:17:03] Voice 5: whole and uh trust program committee which i've been attending uh online all online as well uh i

[1:17:11] Voice 5: just wanted to say interrupting seems next less common inappropriate comments can be talked over

[1:17:16] Voice 5: or muted um trustees can't sit together in in groups uh with like-minded folks to nod at and

[1:17:25] Voice 5: encourage each other uh side conversations can't distract from uh the ability to hear

[1:17:31] Voice 5: uh safety re-communicable diseases uh is enhanced um trustees who do not attend in person due to

[1:17:40] Voice 5: health or whatever uh can participate on an equal footing and um so that's um some notes i made after

[1:17:50] Voice 5: the uh a recent meeting thinking about the september uh meeting when of trust council when i

[1:17:58] Voice 5: I was there in person for some days, and then one day I was in my hotel room and could contrast the experience.

[1:18:08] Voice 5: So I'm going to vote in favor from a civility and a budget responsibility side of things

[1:18:22] Voice 5: to recommend solutions to budget problems

[1:18:27] Voice 5: or budget concerns we have with this new information.

[1:18:32] Voice 5: Anybody else want to speak?

[1:18:35] Voice 5: Director Mobs.

[1:18:39] Voice 16: That was an erroneous raising of the hand.

[1:18:43] Voice 5: It was very spontaneous.

[1:18:47] Voice 5: Okay.

[1:18:47] Voice 5: Well, seeing no more comments or discussion,

[1:18:52] Voice 5: um i can see staff are taking some notes there uh we'll have to probably because the motion is just

[1:19:00] Voice 5: a plain motion we'll need to um speak to this and uh i'm going to call the question then see no more

[1:19:08] Voice 5: hands going up all those in favor raise your hand electronically please okay that's one two three

[1:19:21] Voice 5: three, four, five. And all those, lower your hands, please. And all those opposed. I see four.

[1:19:34] Voice 5: So out of the nine of us, that carries, according to what I count. Is that correct?

[1:19:40] Voice 1: Yeah, you're correct. It's five to four.

[1:19:42] Voice 1: Okay.

[1:19:43] Voice 5: Thank you. All right. Past five to four. Sorry, I'll have to look at my notes later. So

[1:19:51] Voice 5: I need to make a few as I go along. All right. Thank you. Then I'm going to come back to,

[1:19:57] Voice 5: We're still on the pages 12 to 15, budget overview, where we're at now.

[1:20:06] Voice 5: And I'm wondering, has anybody else got different things they want to bring up?

[1:20:11] Voice 5: Trustee Getty, I think you had some more.

[1:20:13] Voice 5: Please go ahead.

[1:20:15] Voice 12: Thank you.

[1:20:16] Voice 12: The business case on page 56, which was with respect to the mail-out flyers for new people,

[1:20:26] Voice 12: part of stewardship education um i'm not for or against these i i mean i've been in the same

[1:20:34] Voice 12: place for about 45 years so i haven't seen this um possibly ever but if it did it was a long time

[1:20:41] Voice 12: ago and um i'm wondering if um we get any feedback in terms of the effectiveness of this and if

[1:20:50] Voice 12: if that's something that should be considered.

[1:20:54] Voice 12: I don't know if it comes to new property owners on Bowen,

[1:20:58] Voice 12: and I haven't heard any feedback in the community,

[1:21:02] Voice 12: but there was comments made at some point on,

[1:21:07] Voice 12: I believe maybe it was a Facebook announcement

[1:21:10] Voice 12: or press release or something in terms of,

[1:21:13] Voice 12: if this is all we've accomplished this year,

[1:21:15] Voice 12: then it's pretty paltry.

[1:21:16] Voice 12: but I don't accept that criticism

[1:21:20] Voice 12: but I do wonder whether or not this is something

[1:21:24] Voice 12: that is effective in terms of stewardship education.

[1:21:27] Voice 12: So there's a lot of stuff that comes in the mail

[1:21:29] Voice 12: that people don't spend a lot of time reading

[1:21:31] Voice 12: and I would like to, not that I'm against this funding

[1:21:35] Voice 12: but I'm wondering if there's some way

[1:21:38] Voice 12: that we can figure out a way of getting feedback

[1:21:40] Voice 12: about this project that seems to be renewed every year

[1:21:45] Voice 12: without a lot of discussion, and I'm not sure that it's money really well spent.

[1:21:50] Voice 5: Thank you, Trustee Getty.

[1:21:52] Voice 5: I'll say as a member of the Trust Programs Committee, we do discuss it at that committee.

[1:21:57] Voice 5: However, I'm wondering if Claire is not with us today,

[1:22:00] Voice 5: is there somebody who can speak to the difficulty of evaluating educational materials?

[1:22:11] Voice 5: Is there any staff person who can answer Trustee Getty's?

[1:22:15] Voice 12: I don't know that it needs a lot of discussion. It's just putting a bug in your ear. And if the committee is discussing it, then, you know, that's basically all I really need to know.

[1:22:24] Voice 5: Okay, thank you. And I see Director Mobs has her hand up. Go ahead, Director.

[1:22:29] Voice 16: So Trust Programs Committee will be revisiting their budget requests the same way that the other committees will be. And so we'll have an update from them for February's meeting as to whether or not they've chosen to reduce this.

[1:22:41] Voice 16: if there's particular questions that you'd like to have answered in this business case that aren't

[1:22:47] Voice 16: answered that you know this is an opportunity to write to the committee and write to supporting

[1:22:52] Voice 16: staff to get those questions answered in terms of you know trying to understand if there's value

[1:22:57] Voice 16: we are you know looking forward to our budget survey and it's a good opportunity to ask a

[1:23:04] Voice 16: question about this particular program at that time and you know whether or not residents feel

[1:23:08] Voice 16: value for that money spent.

[1:23:11] Voice 5: I think Trustee Getty brings up a good point, too, in that

[1:23:15] Voice 5: longtime residents of Bowen Island don't get these mailings, and Bowen has a,

[1:23:27] Voice 5: the Islands Trust is a lot less visible on Bowen than the municipal situation is, and

[1:23:35] Voice 5: And with meetings every couple of weeks and that kind of thing.

[1:23:38] Voice 5: So I put a little circle here, Trustee Getty.

[1:23:43] Voice 5: I'll try and get that answered to you after our next meeting.

[1:23:47] Voice 5: Any other questions or can we move on in our Financial Planning Committee meeting?

[1:23:54] Voice 5: Trustee Boland.

[1:23:58] Voice 5: Just

[1:23:59] Voice 6: a question about, I have no problem with the order,

[1:24:03] Voice 6: But, you know, that was a question that took us down to section 8.3.1.4.

[1:24:11] Voice 6: I'd like to go back to 8.3.1.1, if that's okay.

[1:24:16] Voice 6: Are we going

[1:24:17] Voice 5: to go through

[1:24:18] Voice 6: those each?

[1:24:21] Voice 5: No,

[1:24:21] Voice 6: we're not going to

[1:24:22] Voice 5: go through them in order.

[1:24:24] Voice 5: What I think we, correct me if I'm wrong, Director Mobs,

[1:24:29] Voice 5: but i think uh this is the time to bring answer any questions because it seems to me after this

[1:24:37] Voice 5: we go into a completely different topic which is the engagement process according to the agenda

[1:24:42] Voice 5: okay you'd like to proceed director mobs um

[1:24:48] Voice 16: yes i mean most of the documents in this part of the

[1:24:51] Voice 16: agenda as i've mentioned have been seen already by this committee quite a few times the um briefings

[1:24:57] Voice 16: and business cases that are attached that have been amended are 8.3.1.1 so that's um the briefing

[1:25:04] Voice 16: from the executive committee is of course they've made some changes to their budget request

[1:25:08] Voice 16: which we've spoken about the policy statement business case has been amended to reflect the

[1:25:14] Voice 16: trust council direction and the conservancy board briefing was amended to reflect the three thousand

[1:25:18] Voice 16: dollar reduction in their training um everything else has been untouched from what traveled to

[1:25:23] Voice 16: to FTC in October, November, and to Council in December.

[1:25:26] Voice 5: Thank you. That explains why it looks so familiar.

[1:25:29] Voice 5: Trustee Boland, are you asking questions about some of the new material?

[1:25:34] Voice 5: I was going to ask

[1:25:35] Voice 6: something about the budget request for communications

[1:25:41] Voice 6: from the Executive Committee. It was triggered by that,

[1:25:44] Voice 6: but it's a more general thing.

[1:25:46] Voice 6: So basically, I'll just carry on and put the point.

[1:25:49] Voice 6: This

[1:25:49] Voice 5: is 8.3.1.1. Is that what you said? Sorry?

[1:25:53] Voice 6: yeah 3

[1:25:53] Voice 5: .1.1 yes

[1:25:56] Voice 6: so there's thank you okay go ahead yeah there's a list which is yeah number 11

[1:26:01] Voice 6: uh 45 000 for public communications in there there's actually a quite an extensive description

[1:26:09] Voice 6: which includes a lot of first nations engagement and protocol agreements etc etc and then there's

[1:26:16] Voice 6: also the um reconciliation program and then in each of the ltc projects there are items about

[1:26:27] Voice 6: first nations engagement and reconciliation sometimes um you know maybe specialist consultants

[1:26:34] Voice 6: will be needed so my point is uh would it be very useful to have a table that brings

[1:26:43] Voice 6: cross-references all of the spend on reconciliation and First Nations

[1:26:50] Voice 6: engagement because these are really critical activities and I think we would

[1:27:00] Voice 6: benefit from having a kind of a holistic view and we have funding from the

[1:27:05] Voice 6: province they would probably welcome some kind of account and um you know as i said the ltc projects

[1:27:16] Voice 6: mention it explicitly and we have um indeed the communications budget and the reconciliation

[1:27:23] Voice 6: project anyway the table i think the table would be an excellent way to track and to quantify

[1:27:30] Voice 6: and to demonstrate the level of importance we attach.

[1:27:36] Voice 6: And it might also trigger opportunities for synergy.

[1:27:40] Voice 6: So my proposal would be that we have a table where we actually bring that together.

[1:27:49] Voice 6: We don't take it out of the individual projects or activities,

[1:27:53] Voice 6: but we just bring it together so that we see it in a holistic way.

[1:27:57] Voice 6: and I would ask Director Mobs if that was possible or practical to do. Thank you.

[1:28:05] Voice 5: Thank you, Trustee Boland. I'm not sure that this is a question for the Financial Planning

[1:28:10] Voice 5: Committee. This is another request for a table or a dashboard kind of presenting information

[1:28:20] Voice 5: and I don't know if that's something for this committee or for Trust Council.

[1:28:26] Voice 5: um director mobs do you have it and then i'll come to you trustee elliot go ahead director mobs

[1:28:33] Voice 5: um

[1:28:35] Voice 16: so if the question is about how we present budget information related to first nations

[1:28:42] Voice 16: engagement work we can absolutely present that um in a way that might be more understandable

[1:28:48] Voice 16: we already are tracking engagement spending on various pieces because of course the grant from

[1:28:56] Voice 16: the ministry does require regular reporting back to them.

[1:28:59] Voice 16: And so the information is available.

[1:29:01] Voice 16: If it's best received by the committee in a table format,

[1:29:05] Voice 16: we can fairly easily make that adjustment.

[1:29:09] Voice 5: Thank you very much.

[1:29:12] Voice 5: I'm wondering if that would help Financial Planning Committee

[1:29:18] Voice 5: with budgeting recommendations for Trust Council or not.

[1:29:22] Voice 5: Trustee Elliott, go ahead.

[1:29:24] Voice 5: Um,

[1:29:26] Voice 19: yeah, there's a few considerations here as I'm mulling it over. There was a briefing at the end of, I think, December last year where staff put in a table form where all the capacity funding was anticipated to go.

[1:29:45] Voice 19: So I think it would have been helpful to make sure we see that annually.

[1:29:50] Voice 19: I'm not sure if that's coming back, just so we can get updates, what's being spent in each LTC.

[1:29:57] Voice 19: So that's for the provincial funding.

[1:30:00] Voice 19: I would be cautious, I guess, about assembling everything sort of related to reconciliation because, of course, it could signal maybe, what's the word I'm looking for?

[1:30:22] Voice 19: You know, here's what we're doing.

[1:30:23] Voice 19: And I don't think that's quite the right intent.

[1:30:26] Voice 19: We should be doing the work of relationship building and funding it because it's part of our strategic plan and part of our reconciliation action plan.

[1:30:34] Voice 19: And I think the reconciliation action plan is where those activities show up.

[1:30:39] Voice 19: And what we're seeing here is that still in development, Trust Council hasn't had a chance to approve one.

[1:30:47] Voice 19: But that, I would imagine, would be the public-facing document that says, here's what we're funding and here's where taxpayer budget or funds are going to support reconciliation activities.

[1:31:01] Voice 19: activities. I do understand the intent, because I did try to have this conversation executive

[1:31:09] Voice 19: committee as well, if we're funding, you know, $4,000 for graphic design for National Day for

[1:31:16] Voice 19: Truth and Reconciliation, and, you know, Coast Salish art, you know, do we need to stage that

[1:31:23] Voice 19: out one every year kind of thing. But I think that belongs in the Reconciliation Action Plan,

[1:31:28] Voice 19: and really should be discussed by council,

[1:31:30] Voice 19: not necessarily this committee.

[1:31:32] Voice 19: Anyway, just some thoughts.

[1:31:35] Voice 5: Thank you.

[1:31:38] Voice 5: I'm wondering if there are more conversations

[1:31:42] Voice 5: about budget recommendations

[1:31:48] Voice 5: that we might want to make

[1:31:50] Voice 5: as financial planning committee to trust council.

[1:31:53] Voice 5: We've passed one motion narrowly.

[1:31:56] Voice 5: And so we have new information

[1:32:00] Voice 5: and one idea there about how to solve it.

[1:32:04] Voice 5: Are there any other suggestions or concerns

[1:32:08] Voice 5: or should we move on to the budget

[1:32:11] Voice 5: public engagement process?

[1:32:13] Voice 5: Trustee Grayon.

[1:32:16] Voice 10: Thank you, Chair.

[1:32:16] Voice 10: And I appreciate you asking if there are any ideas.

[1:32:20] Voice 10: And I would enjoy a conversation

[1:32:23] Voice 10: about not funding the trust remuneration report.

[1:32:27] Voice 10: I think it's a small amount.

[1:32:29] Voice 10: It's $10,000, but I really don't feel it's appropriate in this time of increased expenses

[1:32:35] Voice 10: and the lack of our ability to fund our surplus amount.

[1:32:42] Voice 10: That was my suggestion.

[1:32:44] Voice 5: Thank you.

[1:32:45] Voice 5: Very good.

[1:32:47] Voice 5: Trustee Getty.

[1:32:52] Voice 12: This is one of the recommendations that was in the governance review.

[1:32:56] Voice 12: I'm basically defending the allocation.

[1:32:59] Voice 12: But, and it was something that has come up as moving it up the priority list in the work plan for the governance committee. And in terms of getting this done at the end of our term, so that there's a recommendation that's possible for the beginning of the next term, that the timing was this budget now.

[1:33:24] Voice 12: The alternative is for this to be in-house as opposed to hiring a consultant for $10,000, and there were issues raised in terms of workload and whether or not there'd be a perception of bias.

[1:33:39] Voice 12: So that was why that came forward the way it did.

[1:33:44] Voice 12: Um, I think if we take it out that, um, or if we recommend to council that they take it out, um, that that's going to be this discussion. I don't know how it would end up, but I think that, um, possibly our policy review is, um, another 10,000 that we've asked for from governance committee. And that might be something that's, um, we should discuss more at some point, but I think this one should stay.

[1:34:14] Voice 12: Thank

[1:34:15] Voice 5: you, Trustee Getty. Trustee, let's see, Elliot.

[1:34:20] Voice 19: Thank you, Chair. Just briefly, this was one of the guidelines that Council set is to fund governance related projects, I think, in addition to communications.

[1:34:32] Voice 19: applications so um i think this has been debated by this committee uh a few times and at council

[1:34:42] Voice 19: as well so we do need to advance some projects that are related to governance i think thank you

[1:34:49] Voice 5: and um correct me if i'm wrong but this is a more of a data gathering is this asking for a report

[1:34:56] Voice 5: from consultants is that correct trustee

[1:35:01] Voice 16: giddy oh

[1:35:02] Voice 4: good thank you go ahead um the

[1:35:07] Voice 16: the request

[1:35:09] Voice 16: is to hire a consultant to take on um some analysis to determine if the trustee remuneration

[1:35:15] Voice 16: values are appropriate um and so there would be a report that comes out of that um potentially

[1:35:22] Voice 16: with some recommendations as well um there would also be there's intended to be a review of the

[1:35:28] Voice 16: methodology that's applied um for annual increases for example um generally that work is likely to be

[1:35:35] Voice 16: a benchmarking exercise so you know we'd have to wait and see what the consultants decide but i

[1:35:39] Voice 16: would expect a report to come out of that thank

[1:35:41] Voice 5: you and then it would be up to future trust council

[1:35:44] Voice 5: decisions about whether to make changes in a future budget um gathering unless somebody puts

[1:35:50] Voice 5: their hand up and says no no that's not it uh trustee boland i

[1:35:55] Voice 6: wouldn't be in favor of removing

[1:35:57] Voice 6: moving this because i think that we've had a number of discussions about how we could encourage

[1:36:05] Voice 6: people to become trustees um sort of normal non-retired people and um i think i would hope

[1:36:15] Voice 6: that it would you know make some proposals around structural changes not just um you know let's

[1:36:23] Voice 6: increase it by this or that amount, just to really look at how could it be structured so that

[1:36:31] Voice 6: a wider variety of people could apply and be trustees. Thanks.

[1:36:38] Voice 5: Okay. Thank you very much, Trustee Boland. And seeing no more hands up, I'm going to go back

[1:36:43] Voice 5: to Trustee Graham. Trustee Graham, do you want to make a motion, having heard?

[1:36:50] Voice 10: No, I don't. I appreciate the conversation. Thank you.

[1:36:53] Voice 5: All right. Thank you very much. How about this? Last call for suggestions on recommendations to trust council to address concerns with the budget and the changes in the new information that we're receiving in the director's report. Last call.

[1:37:11] Voice 5: all okay then let's move on uh to 9.1 my question before we start it's 11 it's 20 minutes to 12 do

[1:37:21] Voice 5: people need a break or should when do you do what do you usually do for lunch and things like that

[1:37:26] Voice 5: or do you want to continue on um i'm going to propose a five minute break and because i think

[1:37:34] Voice 5: we've only got the one more topic do you what do people think

[1:37:42] Trustee Luckham: uh 10 minutes it takes more than

[1:37:46] Trustee Luckham: five minutes to boil a pot of coffee right

[1:37:48] Voice 5: okay uh thank you

[1:37:50] Voice 5: okay great well let's come back then

[1:37:53] Voice 5: at uh 11 50 and uh and we'll continue with item number 9.1 thank you okay it's 11 50

[1:49:43] Voice 5: we got everybody back maybe not let me know when we've got quorum i hope we didn't lose

[1:49:53] Voice 5: lose anybody on the break. Okay, it looks like most of us are back. I'm waiting to see if trustee

[1:50:09] Voice 5: Maude. Well, we have quorum, I guess is my question.

[1:50:14] Voice 15: I'm here just for the camera because

[1:50:16] Voice 15: of bandwidth.

[1:50:17] Voice 5: Okay, great. Thank you. So it sounds like we're back, Robert.

[1:50:20] Voice 13: Yes, you do have quorum.

[1:50:22] Voice 5: Thank you. Very good. Okay, well, thanks, everybody, for coming back. We're starting on

[1:50:27] Voice 5: on page 137 of the budget now.

[1:50:30] Voice 5: We're gonna be discussing the public engagement

[1:50:34] Voice 5: for the budget in the next year,

[1:50:37] Voice 5: not for this one that we've just been discussing,

[1:50:39] Voice 5: but to get the cycle started well ahead, as I understand it.

[1:50:44] Voice 5: And I'm gonna turn it over to,

[1:50:47] Voice 5: I guess this is Director Mobs again,

[1:50:50] Voice 5: to speak to this or whoever,

[1:50:52] Voice 5: whichever staff person is appropriate.

[1:50:54] Voice 5: Please go ahead.

[1:50:59] Voice 16: I'm off the hook for this one, Chair. We have a communications specialist,

[1:51:04] Voice 16: Morgana, online. So she's going to walk us through the survey documents.

[1:51:08] Voice 5: Very good. Thank you. I couldn't tell from the report. Welcome, Morgana. Where are you?

[1:51:14] Voice 5: There you are. Good.

[1:51:15] Voice 7: Here I am. Hi.

[1:51:17] Voice 7: Thank you. Please go ahead.

[1:51:18] Voice 7: Okay. So this is an RFD for the public engagement process for the next

[1:51:26] Voice 7: Next, fiscal year, I don't have too much to add that's not already in the document except

[1:51:35] Voice 7: to say that the timelines are really nice and early and I think it's built in a way

[1:51:43] Voice 7: that it gives a lot of opportunity for people to engage and to give you all the feedback

[1:51:50] Voice 7: in a timely way so you can use that feedback

[1:51:54] Voice 7: for the next cycle.

[1:51:56] Voice 7: And Claire would typically be leading this up

[1:52:00] Voice 7: or direct it, Fred, and she is not here.

[1:52:01] Voice 7: So if you have any questions, let me know.

[1:52:05] Voice 7: I will try my best to answer them.

[1:52:08] Voice 5: Okay.

[1:52:09] Voice 5: Thank you, Morgana.

[1:52:11] Voice 5: And what we're looking at here is draft materials, obviously,

[1:52:16] Voice 5: but they're attached to this project charter,

[1:52:19] Voice 5: Charter, which is the sort of goals and how we're going to fund it and what we seek to do. So I'm

[1:52:28] Voice 5: the, what we're hoping to do is approve some kind of public engagement project charter today.

[1:52:34] Voice 5: And I'm wondering who would like to lead off the discussion or questions for the staff.

[1:52:41] Voice 5: Please go ahead, Trustee Patrick.

[1:52:44] Trustee Patrick: Thank you. In the project charter under deliverables,

[1:52:47] Trustee Patrick: I think we're missing a deliverable. The IEP2 promise to the public for consult level says we will keep you informed, listen to you, and acknowledge concerns and aspirations, and provide feedback on how the input influenced the decision.

[1:53:07] Trustee Patrick: decision so i you know i think there's steps there that we're we look we consider the input

[1:53:12] Trustee Patrick: and we consider it into the decisions but we're missing the the answer back to the public on how

[1:53:17] Trustee Patrick: we use the survey to actually influence our decision on the budget so i think we need that

[1:53:25] Trustee Patrick: you know kind of what we heard and how we you know what we did incorporate peace okay

[1:53:32] Voice 5: thank you and

[1:53:33] Voice 5: And you see that as needing to be described?

[1:53:36] Trustee Patrick: A deliverable under, there's a section called deliverables in the green column.

[1:53:43] Trustee Patrick: Sorry, let me go back to the page on that.

[1:53:46] Trustee Patrick: It's on page 141.

[1:53:48] Trustee Patrick: It's called deliverables and milestones.

[1:53:52] Voice 5: Okay.

[1:53:54] Voice 5: I'm seeing the deliverables column in green.

[1:53:56] Voice 5: I don't see the word milestones.

[1:53:57] Trustee Patrick: It's underneath it, down below.

[1:53:59] Voice 5: Okay.

[1:54:00] Trustee Patrick: I guess it could be one of the bullets.

[1:54:04] Trustee Patrick: I don't know.

[1:54:04] Trustee Patrick: Oh, I'd be looking to staff for how best to have it.

[1:54:07] Trustee Patrick: I was

[1:54:07] Voice 5: looking at the

[1:54:08] Trustee Patrick: table that

[1:54:09] Voice 5: shows deliverables.

[1:54:11] Voice 5: Yes, deliverable and milestone.

[1:54:14] Voice 5: Yeah, so that would be a useful idea to put some what we heard communication, I suppose, with a date down there.

[1:54:29] Voice 5: But that would typically happen through the budget process.

[1:54:35] Voice 5: I'm going to go to our CAO now, Ruben Brony.

[1:54:38] Voice 2: Thanks, Chair.

[1:54:39] Voice 2: Yeah, I was just going to note that I think, and we can make it more specific in the Charter,

[1:54:44] Voice 2: but I think that report out on what we heard and how it was incorporated would be part

[1:54:48] Voice 2: of the communication about the adopted 26-27 budget, but it's a good flag, Trustee Patrick,

[1:54:54] Voice 2: that that's part of the messaging we would want to share in the release of the outcome

[1:54:58] Voice 2: of that budget process.

[1:55:00] Voice 2: Thank you.

[1:55:01] Voice 5: Very good.

[1:55:02] Voice 5: Thank you very much.

[1:55:03] Voice 5: And so we've heard that the staff are paying attention to that.

[1:55:07] Voice 5: And maybe you can keep an eye on that as the process rolls out, assuming that it does.

[1:55:12] Voice 5: I'm going to go to Trustee Boland first. Go ahead, Trustee Boland.

[1:55:18] Voice 6: Yeah, I am. I'm fairly familiar with the budget poll, et cetera, over the years.

[1:55:27] Voice 6: And it's great that we're tackling it earlier in the year,

[1:55:31] Voice 6: because that was one of my big critiques was that it was too late really to have any impact

[1:55:36] Voice 6: i like the description where it says about the survey that it's to gauge priorities and values

[1:55:44] Voice 6: to support decision making um and it says as they work to establish an annual budget but

[1:55:52] Voice 6: i'm just wondering if we actually should leave it more open that it's not just about the budget

[1:55:58] Voice 6: it it's about as you say here gauging priorities and values so that it supports decision making

[1:56:06] Voice 6: and then along with that um within the the entire um poll we haven't come to that yet but

[1:56:18] Voice 6: um i think we could make it more specific and break things out and we have a few kind of

[1:56:26] Voice 6: bundled questions which i um almost as though when we're in these discussions when people say

[1:56:34] Voice 6: make a motion and they say don't bundle things up because you know people may agree with items

[1:56:40] Voice 6: one and two but not with items three and four and some of the some parts of the um poll

[1:56:46] Voice 6: are a little bit bundled but we can come to that later so my question is should we uh like downplay

[1:56:54] Voice 6: or remove the budget piece

[1:56:57] Voice 6: and just say it's about establishing priorities

[1:57:00] Voice 6: to support decision-making.

[1:57:04] Voice 6: Thank you.

[1:57:05] Voice 5: Thank you, Trustee Boland.

[1:57:07] Voice 5: That's an interesting one,

[1:57:08] Voice 5: considering Trust Council has a strategic plan

[1:57:11] Voice 5: and there's other elements

[1:57:15] Voice 5: that you're thinking about using this evaluation.

[1:57:22] Voice 5: This is not an evaluation, this is a budget survey.

[1:57:25] Voice 5: uh, to inform. It doesn't stop us from doing that. Uh, but I'm going to take, um, other,

[1:57:33] Voice 5: uh, anybody want to, I've got a bunch of speakers on the list now, just a second. Let me,

[1:57:38] Voice 5: uh, catch up here. Okay. I think, um, I think it's come to us as financial planning committee.

[1:57:45] Voice 5: And, uh, if it's being designed around budget input, um, uh, that's just my view is leave.

[1:57:53] Voice 5: I wouldn't change the charter here unless we want to take it to Trust Council.

[1:57:57] Voice 5: Let's go on to Trustee Getty.

[1:58:01] Voice 12: Thank you.

[1:58:03] Voice 12: I think that feedback loop to the community is important.

[1:58:08] Voice 12: It also could be quite challenging depending on how much information we get from people

[1:58:14] Voice 12: and how we categorize it and refer to it.

[1:58:19] Voice 12: But it could come in in terms of the engagement input to financial planning committee for consideration.

[1:58:29] Voice 12: So that part of the deliverables could include feedback.

[1:58:33] Voice 12: But it'd be interesting to try and plan out what that would involve in terms of staff time and effort.

[1:58:41] Voice 12: It might be interesting to put a little note at the bottom of the survey in terms of do you want to get a copy of what our results are so that we narrow it down, or if we want to create something that is a more public-wide kind of briefing, which is basically what would have to come to FPC.

[1:59:02] Voice 12: But I think it's important, but I also think that it's daunting.

[1:59:08] Voice 12: Thank you.

[1:59:08] Voice 5: Thank you.

[1:59:09] Voice 5: you um uh trustee peterson thank

[1:59:16] Voice 9: you chair um so on page 138 there's a section which i'm very

[1:59:24] Voice 9: delighted to see which is a table uh showing average uh property value and and tax on average

[1:59:34] Voice 9: property and increase and i just want to say that i'm very much support this uh putting this in our

[1:59:42] Voice 9: our materials that go out this is something i've been hoping we could do for a long time

[1:59:46] Voice 9: very very happy to see this here and thank you director mobs i don't know how you did it but

[1:59:51] Voice 9: you did it uh and i think it's i think it's really helpful when people actually see what

[1:59:57] Voice 9: what does this mean we all get our

[2:00:00] Voice 9: tax bills. And I know based on the regional district, it can vary widely how easy it is to

[2:00:06] Voice 9: sort of parse out what parts you're paying for to which body. So I appreciate this. Thank you.

[2:00:14] Voice 5: Thank you, Trustee Peterson. And over to Trustee Elliott.

[2:00:20] Voice 19: Thank you, Chair. So before we move on from the charter, I do agree with Trustee Patrick that the

[2:00:25] Voice 19: deliverables should be amended should we perhaps vote on that and then I have

[2:00:32] Voice 19: three suggestions for the survey which I circulated to the committee and I know

[2:00:37] Voice 19: others have other suggestions so perhaps a resolution to amend the project

[2:00:46] Voice 19: deliverables to include what was your wording trustee Patrick it's

[2:00:54] Trustee Patrick: feedback on

[2:00:55] Trustee Patrick: how how we use the input to

[2:01:00] Voice 19: include feedback on how inputs will be used to

[2:01:05] Voice 19: inform decision-making on future budgets and

[2:01:09] Voice 5: are you proposing that for the green

[2:01:11] Voice 5: column or for the date table below I

[2:01:15] Voice 19: think it's the green column the

[2:01:17] Voice 19: deliverables general I

[2:01:23] Voice 5: don't know what else to call that except the green

[2:01:25] Voice 5: column what it is there a better uh proves graphics work in the bullet point deliverables

[2:01:38] Voice 5: something in green that's okay green column as long as everybody understands what we're

[2:01:47] Voice 5: talking about here on page uh and just to make sure we're all on page 141 uh and uh we've heard

[2:01:55] Voice 5: from uh the cao that this would be uh naturally part of it but if you wanted to confirm that make

[2:02:01] Voice 5: make it clear for everybody, then we have a motion on the floor. And can I see that motion,

[2:02:09] Voice 5: if you were able to capture that, Robert?

[2:02:14] Voice 13: No, I was not able to capture that. I didn't realize

[2:02:17] Voice 13: there was a motion being presented.

[2:02:19] Voice 19: Right. So, Trustee Patrick, perhaps you've got the wording.

[2:02:24] Voice 19: I do think there should be a motion if we're going to amend the charter.

[2:02:29] Trustee Patrick: I thought you were pretty close. So, I'm sorry, I wasn't working on the wording.

[2:02:33] Trustee Patrick: But go ahead.

[2:02:36] Trustee Patrick: I

[2:02:36] Voice 19: move that the project charter for the 2026-27 budget consultation public engagement project charter deliverables be amended to include how inputs from the survey will be used in future budget development.

[2:03:09] Voice 19: and welcome any suggestions before it's seconded.

[2:03:18] Voice 5: Any suggestions?

[2:03:19] Voice 5: Well, let's see when Robert has a chance to put that up

[2:03:23] Voice 5: and make it bigger and all the things that he does on fly very quickly.

[2:03:28] Voice 5: Thank you.

[2:03:38] Voice 5: Is that what you intended there, Trustee Elliott?

[2:03:44] Voice 19: Yes, it's clunky.

[2:03:46] Voice 19: Again, welcome any changes.

[2:03:49] Voice 5: Before it's seconded, I'm not seeing any hands.

[2:03:53] Voice 5: I

[2:03:53] Trustee Patrick: think the word is feedback.

[2:03:54] Voice 5: Go ahead, Laura.

[2:03:56] Trustee Patrick: to include how I guess input but it's how feedback from the survey I think we should

[2:04:02] Trustee Patrick: be consistent with the word feedback oh sorry yeah so it's to include how inputs I think it

[2:04:12] Trustee Patrick: should be how feedback from the survey was used will be used in future budget development

[2:04:18] Voice 5: I

[2:04:20] Trustee Patrick: think that would be better are you happy

[2:04:23] Voice 5: with that trustee Elliot

[2:04:24] Voice 6: absolutely okay or what about

[2:04:27] Voice 6: survey results because it's not just feedback really it's the results from

[2:04:33] Voice 6: this it's explicit the survey results yeah

[2:04:37] Voice 19: actually sorry a change how about

[2:04:40] Voice 19: just engagement from public engagement because that includes emails that the

[2:04:47] Voice 19: director of natural and employee services will get yes feedback from

[2:04:53] Voice 19: public engagement will be used in future budget development i think covers the range results will

[2:05:01] Voice 5: be used in future budget development so the word results is in there currently is that what you

[2:05:06] Voice 5: want i'm going to go to trustee or sorry to cao from mr brawny what's your comment thank you just

[2:05:16] Voice 2: a clarification because i if i if i heard trustee patrick correctly in her original point what she

[2:05:22] Voice 2: was seeking was a level of report out on how the survey results impacted the budget development

[2:05:31] Voice 2: so closing that loop to say you said this and you now see this reflected in our budget once

[2:05:37] Voice 2: it's released for 2627 and so i think the word the intent there was slightly different than

[2:05:42] Voice 2: than what's worded here which is actually to some extent probably will cap what has its word

[2:05:48] Voice 2: it would be captured in our communication which is we will do the survey and this is how it will

[2:05:52] Voice 2: be used in budget development but i think what trustee patrick was seeking was a more of a report

[2:05:56] Voice 2: out on the results of the feedback and how that connects to the decisions that they see in the

[2:06:03] Voice 2: budget and so i think um the wording there is a little bit different i would it would probably

[2:06:08] Voice 2: be to reflect that would be more like how um feedback from the public engagement um informed

[2:06:15] Voice 2: formed the 26-27 budget decisions.

[2:06:23] Voice 5: I'm seeing nodding from Trustee Elliot

[2:06:24] Voice 5: who's making this motion.

[2:06:27] Voice 5: I'm seeing nodding from Trustee Patrick.

[2:06:29] Voice 5: I'm seeing nodding from Trustee Boland.

[2:06:35] Voice 5: We, I'm still, I'm holding here.

[2:06:39] Voice 5: Any more hands going up?

[2:06:40] Voice 5: Are you happy with this as the mover, Trustee Elliot?

[2:06:45] Voice 5: Leah?

[2:06:47] Voice 19: Yes, I do think that

[2:06:49] Voice 5: was good. Then that's great. We're going to just put this last word in

[2:06:54] Voice 5: here. And he's going to put it back on the Roberts just inserting. Very good. And so do I

[2:07:06] Voice 5: have a seconder? Thank you. Trustee Patrick is seconding the motion. And any more discussion

[2:07:17] Voice 5: on this motion and we have

[2:07:22] Voice 5: an extra project trustee getty yeah

[2:07:25] Voice 12: can we yes can we just

[2:07:28] Voice 12: wordsmith it a bit to take out the we just did thanks thank

[2:07:33] Voice 5: you and uh trustee boland was that

[2:07:35] Voice 5: your comment as well thank you i'm seeing nodding um is there any more uh discussion

[2:07:43] Voice 5: or shall i call i'm going to call the question all those in favor please raise your hands

[2:07:48] Voice 5: take your thank you that's uh whoa there we go um that's most of us uh i'm hoping somebody's

[2:08:00] Voice 5: counting here take your hands down please and then uh all those uh opposed thank you everybody

[2:08:09] Voice 5: that passes unanimously um so now we're going to add the words as amended to the bottom of the draft

[2:08:15] Voice 5: uh recommendation there but i'll go on uh i think i still had uh laura patrick

[2:08:22] Voice 5: on the on my list laura did you have something else you wanted to uh say about the um no no

[2:08:30] Voice 5: okay i have a couple of things shall i go through my couple of things um i'm going to uh just

[2:08:38] Voice 5: suggest that uh on page 148 sorry the cats are invading again here um uh 148 there's the word

[2:08:47] Voice 5: uh encompasses and uh i think uh that one a point of order chair you're moved on to the next agenda

[2:08:54] Voice 5: item oh gosh thank you very much distracted by cats okay so we've got the project charter in

[2:09:03] Voice 5: front of us thank you very much

[2:09:04] Voice 17: ah

[2:09:06] Voice 5: these are young cats my apologies um they're learning the ways of

[2:09:11] Voice 5: of desks and Zoom, and so am I, apparently.

[2:09:17] Voice 17: So

[2:09:18] Voice 5: I'm adding the words as amended

[2:09:21] Voice 5: to the end of the draft motion

[2:09:25] Voice 5: that's on our cover sheet here on page three.

[2:09:29] Voice 5: And I'm wondering if there's any other amendments

[2:09:33] Voice 5: that people would like to make to the project charter.

[2:09:38] Voice 5: Hearing none, can I have somebody,

[2:09:41] Voice 5: anybody oh go ahead tim peterson yeah

[2:09:48] Voice 9: um just wanted a clarity before we move on

[2:09:51] Voice 9: for the inclusion of the um of the average uh tax piece uh does that need to be in the charter

[2:10:02] Voice 9: or can we just do that in the survey itself and i just looked to probably director mobs or maybe

[2:10:08] Voice 9: it's morgana i'm not sure i don't want

[2:10:11] Voice 9: to miss it i think it should be in there very good point

[2:10:13] Voice 5: Thank you. I didn't see it in the draft. So Morgana, can that be assumed to be included,

[2:10:20] Voice 5: or would you like a particular motion?

[2:10:23] Voice 7: So this table is in the survey, but in a graphic

[2:10:28] Voice 7: representation of two houses. So it is in the survey.

[2:10:32] Voice 5: Okay. Thank you. Does that answer your question, Tim? Okay.

[2:10:40] Voice 5: Okay, and I'm

[2:10:41] Voice 9: just going to go look for it. I just I kind of like this table look, but I'm going to go double check the survey itself and see how it is.

[2:10:50] Voice 5: Okay, I'll come back to you then. I've got Trustee Boland and Trustee Patrick next and then I'll come back to Tim. Go ahead, Trustee Boland.

[2:10:59] Voice 5: it

[2:11:01] Voice 6: might be just a copy and paste from an earlier one but on page 139 is in the financial

[2:11:10] Voice 6: piece it talks about a webinar honorarium and i was just wondering what that would involve because

[2:11:18] Voice 6: i know the webinar was provided by allen's trust staff i'm just curious as to what that might be

[2:11:25] Voice 6: thanks that's

[2:11:28] Voice 5: a question for morgana i believe uh do you know that answer um i think i

[2:11:34] Voice 7: do um

[2:11:36] Voice 7: we would either have someone who is not a staff person um lead the webinar or it is for a welcome

[2:11:45] Voice 7: um that we try and do at the beginning of most webinars i'm not 100 sure exactly who it's for

[2:11:52] Voice 7: but it's either one of those right thank

[2:11:56] Voice 5: you yeah uh first nations welcome possibly uh anybody else

[2:12:03] Voice 5: have on the staff have more info than that uh hearing none okay i hope that answers your

[2:12:09] Voice 5: question trustee bowlin and feel free to bring this up again when we come to trust council

[2:12:13] Voice 5: um uh laura patrick i

[2:12:17] Trustee Patrick: wanted to revisit the question that trustee peterson was referring to

[2:12:20] Trustee Patrick: the survey in this and this project charter that we're discussing is about input for next year's

[2:12:28] Trustee Patrick: budget yet this information on the table in the expenditure per average household is about

[2:12:34] Trustee Patrick: this year's budget so um i'm just i'm we will discuss in a moment what should or shouldn't

[2:12:42] Trustee Patrick: be in that survey but this information should be in our communications for this year's budget

[2:12:49] Trustee Patrick: It's sort of leading up to March of, you know, when we vote on it so that our community has this kind of information.

[2:12:56] Trustee Patrick: So is that intended to happen?

[2:13:01] Voice 5: Or maybe we could make a motion to forward this particular information to Trust Council.

[2:13:09] Voice 5: I'm wondering, does anybody have the answer to that question?

[2:13:14] Voice 5: question uh director mobs you know is this uh table i'm looking at at 138 uh and the ones just

[2:13:21] Voice 5: above it that had info about bowen island municipality uh somewhere in there yeah those

[2:13:27] Voice 5: two can they um will those be going to trust council director mobs i'm wondering if this is

[2:13:39] Voice 5: something that would help i think

[2:13:41] Voice 12: it's morgana oh

[2:13:44] Voice 16: i can respond to this piece about uh because i

[2:13:47] Voice 16: think it's it's a different question it's not a question related to the survey it's a question

[2:13:51] Voice 16: about whether or not this data that's showing up in the survey will travel to trust council in the

[2:13:55] Voice 16: current year for budget discussions for next fiscal um so absolutely this information um can

[2:14:01] Voice 16: be added to our budget information uh for next financial planning committee and also for trust

[2:14:05] Voice 16: council um so this is the first year where um i've actually received information from bowen

[2:14:12] Voice 16: Island staff about what our island's trust tax levy might look like for the average homeowner

[2:14:17] Voice 16: on Bowen Island. So it's really excellent information to have. And that's how we've

[2:14:22] Voice 16: been able to provide it for Bowen Island in this year. So absolutely, that's intended

[2:14:27] Voice 16: for next budget update. The piece for local trust areas is a little more complicated because of

[2:14:33] Voice 16: course, we don't administer our own taxation. It's the provincial surveyor who takes care of

[2:14:37] Voice 16: our taxation, which means we don't have tax rates in the budget cycle. I have requested

[2:14:44] Voice 16: from the provincial surveyor if we could get estimates earlier, you know, prior to our budget

[2:14:50] Voice 16: approval, and the response has been no. I think there's a possibility to come up with an estimate,

[2:14:59] Voice 16: but it would truly be much more of an estimate that I would like to provide, simply because we

[2:15:05] Voice 16: don't have those tax rates um but if it's simply to sort of show trends um we can we can make that

[2:15:12] Voice 16: happen so short answer yes thank

[2:15:16] Voice 5: you is that your intent uh trustee patrick to have it inform this

[2:15:21] Voice 5: year's budget cycle those two tables and you're hearing from yes

[2:15:25] Voice 5: because i mean

[2:15:25] Trustee Patrick: we're not doing

[2:15:26] Trustee Patrick: a survey this year and i think this is some of the information that uh you know the press i'm

[2:15:30] Trustee Patrick: sure is probably listening to this meeting as we speak um you know because this is all important

[2:15:35] Trustee Patrick: important information. So I understand the challenges and I certainly wish I was paying

[2:15:41] Trustee Patrick: what was shown on this table for Islands Trust. I know I'm not, it's significantly higher, but

[2:15:48] Trustee Patrick: you know, that we have as best of information or we put the caveats necessary to make sure it's

[2:15:53] Trustee Patrick: being described appropriately, but for this year's budget somehow in our communications.

[2:16:01] Trustee Patrick: Okay.

[2:16:02] Voice 5: Thank you. I think we heard from the director that she can make that information

[2:16:06] Voice 5: come to trust council uh probably through our next uh financial planning committee meeting

[2:16:12] Voice 5: and next i've got tim peterson you're back uh

[2:16:20] Voice 9: thank you chair although i do see trustee getty's

[2:16:23] Voice 9: hand up but i'll just barge ahead here um so uh i did have a look at the survey uh the this this

[2:16:30] Voice 9: piece i'm talking about in the survey and so um which brought to mind what i i think i really

[2:16:36] Voice 9: wanted to see which is can we get this uh information on um the tax notices themselves

[2:16:45] Voice 9: that was that's where i was actually i think i've been banging the drum on that piece um

[2:16:54] Voice 9: and i don't know if that's uh morgana's uh department or if that's director mobs but

[2:17:02] Voice 9: So

[2:17:02] Voice 5: let's ask Director Moffitt.

[2:17:04] Voice 5: I'd love

[2:17:04] Voice 9: to see this.

[2:17:06] Voice 5: Okay.

[2:17:06] Voice 5: Is it possible to put this on the tax notices?

[2:17:09] Voice 5: I think Islands Trust doesn't make the tax notices,

[2:17:13] Voice 5: but over to you, Director Moffitt.

[2:17:16] Voice 16: So we do craft the tax notices and the provincial survey

[2:17:21] Voice 16: or then make sure it's included with tax notices

[2:17:24] Voice 16: to be mailed out across the trust area.

[2:17:26] Voice 16: There are limitations to the size of the document,

[2:17:30] Voice 16: and so we have to be very intentional about what information

[2:17:33] Voice 16: we want to share but whatever information that we have that we think is valuable to share we can

[2:17:37] Voice 16: absolutely include um i know morgana and claire work primarily on that piece of work so i would

[2:17:44] Voice 16: look to morgana to see if she's got additional comments

[2:17:46] Voice 5: morgana yes

[2:17:48] Voice 7: i do we are redesigning

[2:17:50] Voice 7: the tax notice of it this year and it will include um this this graphic in some way

[2:17:58] Voice 5: Very good. Thank you. I hope that answers your question, Tim. Okay, sorry. I'm sorry to have

[2:18:06] Voice 5: jumped over you, Trustee Getty. I had my notes wrong. What do you?

[2:18:13] Voice 12: So I don't have any problems with the charter, but in terms of the actual information that's

[2:18:21] Voice 12: included in the survey like this chart and the graphic that's in the, I think it's page

[2:18:30] Voice 12: 149 of the agenda. But the numbers are confusing for Bowen. So, you know, there's a decrease in

[2:18:37] Voice 12: the average residential property value and an increase in the typical tax on average property.

[2:18:44] Voice 12: So I think that because it's difficult to understand and it's difficult to explain that

[2:18:50] Voice 12: We have to be careful. And I'd like to try and sort that out in terms of both Bowen people understanding and other people in the trust understanding what the, I guess, the kinks are in terms of becoming a municipality and having a whole lot of your own departments that deal with half of this stuff.

[2:19:15] Voice 5: I understand that. Can we hold that thought until we're on that part of the agenda? Unless you have wording that you want to put into the project charter to reflect that or make a motion that the...

[2:19:31] Voice 12: Okay, I need to get out of this screen and into the agenda.

[2:19:37] Voice 12: All right, I will try to get back to that.

[2:19:41] Voice 5: Okay, I'm going to go to Trustee Elliott.

[2:19:46] Voice 19: I'd just like to deal with the Charter. So I move that Financial Planning Committee approve the 2026-27 Budget Public Engagement Project Charter as amended.

[2:19:56] Voice 5: Thank you. And do I have a seconder? I see David Graham. Thank you, Trustee Graham. Any more discussion on the Project Charter? Okay, seeing no hands go up, then I'm going to call the question. All those in favour of the motion? Thank you.

[2:20:22] Voice 5: That looks pretty good. Okay, I see nine. Take your hands down, please. Anybody opposed?

[2:20:34] Voice 5: Nope, that passed unanimously. Thank you very much. And we're moving on now to 9.1.2. This is

[2:20:43] Voice 5: page 145 of the agenda. And looking for suggestions, I think, Trustee Getty, are you ready?

[2:20:55] Voice 5: or do you want me to come back to you okay i'm going to put myself on the list and then uh toby

[2:21:03] Voice 5: elliott um i just had a couple of things one was that one about page 148 the word encompasses

[2:21:09] Voice 5: i think uh just needs some uh work there it's it's right under the number five i'm a member

[2:21:19] Voice 5: of first nation and whose territory encompasses the islands trust area just needs to be a different

[2:21:24] Voice 5: word because encompasses means surrounded or something like that i just wanted to flag that

[2:21:29] Voice 5: um but that's a minor thing uh the figures on in 6a and 6b um i'm with the trustee getty on this

[2:21:42] Voice 5: one uh if they could say except bim or including bim um like 6a says in the islands trust area do

[2:21:56] Voice 5: do you think funding for local land use planning services

[2:21:58] Voice 5: should be increased, decreased, stay the same,

[2:22:00] Voice 5: that kind of thing?

[2:22:02] Voice 5: It just needs to say, or how,

[2:22:05] Voice 5: I guess my question is, Morgana,

[2:22:07] Voice 5: how do you want to separate out people from Bowen Island?

[2:22:09] Voice 5: Will they just not see parts of this survey

[2:22:13] Voice 5: if they click the Bowen Island button at the top?

[2:22:18] Voice 5: Or will you say, if you're from Bowen Island,

[2:22:20] Voice 5: skip this question?

[2:22:21] Voice 5: Or did you have an idea about that?

[2:22:23] Voice 5: um

[2:22:25] Voice 7: it is definitely an option that if you click bow and you would skip some questions skip ahead

[2:22:31] Voice 7: um and i can build the survey that way um but it hasn't been reflected that way in this word

[2:22:37] Voice 7: document okay

[2:22:38] Voice 5: it just needs some fine-tuning there um around uh um some of them bowen islanders will

[2:22:48] Voice 5: have a completely different context in their mind when they're uh answering those questions

[2:22:52] Voice 5: that would be great and my third question uh would be 6c um will the islands trust

[2:23:03] Voice 5: conservancy board have access or to give input into this survey as well or is it just financial

[2:23:12] Voice 5: planning committee um i'm just wondering if this the the text will islands trust conservancy board

[2:23:19] Voice 5: or staff who will be looking at this on behalf of the islands trust conservancy or is that you

[2:23:24] Voice 5: you as well. Morgana?

[2:23:28] Voice 7: It would not be me. I see Trustee Elliot waving. I'm not sure if she has

[2:23:33] Voice 7: something to add there. Trustee Elliot?

[2:23:38] Voice 19: I think, well, as the Conservancy representative,

[2:23:42] Voice 19: and if Susan Yates were here, this is our input, because I think the Islands Trust collects

[2:23:50] Voice 19: um the fee levy on behalf of the conservancy programs it's probably the body that is doing

[2:23:56] Voice 19: the survey um i'm just going to keep my hand up because i had another yes

[2:24:01] Voice 5: i've got my input yes

[2:24:02] Voice 5: thanks i've got you on the list too yeah thank you i just uh it just looked to me like sort of a

[2:24:07] Voice 5: uh a description one like it's like okay thank you you you've reminded me that there are two

[2:24:16] Voice 5: representatives on the Conservancy Board on this committee. Thank you. Okay, go ahead, Toby,

[2:24:21] Voice 5: what's your input?

[2:24:23] Voice 19: Okay, so I had two additional questions that I thought we could consider,

[2:24:29] Voice 19: which I circulated to the committee, and one small note. So I'll go to the first one, which is

[2:24:35] Voice 19: a question. Could we add, and I know Director Bob's probably going to say no, because it's

[2:24:42] Voice 19: an average that you don't want to commit to. But the top of page 149, the portion going to

[2:24:49] Voice 19: the Islands Trust from the total property tax bill, I've heard in previous meetings that it's

[2:24:55] Voice 19: typically around 15%. Would it be helpful to add that if that is an average? I think it would be

[2:25:06] Voice 19: great if it is and if not um perhaps it's not helpful um so that's my first question

[2:25:14] Voice 19: and then i had two others let's

[2:25:18] Voice 5: see what uh director mobs has to say about your first

[2:25:23] Voice 5: question about the average go ahead director

[2:25:30] Voice 4: all right i

[2:25:30] Voice 16: was double muted i was double muted

[2:25:32] Voice 16: took me a moment to figure that out um to understand what percentage of a total tax bill

[2:25:40] Voice 16: the islands trust levy is means we have to understand how much is being levied from all

[2:25:46] Voice 16: other agencies that are billing trust residents and we don't have that information um you know

[2:25:55] Voice 16: at the time that we would need it so you know and i don't know how accurate that 15 percent would be

[2:26:01] Voice 16: i've not heard that or seen that or you know seen what sort of data supports it so i couldn't say

[2:26:08] Voice 16: with any confidence that we could give a solid estimate on that i

[2:26:12] Voice 19: just had it as a thing in my

[2:26:14] Voice 19: notes so i will delete that um okay your next one yeah the the question i was suggesting that we add

[2:26:22] Voice 19: is around guidelines so a suggestion to list the budget guidelines that were established by trust

[2:26:30] Voice 19: Trust Council, to guide the budget development, i.e. funding governance projects, communications,

[2:26:38] Voice 19: reconciliation. There are a few that we landed on that helped direct where we were going to spend

[2:26:47] Voice 19: money, strategic plan projects as well. Do you agree with these guidelines or would like Trust

[2:26:54] Voice 19: Council to consider additional or different guidelines to guide the budgeting process?

[2:26:57] Voice 19: process and this to me is kind of getting I think what trustee Boland was saying is

[2:27:04] Voice 19: can we get some more information on trust council priorities but this is the link is where we're

[2:27:12] Voice 19: setting guidelines through the budget process so if this question could be helpful I think

[2:27:18] Voice 19: um that could be added the second one I thought has to do with the website

[2:27:27] Voice 19: and we've talked about this before when we get information from constituents this should inform

[2:27:38] Voice 19: well let me put it another way we are getting questions from constituents that are asking for

[2:27:44] Voice 19: a great deal more detail in expenses in particular than we have on the website right now so

[2:27:51] Voice 19: So, what level of budget information do you want to see on the website with a link to that section of the website? Budget highlights, a general overview of the approved annual budget, budget detail, expenses broken out, budget cycle development timeline.

[2:28:10] Voice 19: timeline, we could put all of the briefings that have come to us and are accurate and

[2:28:17] Voice 19: up to date, if constituents want it, it might be a bit much.

[2:28:23] Voice 19: So that's why a question on the survey as to what kind of information the public wants

[2:28:29] Voice 19: to see could be helpful.

[2:28:31] Voice 19: And how much.

[2:28:32] Voice 19: And how much of it, yeah.

[2:28:34] Voice 19: So those are my two suggestions.

[2:28:36] Voice 5: Okay.

[2:28:37] Voice 5: Okay, so those are just suggestions for staff.

[2:28:39] Voice 5: And I can see Morgana's got her head down writing.

[2:28:42] Voice 5: And

[2:28:42] Voice 19: is this Robert tracking this so that we can vote on them?

[2:28:47] Voice 19: Or is, yeah, like, how are we going to decide, Chair?

[2:28:55] Voice 5: I think I see Morgana taking notes.

[2:29:00] Voice 5: I think we're providing input in our comments.

[2:29:04] Voice 5: the um there's it's not a we're not passing anything today there's not a uh a motion to be

[2:29:14] Voice 5: made with this one it's a briefing so i think uh from what i understood at the beginning there

[2:29:19] Voice 5: morgana correct me if i'm wrong but you're you're collecting ideas and input at this point so i

[2:29:26] Voice 5: think she's collected yours uh and uh um she's the one taking the notes i think am i correct there

[2:29:36] Voice 5: or Robert, are you taking notes as well? I am taking notes. Okay. And I'll share my notes

[2:29:43] Voice 13: with Morgana as well afterwards.

[2:29:45] Voice 5: Thank you. I hope that's clear enough for folks. And we're

[2:29:50] Voice 5: going to move on now. I've got a number of hands. Laura Patrick, Trustee Patrick.

[2:29:56] Trustee Patrick: Thank you. I have quite a few comments.

[2:30:00] Trustee Patrick: uh starting with what are we going to call this thing proposed budget um because it isn't the

[2:30:06] Trustee Patrick: proposed budget that we'll be surveying on because we won't have a proposed budget yet we're we're

[2:30:11] Trustee Patrick: surveying on information to inform the proposed budget um i note that the district of sanich

[2:30:18] Trustee Patrick: calls theirs their resident pulse pulse survey but uh maybe that's a little too racy but um

[2:30:25] Trustee Patrick: we should give it another name because it really is about getting them,

[2:30:29] Trustee Patrick: you know, feedback from the community on how, how they're feeling. So

[2:30:34] Trustee Patrick: I'm, I think we need to find a better name than calling it proposed budget.

[2:30:40] Trustee Patrick: And then in the section on where we do start,

[2:30:43] Trustee Patrick: that where it does say proposed budget on page 148.

[2:30:48] Trustee Patrick: I think we, we owe it.

[2:30:50] Trustee Patrick: we need to do communications and education on every survey we do. People do not understand

[2:30:59] Trustee Patrick: federation versus local. They're living in the local world. So I really recommend that we change

[2:31:06] Trustee Patrick: that section to be either Islands Trust budget process or financial planning at the Islands

[2:31:12] Trustee Patrick: Trust. Make it something a bit more informational. And the District of Saanich has an entire little

[2:31:20] Trustee Patrick: little piece that they have, what's called understanding how financial planning works

[2:31:23] Trustee Patrick: in Saanich. I think that's a good document to use as guidance as to the kind of the level

[2:31:29] Trustee Patrick: of material and to be able to explain, you know, this, this hierarchy and different, you know,

[2:31:38] Trustee Patrick: where, where, how, why we're different and what goes into our budget and so forth. But

[2:31:44] Trustee Patrick: I really encourage folks to look at that document, understanding how financial planning works in

[2:31:49] Trustee Patrick: Saanich. Can

[2:31:51] Voice 5: you provide a link?

[2:31:53] Trustee Patrick: I'd be happy to. District of Saanich, I mine them regularly for

[2:31:59] Trustee Patrick: their financial stuff. And District of Saanich was also the district we chose for the corporate

[2:32:05] Trustee Patrick: planning model that our framework is built on. So it is relevant. When we get to programs and

[2:32:14] Trustee Patrick: service values, I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done in this section. Having

[2:32:19] Trustee Patrick: having three big clunky or four big clunky questions or whatever of do more or do less

[2:32:23] Trustee Patrick: at your local, your federation or the Island, you know, Island's Trust Conservancy. Again,

[2:32:28] Trustee Patrick: we're communicating with people who didn't even know the Island's Trust Conservancy existed,

[2:32:31] Trustee Patrick: or they didn't know there was federation stuff versus local. So I think we need to get far more

[2:32:38] Trustee Patrick: granular in the questions that we're asking split, you know, we need to split local services,

[2:32:45] Trustee Patrick: have a section on local services we should have a section on federation services

[2:32:50] Trustee Patrick: or give it another name if we you know people can think of but um area

[2:32:55] Voice 5: wide yeah yeah area

[2:32:57] Trustee Patrick: something whatever word works that people can relate to and then on on under local services

[2:33:03] Trustee Patrick: don't have do more or less under local services break down each item you know proactive community

[2:33:09] Trustee Patrick: planning, more or less, or do the same of that. Application processing, more or less, or do the

[2:33:15] Trustee Patrick: same. So I think we need to break out each of those communications, public engagement,

[2:33:19] Trustee Patrick: bylaw enforcement. I would even put intergovernmental coordination at the local

[2:33:24] Trustee Patrick: level because we need to be coordinating on the local level with our regional districts,

[2:33:30] Trustee Patrick: our improvement districts, and things of that nature, and more or less of that. So I really

[2:33:37] Trustee Patrick: encourage us to break that down same with federation what is it that really is federation

[2:33:42] Trustee Patrick: job you know if we be clear because i look at legislative services do more or less of

[2:33:47] Trustee Patrick: legislative services we need to find a way to put that into understandable work

[2:33:56] Trustee Patrick: or if we aren't asking if we do more or less of legislative services don't put it in there it

[2:34:01] Trustee Patrick: It should be, how do we describe what it is at the federation that we want to do more

[2:34:07] Trustee Patrick: or less of and how that input would work?

[2:34:11] Trustee Patrick: I believe we should have a meetings category on its own.

[2:34:15] Trustee Patrick: You know, should LTCs meet more or less?

[2:34:19] Trustee Patrick: You know, should trust counsel meet more or less?

[2:34:20] Trustee Patrick: This is where we could put, do you want us meeting virtually or in person?

[2:34:25] Trustee Patrick: And I think there's a whole group of questions of, you know, are you informed about meetings?

[2:34:31] Trustee Patrick: Where do you get your information?

[2:34:32] Trustee Patrick: about meetings? You know, where do you hear about what we do in meetings? I think so there's some

[2:34:38] Trustee Patrick: lots of questions that we could ask related to just even the meeting section. Islands Trust

[2:34:45] Trustee Patrick: Conservancy, I think there too, it should be broken down and I'm not the one qualified to do that.

[2:34:51] Trustee Patrick: And then for the importance of priorities, I think the priority piece could be restructured

[2:34:55] Trustee Patrick: and be under each of those categories. There should be a priorities piece under local,

[2:34:58] Trustee Patrick: priority piece under federation and a priority piece under um trust conservancy and that you

[2:35:05] Trustee Patrick: know they they be massaged better um i have lots of uh lots of suggestions i'd like to make on the

[2:35:11] Trustee Patrick: wording in that priority piece there because i think some of it is just not relatable and i think

[2:35:16] Trustee Patrick: um um that would be important than to this morning i took even more notes what did i have um

[2:35:22] Trustee Patrick: um can

[2:35:23] Voice 5: i come back to you sure because i've got a speaker's list and we'll pay better attention if

[2:35:30] Voice 5: we break it up a little bit that thank you very much for your uh input there and i'm going to go

[2:35:35] Voice 5: to um uh morgana did you have any questions about any of that or you're taking the input

[2:35:41] Voice 5: um that was kind of a a lot of input

[2:35:46] Voice 7: i'm taking this down and when i didn't understand something

[2:35:50] Voice 7: I'm making a note to follow up okay afterwards great okay thank

[2:35:54] Voice 5: you trustee Boland hi

[2:35:57] Voice 6: uh thank

[2:35:59] Voice 6: you trustee Patrick you said much of what I wanted to say which is please can we break out

[2:36:08] Voice 6: that section and what is it number six uh the programs and services break it out into separate

[2:36:16] Voice 6: separate questions on the different large elements, then within each of those elements

[2:36:22] Voice 6: have the specifics listed and ask indeed for priorities. And then I would suggest that

[2:36:30] Voice 6: questions seven and eight, what do you think goes well? What do you think could be improved on?

[2:36:36] Voice 6: That should be underneath each of those sections. I have a question which is

[2:36:44] Voice 6: more generically than that um so can we embed links within the questions to take people to

[2:36:54] Voice 6: the website if you think okay because some of the stuff is a bit long-winded but i don't know

[2:36:59] Voice 6: how to communicate it better but

[2:37:01] Voice 5: we do have on

[2:37:02] Voice 6: the websites

[2:37:03] Voice 5: one second please uh trustee boland

[2:37:05] Voice 5: i think i'm going to go to morgana for this i thought i saw something in the text about

[2:37:09] Voice 5: about web links would be included.

[2:37:11] Voice 5: Morgana, can you clarify that before we go on?

[2:37:13] Voice 5: Yeah.

[2:37:14] Voice 7: Yes.

[2:37:15] Voice 7: So you can include web links,

[2:37:18] Voice 7: but if you get into the survey as a respondent,

[2:37:23] Voice 7: including web links does pop out a new window

[2:37:27] Voice 7: or it moves you out of the survey.

[2:37:29] Voice 7: And if you leave the survey,

[2:37:31] Voice 7: you cannot go back through the same link.

[2:37:34] Voice 7: So that is a bit of a challenge.

[2:37:36] Voice 7: challenge um the plan is to have a landing page on the website which links to all of the different

[2:37:43] Voice 7: documents all the different things

[2:37:46] Voice 7: you might need to educate yourself and then begin the survey just

[2:37:49] Voice 7: because it can be a bit clunky so

[2:37:52] Voice 6: the okay fair enough thank you um the thing is we have another

[2:37:57] Voice 6: meeting on february the 19th and i think uh it would be fantastic if we could have another round

[2:38:06] Voice 6: at this on an updated version because I think people have a lot of ideas and in this conversation

[2:38:13] Voice 6: we will um you know suggest things to each other I think uh in February that would be fabulous I

[2:38:21] Voice 6: also think that um it's maybe an opportunity for Morgana to host a volunteers whoever wants to

[2:38:31] Voice 6: show up little work group session so we can really brainstorm because i think this material and this

[2:38:38] Voice 6: opportunity is really valuable and we shouldn't do it in a rush and we should really take time

[2:38:45] Voice 6: to um to make it as good as it possibly can be so we do have a little time and february the 19th

[2:38:52] Voice 6: might be a time when we could spend some more time but in the meantime maybe morgana you know

[2:38:58] Voice 6: know I'd be glad to join a meeting and and really go through it with you thank you that's what this

[2:39:04] Voice 5: committee's all about we're starting it today uh looking at the timelines there on page 141 it

[2:39:09] Voice 5: looks like we uh are uh in good time and then we'll probably see this a few times would that

[2:39:16] Voice 5: be true to say yeah yeah in the so yeah in

[2:39:20] Voice 6: the timeline it skips from today though to April

[2:39:22] Voice 6: and that's worrying me a little bit.

[2:39:24] Voice 6: So that's what I'm kind of trying to adjust.

[2:39:28] Voice 6: Thank you.

[2:39:29] Voice 5: Would we see it before mid-April

[2:39:33] Voice 5: when it's promoting the webinar, Morgana?

[2:39:35] Voice 7: We would bring the survey back for your next meeting.

[2:39:39] Voice 5: Yes, thank you.

[2:39:40] Voice 5: That's perfect clarity.

[2:39:44] Voice 5: Anything else more, Marie,

[2:39:46] Voice 5: or can I move on to Peter Luckham?

[2:39:49] Voice 6: That's fine, thank you.

[2:39:50] Voice 5: Thank you.

[2:39:51] Voice 5: Thank you. Peter Luckham, I saw your hand up earlier. I guess it's down now. So, I'm going to move on.

[2:39:59] Trustee Luckham: I have nothing further to say.

[2:40:01] Voice 5: Okay. Judy Getty.

[2:40:03] Voice 5: Thank

[2:40:06] Voice 12: you. The earlier survey, I think it was 2022. There's a lot of really good information in that. And in terms of Laura's point about what's the federation and what's local, there was a graph on page 159 of this agenda that is possibly something.

[2:40:27] Voice 12: And there's a whole lot of the descriptions and the depth of the questions kind of getting at the style that Laura was talking about, different questions.

[2:40:38] Voice 12: But I think that if that earlier survey could inform expanding out some of these areas, I, like Laura, I found the questions that were under 6, A, B, and C to be very general.

[2:40:55] Voice 12: And the answers that were allowed were very broad. And I don't know that that's going to be reliable or valuable information that we get from that. And I think that the precedent of the earlier survey is quite helpful in terms of breaking it out and expanding on it.

[2:41:14] Voice 12: I also think that the paragraph that's under, that Laura referred to on page 148, that's the first one underneath the title, proposed 26-27 budget, that needs a fair amount of work.

[2:41:29] Voice 12: I have trouble with how little is in there and how broad it is in terms of possibly just changing works to preserve and protect so many islands and the surrounding waters with.

[2:41:44] Voice 12: And then there's a list.

[2:41:45] Voice 12: The next sentence says that we consult with all the people that we serve.

[2:41:49] Voice 12: and I think that has to be tempered with this is the you know we accept letters and emails but

[2:42:00] Voice 12: it's also basically through surveys like this it's not a in-depth consultation in terms of

[2:42:06] Voice 12: going through every budget I don't think or at least we have to be careful how we spell that out

[2:42:13] Voice 5: I've got the CAO's hand up. Can I go to him and then come back to you, Judy?

[2:42:18] Voice 5: Yeah.

[2:42:18] Voice 5: Okay. Go ahead.

[2:42:20] Voice 2: Thank you, Chair. I think just to Trustee Getty's question, I'll invite Morgana to

[2:42:23] Voice 2: comment if she has anything to add. This was part of the conversation that Director Fraider and I

[2:42:29] Voice 2: had around the preparation of this draft was that the experience from the previous iteration was

[2:42:35] Voice 2: that having, to some extent, the more granular level of questions didn't generate much in the

[2:42:41] Voice 2: the way of substantive response and some of the feedback was that I don't it's too much detail

[2:42:47] Voice 2: and I don't understand what all these things are so they're they're we're trying to strike a balance

[2:42:51] Voice 2: here between enough that it's useful um well also to your point oh we'd also don't want to be so

[2:42:58] Voice 2: high level that it's you know it also doesn't serve its purpose and so I think there was a bit

[2:43:02] Voice 2: of an effort made in this draft to try and find a bit of a middle ground we can certainly you know

[2:43:07] Voice 2: navigate where that where that line lands but that that just to give you a bit of context for

[2:43:12] Voice 2: why it's not as detailed on some of the questions but um i don't know if morgana you want to add any

[2:43:18] Voice 2: anything to that but certainly we can we can revisit that my other comment would be

[2:43:23] Voice 2: making sure that whatever additions we make are really around the budget pieces and around areas

[2:43:31] Voice 2: is where this committee and trust council will be open to making potential adjustments on budget

[2:43:38] Voice 2: based on on public feedback right and so they're you know where you know you have discretion to

[2:43:45] Voice 2: to manage the budget as you choose and so you you know should invite feedback where you where

[2:43:50] Voice 2: you're open to and welcoming to consider changes to it and areas where um where you're going to

[2:43:56] Voice 2: to exercise your decision-making regardless of the feedback or maybe not ones that it's worth

[2:44:01] Voice 2: canvassing on thanks thank

[2:44:04] Voice 5: you and morgana did you have anything to add there um

[2:44:08] Voice 7: yes uh just to

[2:44:11] Voice 7: repeat the idea of the landing page which offers those people who do want to do a really deep dive

[2:44:18] Voice 7: the opportunity to go and read up as much as they like before the survey is helpful um in terms of

[2:44:25] Voice 7: of accessibility we want to hear from as many people as we can um and not everybody has the time

[2:44:32] Voice 7: or the interest into um a really long survey so this is why we've tried to find a balance so that

[2:44:40] Voice 7: it's still something that someone an everyday person could want to complete um and for those

[2:44:47] Voice 7: who have a lot of a lot of interest those those resources are still there thank

[2:44:52] Voice 5: you i think we're

[2:44:53] Voice 5: We're hearing that there's quite a bit of design, careful thought going into this already.

[2:45:01] Voice 5: And so I'm going to come back to Councilor Getty, you, or sorry, Trustee Getty.

[2:45:08] Voice 5: Were you finished your comments there?

[2:45:10] Voice 12: Well, if I may, just in response to that, maybe if we had some choices then in terms of whether or not somebody wants to do a high level or detailed.

[2:45:19] Voice 12: detailed, so that we can, you know, like the census, break it out in terms of this is going

[2:45:26] Voice 12: to be your basic and this is your in-depth or something. That might be one way of doing it,

[2:45:31] Voice 12: because we do have some people that are very much informed and want to participate.

[2:45:37] Voice 5: Okay. Thank you. Trustee Maude, were you trying to get a word in edgewise there?

[2:45:42] Voice 5: Because I haven't seen your hand.

[2:45:44] Voice 15: No, I'm good. Thank you very much.

[2:45:45] Voice 15: Okay,

[2:45:46] Voice 5: thank you. And then I'm going to, I've got my hand up. I just wanted to mention, having been involved in a little bit of this kind of work, survey design professionally, it's very challenging and it's not a general satisfaction survey or a resident survey about services and how happy people are.

[2:46:11] Voice 5: I really like Trustee Patrick's idea about giving it a good firm label.

[2:46:17] Voice 5: This is about financial planning and linking the idea of taxation and what the Islands Trust is obligated to do and how shall we do it through questions like this.

[2:46:31] Voice 5: But I just wanted to mention it's this is for a purpose and that a survey gets designed around the information that's that's needed for the financial planning, in this case, purpose.

[2:46:45] Voice 5: And so I was glad to hear your answers.

[2:46:49] Voice 5: And it looked like you've been thinking about which questions where as well, which also is a huge part of survey design.

[2:46:57] Voice 5: OK, I'm going back to my speakers list.

[2:46:59] Voice 5: Thank you, everybody, for bearing with me. If this is not what a chair usually does in this meeting, please give me some feedback at the end of the meeting and let me know how I can improve, because I haven't been at a financial planning committee meeting for a couple of years now.

[2:47:16] Voice 5: And so I'm going on now to Laura Patrick. More comments?

[2:47:25] Trustee Patrick: Yes. I just wanted to feedback on, I understand and hear, we need to be very careful in how we structure this and put this together and that we have to come from it from the angle of where do we, where does the feedback matter?

[2:47:42] Trustee Patrick: You know, and so, and we also have to understand, you know, while there are a couple of people who understand this organization, the majority do not. And I think we're trying to get people as many as possible to participate in these surveys and put the feedback back.

[2:48:03] Trustee Patrick: back. So for the majority of the people, what happens locally on our islands is what matters

[2:48:09] Trustee Patrick: most. And so we need to kind of lead with that and be very clear because from a budget perspective,

[2:48:16] Trustee Patrick: we always get down to, do we spend a little bit more money on doing proactive planning?

[2:48:21] Trustee Patrick: And so we've got to really think of where do we struggle? Where do we have challenges of where do

[2:48:27] Trustee Patrick: we do more or do less? Like, should we meet in public or not? That's a meeting question

[2:48:31] Trustee Patrick: question virtually that would help us if we heard from our constituents saying, no, I think that's

[2:48:36] Trustee Patrick: a really bad use of money. It will help us make that decision rather than flip-flopping or thinking

[2:48:43] Trustee Patrick: we're doing the best thing. So I think we really need to put time and effort into putting these

[2:48:49] Trustee Patrick: questions together. I am not a professional surveyor. I'm not even close to it. I know

[2:48:53] Trustee Patrick: there are people who are good at it and that we need to put that time into it. Questions that I

[2:48:59] Trustee Patrick: I picked up as we were having our conversations earlier on the budget piece was there is that

[2:49:05] Trustee Patrick: question about like Bowen and about Salt Spring and others that we need to focus on people need

[2:49:10] Trustee Patrick: to be aware that you may be paying in you're paying into a federation you may be on the

[2:49:16] Trustee Patrick: receiving end of that your your island may not be spent you know having enough people to pay for

[2:49:22] Trustee Patrick: these services so you know I think that has to be dealt with are you okay with that do you

[2:49:28] Trustee Patrick: understand that? Do you know where to get the information? Do you know where your taxpayer

[2:49:31] Trustee Patrick: money is going? Because I'd say probably a large percentage on Salt Spring don't know that they're

[2:49:40] Trustee Patrick: contributing to other islands. And they should know. I think, oops, sorry, I'm trying to read

[2:49:50] Trustee Patrick: I have to read and talk at the same time. There was that question about the mail outs to

[2:50:01] Trustee Patrick: new people. So I think under there should be a communications piece. We do have a chunk of

[2:50:07] Trustee Patrick: regular communications, whether they're stewardship webinars or mail outs or all of those. And I think

[2:50:12] Trustee Patrick: you could have sort of the value, you know, plus or minus, you know, do you like this or use this?

[2:50:19] Trustee Patrick: Have you seen this? Those type of things. And I'm not too worried about this survey being bigger

[2:50:26] Trustee Patrick: because we're doing it at a different time of year. When we do the survey after we have a draft

[2:50:30] Trustee Patrick: budget and they know they're facing a, you know, five, 10, 20% increase in taxes, they're mad.

[2:50:38] Trustee Patrick: They're reacting to that. And of course they want to get to the final answer. No, I don't want to

[2:50:42] Trustee Patrick: pay more taxes. You know, because that's what you're asking. Basically, do you want to pay more

[2:50:46] Trustee Patrick: longer or less? No. So they're mad. In this case, we're trying to really ask for engaged input into

[2:50:53] Trustee Patrick: how we build and structure the budget. So we should be asking far more detailed questions and

[2:50:58] Trustee Patrick: not worry too much about it being longer, because we really do want to show that we use the

[2:51:04] Trustee Patrick: information.

[2:51:06] Voice 5: Thank you, Laura. And I'm going to stop you there for a moment. Just because I'm

[2:51:10] Voice 5: noticing that it's an hour since our break, and it's almost one o'clock. I'm wondering if people

[2:51:16] Voice 5: need to eat to keep the blood sugar up so that we've got good discussion

[2:51:21] Voice 5: happening or do we want to complete this part I've got two hands remaining up can

[2:51:29] Voice 5: we what would people like to break for half an hour and then come back can I

[2:51:39] Voice 5: see a big burden

[2:51:41] Trustee Luckham: let's break for half an hour yeah

[2:51:43] Voice 5: let's break for half an hour

[2:51:46] Voice 5: and we're going to come back at 1 20. Would that be correct? That's 30 minutes. So let's do that

[2:51:55] Voice 5: and hold your thoughts. I've got Trustee Elliott next and then Marie Boland and feel free to put

[2:52:01] Voice 5: your hand up again if you've got more. But that's where we'll start at 1 20. Thanks everybody.

[2:52:12] Voice 5: 30 minutes for lunch.

[3:19:59] Voice 5: Thank you. I'm seeing people blink back into existence on my screen.

[3:20:23] Voice 17: And there's Robert.

[3:20:27] Voice 5: And everybody's coming back. That's great.

[3:20:29] Voice 5: I think we might have quorum from what I'm seeing on the screen,

[3:20:34] Voice 5: but I don't actually know what quorum is for this committee.

[3:20:45] Voice 5: Trustee Maude, are you there? And Trustee Graham?

[3:20:50] Voice 15: I are here.

[3:20:52] Voice 5: Very good. And there's Trustee Graham. Okay, good. I think we're all back.

[3:20:56] Voice 5: So that's great. Let's get back underway. Thanks, everybody, for coming back for the last little bit of the Financial Planning Committee meeting. And I think we're on Toby Elliott, if you're there, unless she had to go break ice for the horses to drink. Okay, she's not there yet. Let's go with Mairead Boland, and we'll pick up Toby next.

[3:21:23] Voice 5: okay

[3:21:25] Voice 6: um so i just want to support what other people have said i think trustee getty etc that

[3:21:32] Voice 6: we need more granularity and i think back i've seen this survey before almost the same questions

[3:21:40] Voice 6: and i know that people were very frustrated on occasion and didn't finish the survey because

[3:21:48] Voice 6: because they felt that they were constrained in how they could respond by the fact that things were grouped together.

[3:21:56] Voice 6: So I would encourage more granularity, as Trustee Patrick described, and then I did, and as Trustee Getty spoke as well.

[3:22:09] Voice 6: The budget principles, that's one that I really, really find challenging.

[3:22:16] Voice 6: challenging, and the one where it asks, you know, do you want everything to go up, everything to go

[3:22:23] Voice 6: down, everything to stay the same, but change within it, etc. So those budget principles really

[3:22:28] Voice 6: are covered off in the other sections where it asks if you want to increase or decrease on the

[3:22:34] Voice 6: different elements. But maybe we should give an airing to the budget guidelines that we came up

[3:22:41] Voice 6: up with in financial planning and you know put those out there and then the other thing

[3:22:51] Voice 6: trustee patrick's request that we don't call it budget planning because really that's what we're

[3:22:58] Voice 6: trying to do and i think that would be a better kind of way to describe it thank you

[3:23:07] Voice 5: trustee

[3:23:08] Voice 5: boland you cut out for a moment there your better name for it would be financial

[3:23:13] Voice 6: planning is what

[3:23:14] Voice 6: we're doing we're not really doing a budget survey sounds very sort of old-fashioned i think

[3:23:20] Voice 6: we're trying to get engagement so that we do better financial planning thank you it was just

[3:23:27] Voice 5: just a couple of words i just wanted to confirm that okay and uh thank you and uh trustee elliott

[3:23:35] Voice 19: okay thank you um so two pieces i guess um going back to the ceo's comments that

[3:23:43] Voice 19: that the information that we're seeking in this survey should be on areas that we are willing to

[3:23:49] Voice 19: make changes on based on feedback. I think what I'm hearing is we risk asking everything and

[3:23:56] Voice 19: ending up with a whole bunch of information that ultimately will be of little value in some ways.

[3:24:06] Voice 19: I totally agree with Trustee Patrick, splitting up local planning services into specifics. I would add in-person meetings to that list that you had. Remove words like proactive, because that's sort of a qualifier, should just be community planning, application processing, communications.

[3:24:28] Voice 19: I think that's a really valuable breakout. But when you're getting into granularity and how useful is it going to be, I would suggest we pick two themes a year and tie those to specific initiatives that Trust Council has either just passed, as in the new application portal and bylaw enforcement portal.

[3:24:57] Voice 19: so we we focus the survey on planning services and applications and service

[3:25:04] Voice 19: delivery perhaps as well as because it's too limited let's say strategic plan

[3:25:10] Voice 19: initiatives we have just passed all these elements and as part of our

[3:25:16] Voice 19: strategic plan and have decided to fund them and you know do you support that so

[3:25:24] Voice 19: So I think that and we could build on that year over year.

[3:25:27] Voice 19: I think asking too much of one survey and going beyond 10 minutes is going to be, well, we risk promising too much and then not making changes based on what we heard.

[3:25:41] Voice 19: So I think that's a caution.

[3:25:43] Voice 19: So that's my first point.

[3:25:45] Voice 19: The second is how information as in backgrounders, key documents and explainers are presented.

[3:25:53] Voice 19: presented. Morgana, you suggested that there would be a landing page with all the relevant

[3:25:58] Voice 19: information in the survey. I do not think this should be a landing page in the survey, or if it

[3:26:06] Voice 19: is, it should be mimicked on our website. All of the key documents and explainers that are produced

[3:26:12] Voice 19: need to live on the website somewhere. And so people need to be able to refer back to it

[3:26:18] Voice 19: throughout the year, not just when they're doing a survey. So I was hoping to ask if this committee

[3:26:27] Voice 19: wants to direct staff to update and expand the budget section of the Islands Trust website

[3:26:32] Voice 19: to include reports and supporting materials. I don't know if that's out of line for this

[3:26:39] Voice 19: discussion, but whatever documents we produce should live online for the community, for

[3:26:47] Voice 19: for constituents to access.

[3:26:49] Voice 19: So I'm happy to move a motion directing staff

[3:26:53] Voice 19: to amplify the website with whatever materials we produce

[3:26:57] Voice 19: if the committee wants to support that, thanks.

[3:27:02] Voice 5: Thank you, Trustee Elliott.

[3:27:03] Voice 5: I think we've heard that staff are taking notes

[3:27:06] Voice 5: and they're gonna bring us back another draft

[3:27:09] Voice 5: at our next meeting, which isn't that far away.

[3:27:12] Voice 5: So maybe we can see what they do with their design

[3:27:15] Voice 5: and with the comments that we're giving them.

[3:27:20] Voice 5: Does that sound fair?

[3:27:21] Voice 5: Director Mobs, you've popped up.

[3:27:25] Voice 16: Thanks for acknowledging me, Chair.

[3:27:27] Voice 16: I just wanted to provide a brief comment on that for the committee.

[3:27:32] Voice 16: So as I understand it, historically, the public has told us

[3:27:35] Voice 16: that the level of detail that was provided in the budget information

[3:27:39] Voice 16: and financial information on the website was too much.

[3:27:41] Voice 16: And it was, you know, just too much to digest.

[3:27:45] Voice 16: They didn't want that level.

[3:27:46] Voice 16: And so it's been reduced, at least in terms of how we report the budget.

[3:27:51] Voice 16: But maybe there's a shift now.

[3:27:53] Voice 16: We might, you know, we've got a new demographic out in the public.

[3:27:56] Voice 16: We might be seeing folks who wish for more info.

[3:27:58] Voice 16: So I think asking that question is a good question.

[3:28:00] Voice 16: And certainly where reports are available, it's easy to plunk them on the website where it might be appropriate.

[3:28:07] Voice 16: Drafting new types of reports, of course, would require some additional resourcing and time and staff.

[3:28:14] Voice 5: Thank you, Director Mobs.

[3:28:15] Voice 5: And I'm also aware that we'll still be doing trust programs, sorry, trust policy statement input and maybe other surveys as well.

[3:28:25] Voice 5: So we don't want to overload people or take an existing audience and direct them off down this other path.

[3:28:32] Voice 5: And staff are going to be the best way to think about how to manage engagement capacity and appetite out there and where the need is greatest for Trust Council to make decisions.

[3:28:49] Voice 5: And I've just put myself on the list briefly.

[3:28:52] Voice 5: I would like to support what Trustee Patrick described at one time as the arms.

[3:28:58] Voice 5: I always, from Bowen Islands perspective, I describe Bowen is embraced by the Islands Trust with two arms. One of them is trust area services, area-wide regional membership in the Islands Trust as a, not a republic, but you know what I mean.

[3:29:25] Voice 5: It's as a part of a cooperative that can work on bigger projects together.

[3:29:32] Voice 5: And the second one is the Island Trust Conservancy is the land protection arm and that we contribute.

[3:29:40] Voice 5: I can give hard examples for both of those.

[3:29:43] Voice 5: And then there's another totally different arm, and that's local planning.

[3:29:47] Voice 5: And Bowen does not contribute to that.

[3:29:49] Voice 5: And anyway, it just makes it simple.

[3:29:51] Voice 5: and that might be an easy way, Morgana, to organize the survey too

[3:29:56] Voice 5: so that Bowen people don't respond to any of those.

[3:30:00] Voice 5: questions, because that's what Bowen Island Municipality's responsibility is there.

[3:30:05] Voice 5: Anyway, just an idea. Okay, I'm going back to my list, and I see Trustee Patrick's back with

[3:30:11] Voice 5: more suggestions. Go ahead, Trustee Patrick.

[3:30:14] Trustee Patrick: Well, I think what's really important is to

[3:30:18] Trustee Patrick: fundamentally realize that we're shifting the time. We're not doing this as a budget service

[3:30:23] Trustee Patrick: a survey. And this is earlier. And it allows us to ask other types of questions and really

[3:30:30] Trustee Patrick: structure this well. And so I think we've got to be clear. This is not a budget survey. This is

[3:30:38] Trustee Patrick: more of informing our financial planning. And I think it's an opportunity to ask some additional

[3:30:43] Trustee Patrick: questions to help all of us be a bit more educated. If you look at, again, every municipality does

[3:30:50] Trustee Patrick: does theirs in the spring. Now, yes, they're doing full services and all of those things,

[3:30:54] Trustee Patrick: but they begin with sort of a, how you doing? What's the quality of your life? Are you feeling

[3:30:59] Trustee Patrick: better? You know, what's bugging you? You know, we might find that, you know, everybody on Salt

[3:31:03] Trustee Patrick: Springs more concerned about they don't have a family doctor anymore, or the hospital could

[3:31:07] Trustee Patrick: close or, you know, that might be what's driving their concerns. And as elected people, we should

[3:31:14] Trustee Patrick: we should know that, you know? So, and possibly even, well, I was going to say, if we really want

[3:31:20] Trustee Patrick: to do our work, we can say we can coordinate with the regional districts, but there's seven of them

[3:31:24] Trustee Patrick: and that's probably a bit challenging, but the information is valuable and should be shared with

[3:31:28] Trustee Patrick: our regional districts as I hope we are. But so I think that's important as we look at this is to

[3:31:35] Trustee Patrick: structure it and we can look at every municipality has these surveys. We should look at a bunch of

[3:31:40] Trustee Patrick: them we should steal some questions from them um some of them are year after year after year so you

[3:31:46] Trustee Patrick: could have that that you know how how are people feeling question yeah you've got those benchmarks

[3:31:52] Trustee Patrick: so that we know kind of where the mood is in the community um and it'll help us uh dramatically

[3:31:58] Trustee Patrick: shape our decisions when we really understand what's worrying them concerning them um and those

[3:32:05] Trustee Patrick: things so like i said this is i think this is good conversation and i think i'm hearing things

[3:32:10] Trustee Patrick: But I think we need to do a lot more work as to what this survey is and what we hope to get out of it and how it can really inform us better.

[3:32:19] Trustee Patrick: At the same time, help educate our constituents that what this organization is, because

[3:32:28] Voice 5: they don't know.

[3:32:30] Voice 5: Thank you very much, Trustee Patrick.

[3:32:32] Voice 5: And that just brings up a point I wanted to make as well.

[3:32:37] Voice 5: And that is, I like how the draft survey focuses on the mandate of the trust.

[3:32:45] Voice 5: It's not just what individual citizens' needs are that can get the most people, their buddies to answer the survey.

[3:32:59] Voice 5: it's about the needs of the islands trust which also come from climate science and

[3:33:06] Voice 5: biodiversity and all the other um uh science out there that informs our decisions around

[3:33:14] Voice 5: the mandate of preserve and protect and um so i don't uh i also i like the focus

[3:33:22] Voice 5: on the mandate of the islands trust like um i think that's good that's in there

[3:33:29] Voice 5: And I'm wondering if anybody else has any more input for staff or whether we are close to ending this session about our first cut on the first draft of the financial planning survey or whatever we're going to eventually be calling it that staff are designing.

[3:33:49] Voice 5: Any last comments? Nope. Okay. Then I'm going to put a checkmark beside 9.1.2. And thanks, everybody, for your input. And we're on to audit committee. I move that financial planning committee appoint me to the audit committee. Do I have a seconder?

[3:34:16] Voice 5: Thank you, Toby Elliott.

[3:34:18] Voice 5: This is just as we mentioned at the beginning.

[3:34:22] Voice 5: All the other trustees except executive committee are, I think, on it.

[3:34:27] Voice 5: And so this is just because I'm new to the committee,

[3:34:32] Voice 5: you have to decide whether I should be on the audit committee or not.

[3:34:36] Voice 5: And so anybody got any more they want to add to that?

[3:34:39] Voice 5: We talked a little bit about it at the beginning.

[3:34:41] Voice 5: I'm going to call the question.

[3:34:42] Voice 5: All those in favor of Sue Willen on the audit committee?

[3:34:46] Voice 5: Oh, yeah.

[3:34:47] Voice 5: electronic hands um thank you that passes uh take your hands down please anybody opposed

[3:34:57] Voice 5: no thanks everybody and we'll go on to next meeting uh that passes thanks um great another

[3:35:03] Voice 5: committee and uh wednesday february 19th is our next meeting 10 30 until three so a different

[3:35:10] Voice 5: start time than today um according to this and uh and the audit committee is going to meet the same

[3:35:17] Voice 5: day for the first half hour is that correct and uh director mobs if you want to catch us up with

[3:35:23] Voice 5: anything you want to say thank you go ahead director mobs uh

[3:35:27] Voice 16: thanks sharon yes great reminder

[3:35:29] Voice 16: that we'll be kicking the day off in february with the audit committee meeting so starting fpc

[3:35:33] Voice 16: a half an hour later than usual um so february's meeting is very full we will have quarterly

[3:35:39] Voice 16: reporting as well as the final budget draft that will go to trust council in march um and then

[3:35:46] Voice 16: And I think we'll also have the survey returning to that meeting.

[3:35:49] Voice 16: So I'd really encourage everybody to review the documents in advance

[3:35:53] Voice 16: and come prepared to make any budget amendments

[3:35:55] Voice 16: if you're not satisfied with the version of the budget that lands in that agenda,

[3:35:59] Voice 16: as it will be the final opportunity that this committee has

[3:36:02] Voice 16: to make amendments before it travels to Council.

[3:36:06] Voice 5: Thank you very much.

[3:36:07] Voice 5: Okay, I'm going to then.

[3:36:12] Voice 5: We don't need the next little bit.

[3:36:14] Voice 5: And we don't have anything to rise and report.

[3:36:17] Voice 5: So I'm looking for a motion to adjourn.

[3:36:20] Voice 5: Thank you, Judy Getty and a seconder, Peter Luckham.

[3:36:24] Voice 5: Thanks.

[3:36:24] Voice 5: And thank you, everybody.

[3:36:26] Voice 5: Any suggestions for my chairing, please send them by email.

[3:36:29] Voice 5: Sorry, I didn't get to the email.

[3:36:30] Voice 5: I can't read and do this at the same time.

[3:36:33] Voice 5: But looking forward to working with the committee.

[3:36:38] Voice 5: Bye, all.

[3:36:39] Trustee Luckham: Thanks, Sue Ellen, for stepping up.

[3:36:43] Voice 19: Thanks, Sue Ellen.

[3:36:44] Voice 19: Thanks, staff.