Islands Trust Council regular meeting, February 19, 2025

[0:00:00] Voice 15: Thank you.

[0:00:01] Trustee Fast: Okay. Well, I'm going to call the meeting to order here. This is the meeting of the Financial Planning Committee, Wednesday, February 19th, 2025. My name is Sue Ellen Fast. I'm coming to you from Nuklelequem, which is Bowen Island, over here in Alkatsam House Sound, Metro Vancouver.

[0:00:19] Trustee Fast: Vancouver and I'd like to begin the meeting by acknowledging that we're a meeting of the

[0:00:25] Trustee Fast: Islands Trust zooming in from all over the Salish territories. I'm in the territory of Squamish

[0:00:32] Trustee Fast: Nation here and I appreciate the opportunity to live here and to contribute to the stewardship

[0:00:39] Trustee Fast: through the Islands Trust. I'm hoping today, thank you everybody for coming, I'm hoping we can

[0:00:48] Trustee Fast: can demonstrate some good Canadian participatory democracy today, and let's have a safe, respectful

[0:00:56] Trustee Fast: workplace environment for all of us, including staff. I'm wondering about breaks. I haven't

[0:01:04] Trustee Fast: got them on the agenda here, but I'm sort of thinking about 11.15, and then break at noon

[0:01:09] Trustee Fast: for lunch and then uh 2 15 if we need it and uh however if you gotta go uh leave the desk

[0:01:18] Trustee Fast: just put something in the chat if you don't mind and then um staff can go and find out when you

[0:01:24] Trustee Fast: were coming and going later on and um any motions that we want to make during the meeting if you

[0:01:31] Trustee Fast: can send them to motion or motions with an s at islandstrust.bc.ca you know that and um

[0:01:39] Trustee Fast: And because we might have a bunch of motions and have to do a bunch of quick thinking or responding to people's ideas today, before a motion is seconded, if we can have a pause so that I can ask staff whether that will be the most effective wording so that we don't have to take the time to adjust it after that.

[0:02:00] Trustee Fast: So if you just hang on before seconding. And that's all I had to say at the beginning of the meeting from my end. I'm looking forward to a good meeting. Thank you. If people are letting me know in the chat.

[0:02:17] Trustee Fast: Okay. Robert Barlow says he doesn't have access to that motions email. So we should just email directly to you, Robert.

[0:02:29] Voice 15: Yes, that would be appropriate. Thank you.

[0:02:31] Voice 15: Okay,

[0:02:32] Trustee Fast: good. Thank you for bringing that in. So we'll send any motions to rbarlow

[0:02:40] Trustee Fast: at islandstrust.bc.ca. And very good. And I just wanted to check on all the

[0:02:52] Trustee Fast: staff that are with us here so that I can see. I think we can all see online because the names

[0:03:00] Trustee Fast: are there so uh thank you everybody who's with us and um i uh we do have quorum what is quorum

[0:03:08] Trustee Fast: robert for this meeting there

[0:03:15] Voice 15: are 11 members of the committee all of which vote and all count

[0:03:19] Voice 15: towards quorum so the quorum would be six people okay

[0:03:24] Trustee Fast: thank you i'm uh new chairing this committee

[0:03:29] Trustee Fast: Okay, fairly new. So let's begin then. Anybody got anything to add or want the agenda to be

[0:03:37] Trustee Fast: reordered or anything like that? Trustee

[0:03:43] Voice 21: Yates. Just a really quick question because I'm having

[0:03:48] Voice 21: such a strange problem with my audio and my video. I'm going to try to turn my video on again

[0:03:55] Voice 21: and it won't look to me as though you can see me but I'm going to do that now. Can you see me?

[0:04:02] Trustee Fast: no we can't see you no we can't see you but your hand is still up we can see your hand

[0:04:16] Trustee Fast: now i wonder if we can hear you oh can you see something trustee yates yeah can you hear me now

[0:04:26] Trustee Fast: now we can hear you okay stay like that i'm so

[0:04:30] Voice 21: sorry i might be popping in and out and it won't

[0:04:32] Voice 21: be because i want to okay

[0:04:34] Trustee Fast: i'm um hoping we can uh track that but it's helpful to know that we could

[0:04:40] Trustee Fast: could see your hand and your audio seems to be working great and

[0:04:44] Voice 21: I'll put I'll put stuff in the

[0:04:46] Voice 21: chat if I have a real problem or I'll send an email to Robert Barlow perfect okay that sounds

[0:04:52] Trustee Fast: good to me um anything else before we move on to item three okay seeing no hands um a public

[0:05:03] Trustee Fast: comment period I think I don't see anybody from the public with us in our zoom meeting

[0:05:08] Trustee Fast: So we'll just move on past that. No delegations, no correspondence. We're on to the minutes. 6.1. This is pages 5. Any comments on minutes from our last meeting, which was January 22nd? No? Okay.

[0:05:34] Trustee Fast: Okay. Then bye. Can I have a mover for the minutes? Thank you, Trustee Getty. Can I have

[0:05:41] Trustee Fast: a seconder? Thank you, Trustee Luckham. All those in favor, let's just practice this and see if it

[0:05:47] Trustee Fast: works because I want to see if all the hands go up. Trustee Yates, your hand is working. That's

[0:05:55] Trustee Fast: good. Thank you, everybody. That motion carries and the test is complete. It worked. And so the

[0:06:02] Trustee Fast: the minutes are adopted we're on to work program items now so if we can go to 7.1 page 13 this is

[0:06:14] Trustee Fast: a request for decision for the financial report and uh i'm going to turn it over to director mobs

[0:06:22] Trustee Fast: yeah

[0:06:27] Voice 16: i was going to suggest we backtrack to the follow-up action list yeah

[0:06:32] Trustee Fast: sorry i am i missed

[0:06:35] Trustee Fast: that page 11 thank you follow-up action list any questions comments on the follow-up action list

[0:06:44] Trustee Fast: page 11. go ahead trustee our director mobs uh

[0:06:50] Voice 16: just one brief comment uh most of the items

[0:06:53] Voice 16: are noted as completed on the follow-up action list with the exception of one policy review

[0:06:57] Voice 16: which i have planned for post audit days uh there is an item under david marler's responsibility

[0:07:02] Voice 16: still noted as in progress that should read completed there is an agenda item in this package

[0:07:08] Voice 16: related to that topic right

[0:07:11] Trustee Fast: and that's for everybody um if you didn't see it it's down

[0:07:15] Trustee Fast: there at 8.2 i believe reconsideration of trust council um decisions okay good no more questions

[0:07:27] Trustee Fast: Any questions for the director?

[0:07:29] Trustee Fast: Then we're moving on.

[0:07:31] Trustee Fast: All right.

[0:07:31] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:07:36] Trustee Fast: Okay, page 13.

[0:07:40] Trustee Fast: And here we are with the financial report

[0:07:42] Trustee Fast: and we've got a recommendation

[0:07:43] Trustee Fast: to forward this to trust council.

[0:07:46] Trustee Fast: So let's hear from the director.

[0:07:47] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Director Mops.

[0:07:51] Voice 16: Thanks, Chair.

[0:07:52] Voice 16: For the benefit of the committee,

[0:07:54] Voice 16: I did connect with Chair Fast prior to this meeting

[0:07:57] Voice 16: and we've acknowledged that this is a really substantial

[0:08:00] Voice 16: agenda that's before the committee today.

[0:08:02] Voice 16: I suspect we're going to need a lot of time to discuss matters related to the budget and so I

[0:08:09] Voice 16: won't be going through the reports in great detail they are there the assumption is everybody has

[0:08:15] Voice 16: read them I will absolutely be responding to any questions that trustees have but I'll be very

[0:08:20] Voice 16: brief in my commentary related to each report so with that in mind our third quarter financial

[0:08:26] Voice 16: report is showing that we are about 70% of our budget consumed to date. At three quarters of

[0:08:33] Voice 16: the way through the year, we would expect to be about 75% of budget spent. So we are slightly

[0:08:38] Voice 16: below budget. The reasons for that slight underspending are due to the normal reasons

[0:08:44] Voice 16: that Islands Trust, which is an experience of staff vacancies that are leading to some

[0:08:48] Voice 16: underspending on salaries, as well as some underspending against a number of projects.

[0:08:52] Voice 16: The level of underspending at third quarter is slightly less than it has been historically because we are experiencing an overspending, particularly related to legal bylaw enforcement and property cleanups, particularly on Thetis Island.

[0:09:06] Voice 16: So I'll leave my comments there. Happy to take questions on any of the other details that are in the report. Otherwise, we would look for a motion to send this to council.

[0:09:14] Voice 16: Thank

[0:09:16] Trustee Fast: you. Thank you, Director Mobs. Who's got a question for Director Mobs? Trustee Allen.

[0:09:24] Trustee Allen: I have a few, but the first one is this. So in the chart on page 21,

[0:09:38] Trustee Allen: so the bylaw enforcement, is that just, is that the staff or is that broken down and separated

[0:09:43] Trustee Allen: for the litigation? Where's the litigation? Is that all together in that line there on page

[0:09:50] Trustee Allen: page 21 under bylaw enforcement are you with me

[0:09:57] Voice 16: I'm just scrolling down to that page sorry what

[0:10:02] Voice 16: what page did you say you were on page

[0:10:04] Trustee Allen: 21 page

[0:10:07] Voice 16: 21 okay yep and

[0:10:09] Trustee Allen: under expenses LTC services and

[0:10:12] Trustee Allen: bylaw enforcement is that um is that just salary is it salary or is that also includes litigation

[0:10:20] Trustee Allen: litigation yeah

[0:10:21] Voice 16: that's primarily related to the activity of our bylaw enforcement staff um you

[0:10:27] Voice 16: know travel costs associated with the the actual activity itself so

[0:10:30] Trustee Allen: litigation isn't does not go

[0:10:32] Trustee Allen: under this this in this table at all i think

[0:10:36] Voice 16: the litigation expenses nancy help me out here you'll

[0:10:39] Voice 16: know better where it's mapped into um might be under let me have a quick look here our local

[0:10:47] Voice 16: trust committee is

[0:10:50] Trustee Allen: there any way to be able to i think it's important to actually separate this

[0:10:54] Trustee Allen: to be honest and i'm just wondering whether that's asking too much to have that separated

[0:10:59] Trustee Allen: from that category because it's kind of you know it is litigation it should be under litigation i

[0:11:06] Trustee Allen: don't know just interested yeah

[0:11:09] Voice 16: so our um our financial reporting we follow the public sector

[0:11:13] Voice 16: financial reporting guidelines which um speaks that we sort of present financial information by

[0:11:18] Voice 16: function. If we're looking at presenting it by object, that's where you will see litigation and

[0:11:26] Voice 16: legal costs that are separated out as a separate line item. And so we do try to include that in

[0:11:31] Voice 16: all of our reports at the end, because we do understand it is actually a more understandable

[0:11:36] Voice 16: way of looking at the financials for many people. So on page 19 of the agenda package is where

[0:11:42] Voice 16: you'll see a table that breaks out our spending to date by function and we used to lump all of

[0:11:50] Voice 16: our legal costs together as a single line there was a previous request to break it out by the

[0:11:56] Voice 16: different types of legal costs because trustees felt that that was important information so we've

[0:12:00] Voice 16: continued to do that and that's where you'll find um that information for your review okay thank you

[0:12:08] Trustee Allen: Can I just follow up, Chair, fast?

[0:12:12] Trustee Allen: Well, I've

[0:12:13] Trustee Fast: got other hands up.

[0:12:14] Trustee Allen: Okay, I'll go in the queue.

[0:12:16] Trustee Allen: Just keep going around.

[0:12:17] Trustee Fast: Yeah, put your hand back up again.

[0:12:19] Trustee Fast: Trustee Getty?

[0:12:25] Voice 13: Thank you.

[0:12:26] Voice 13: So, yeah, I was looking at the object outline on page 19,

[0:12:31] Voice 13: and the difference between 31% of the budget consumed for programs

[0:12:38] Voice 13: as opposed to the 312% and the 393% for the litigation and bylaw enforcement.

[0:12:47] Voice 13: Does that suggest, it suggests to me, and I need to be corrected or have it confirmed,

[0:12:54] Voice 13: that we're ending up spending a lot of time and energy and money,

[0:12:58] Voice 13: and I know this is skewed slightly because it came out of surplus the last time

[0:13:03] Voice 13: and it wasn't recorded the same,

[0:13:04] Voice 13: But we're spending a lot more time in terms of litigation and dealing with problems as opposed to getting programs accomplished.

[0:13:15] Voice 13: I mean, on first glance, that's what is appearing.

[0:13:18] Voice 13: Is that a fair assessment?

[0:13:22] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Director Moss.

[0:13:24] Voice 16: It does indicate that we are spending time on litigation and enforcement matters.

[0:13:29] Voice 16: I would say not to the extent that's represented in the financials, because we did intentionally under budget for those lines in the current year.

[0:13:40] Voice 16: And so we are spending a

[0:13:43] Voice 16: little bit, all of our legal lines, or sorry, for legal bylaw enforcement and legal litigation, those two lines we did under budget this year.

[0:13:52] Voice 16: And so the magnitude of time spent looks a bit inflated if you're just looking at the numbers, because we actually under budgeted. But it does take time for us to be connecting with our lawyers and providing information for any defense, you know, litigation defense that's going on. And the same for our bylaw enforcement officers for any properties that they are enforcing on.

[0:14:15] Voice 16: the primary programs showing a 31 percent spent that's where all of our sort of projects and

[0:14:22] Voice 16: services are sitting and so when you see a list of all the projects that are underspent

[0:14:27] Voice 16: generally as a result of staff vacancies that's what's contributing to that 31 percent

[0:14:35] Voice 13: is that if i can do one follow-up go

[0:14:38] Trustee Fast: ahead trustee is that

[0:14:39] Voice 13: connected to the morale and

[0:14:43] Voice 13: the atmosphere of working in the offices in terms of the

[0:14:47] Voice 13: backfilling of staff positions? So they're going to be

[0:14:51] Voice 13: involved in litigation instead of programs? Is that too broad?

[0:14:58] Voice 16: Is your question whether or not staff morale

[0:15:01] Voice 16: influences staff vacancies? Yeah.

[0:15:05] Voice 16: Absolutely. I think the culture of Islands Trust and the morale that is experienced by staff

[0:15:10] Voice 16: is going to sort of influence our reputation in the community and whether or not

[0:15:15] Voice 16: staff or people want to come and work for the island trust we do tend to see a lot of turnover

[0:15:24] Voice 16: particularly in the planning services space trust area services has also experienced a lot of

[0:15:30] Voice 16: vacancy pain this past year but traditionally we do tend to see a lot of turnover in planning

[0:15:35] Voice 16: services and that is the area of course where staff are exposed more to the public

[0:15:39] Voice 16: in attending LCC meetings their work is sort of more highly scrutinized in that space

[0:15:43] Voice 16: So it absolutely is a contributing factor.

[0:15:47] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:15:48] Trustee Fast: And I see CAO has come online.

[0:15:51] Trustee Fast: Did you want to say something?

[0:15:54] Voice 1: Yeah, thanks, Chair.

[0:15:55] Voice 1: I think Director Mobs is right.

[0:15:58] Voice 1: It's one factor.

[0:15:59] Voice 1: I think there are a number of factors that contribute to vacancies, obviously.

[0:16:03] Voice 1: Our ability to compete with other employers, local governments, et cetera, particularly on the planning side, is a challenge for us.

[0:16:09] Voice 1: But I do think, particularly as Director Bobs has said, the highly public nature of some staff's work does sometimes make it a more challenging work environment.

[0:16:20] Voice 1: And they're skilled professional staff who have lots of options.

[0:16:24] Voice 1: So, yeah, that's something that we're acutely aware of.

[0:16:27] Voice 1: Thank you.

[0:16:29] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[0:16:31] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[0:16:32] Trustee Fast: I'm moving on now, seeing Trustee Getty's hand is down.

[0:16:35] Trustee Fast: Thanks, everybody.

[0:16:36] Trustee Fast: I want to keep the conversation moving.

[0:16:38] Trustee Fast: so this is helpful. If you have another question please put your hand back up. Trustee Boland.

[0:16:44] Voice 19: Thank you. Two things. The increase in the legal spend is way larger than could be accounted for

[0:16:56] Voice 19: by our reduction of the budget last year and I'd like that highlighted because we are inclined to

[0:17:04] Voice 19: go oh well we reduced the budget therefore you know we could have anticipated this but I think

[0:17:11] Voice 19: it's a much more significant increase even if we had budgeted as was suggested last year

[0:17:17] Voice 19: before we kind of penny pinched for lack of a better word we would still have seen this

[0:17:23] Voice 19: significant increase so I do think we need to talk about this um in camera at some stage because we

[0:17:32] Voice 19: We are inclined to go, oh, yeah, there were some significant files.

[0:17:36] Voice 19: But, you know, it's very large and it's very significant.

[0:17:40] Voice 19: And if it's a trend, then we are in deep trouble.

[0:17:44] Voice 19: So I think at some stage we really need to address this.

[0:17:48] Voice 19: And the underspend in programs is also concerning.

[0:17:53] Voice 19: Can I hang on for one more minute?

[0:17:55] Trustee Fast: Ask Director Mobs to address that idea.

[0:18:00] Voice 16: Yeah, if I may respond, Chair.

[0:18:01] Voice 16: So you're right, Trustee Boland, the overspend is not just because we underspent last year, particularly when it comes to legal for bylaw enforcement.

[0:18:12] Voice 16: There was a significant property cleanup on Thetis Island.

[0:18:17] Voice 16: Executive Committee approved $125,000 to be spent on that work.

[0:18:21] Voice 16: So that is the primary driver for why the legal for bylaw enforcement is overspent.

[0:18:26] Voice 16: legal litigation is tough for us to expand on in these public agendas because of course

[0:18:31] Voice 16: legal files are all in confidence so if more information is required we would be doing that

[0:18:37] Voice 16: in camera but your point is well taken that it's not just because we underspent it's actually a

[0:18:43] Voice 16: combination of those two significant factors.

[0:18:45] Voice 19: Yeah I mean it's very difficult to come up with

[0:18:49] Voice 19: a forecast for next year unless we have an in-depth conversation about what caused it this

[0:18:57] Voice 19: year so i agree we have to do it at a different time but the the understand spend on the programs

[0:19:03] Voice 19: like this is a perennial problem and that money is actually for external resources so it's really

[0:19:13] Voice 19: just the tip of the iceberg that um gives you a flag that says you know we we budgeted a million

[0:19:23] Voice 19: what was it 1.3 and a half million well sorry 1.345 um and we haven't spent we spent a third of

[0:19:33] Voice 19: it and those are just the external and those are the external uh consultancy uh spends in addition

[0:19:43] Voice 19: to the staff resources that are planned for those programs so there's something really wrong there

[0:19:50] Voice 19: and i'm hoping that at the trust council when we do the strategic planning we try and address it

[0:19:57] Voice 19: and i do believe in my view that we create an over ambitious scope and it makes it incredibly

[0:20:06] Voice 19: difficult to manage. And sometimes we just throw money at it and money isn't necessarily

[0:20:13] Voice 19: the solution. We need to really ask ourselves some difficult questions. And I'm hoping that

[0:20:20] Voice 19: the CAO will lead us in that. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank

[0:20:25] Trustee Fast: you. And if I can ask,

[0:20:28] Trustee Fast: we're looking at 7.1 here. This is the financial report. And the proposal is that we forward this

[0:20:34] Trustee Fast: financial report to Trust Council so we can get down into the discussion of the

[0:20:39] Trustee Fast: budget so maybe if we can if I can ask people to kind of focus on the whether

[0:20:46] Trustee Fast: we should forward this financial report to Trust Council for approval next up

[0:20:54] Trustee Fast: I've got trustee Allen again thank

[0:20:57] Trustee Allen: you chair um yeah I've concerns with the

[0:21:00] Trustee Allen: revenue from grants that we haven't be able to fulfill them our obligation

[0:21:05] Trustee Allen: basically and that we've had to return funds

[0:21:07] Trustee Allen: and that you know we get a lot of money

[0:21:09] Trustee Allen: from grants and so

[0:21:13] Trustee Allen: I'm thinking

[0:21:13] Trustee Allen: this is obviously to do with staffing once

[0:21:15] Trustee Allen: again that we're not able

[0:21:17] Trustee Allen: to fulfill this and yeah so I have

[0:21:19] Trustee Allen: concerns with this I don't know

[0:21:21] Trustee Allen: how it reflects on

[0:21:23] Trustee Allen: Islands Trust as an

[0:21:25] Trustee Allen: organization in terms of us applying for

[0:21:27] Trustee Allen: grants and then we're not fulfilling our obligation

[0:21:29] Trustee Allen: we can't do them

[0:21:31] Trustee Allen: within the time frame etc so I was just wondering whether you

[0:21:33] Trustee Allen: could comment on that thank you

[0:21:36] Trustee Fast: Director Moms?

[0:21:39] Voice 16: Yeah, I can provide some sort of high-level comments.

[0:21:42] Voice 16: This is a year where we are seeing a higher level of grant returns than I've seen in my time at Islands Trust over the last sort of six or seven years.

[0:21:52] Voice 16: And it has been an exceptional year in terms of staff vacancies.

[0:21:55] Voice 16: We were just noting recently that almost a quarter of our staff complement is on leave or vacant, you know, or has left the organization.

[0:22:06] Voice 16: That's quite substantial, and it does influence our ability to achieve, you know, on the deliverables that we've committed to under a grant.

[0:22:13] Voice 16: It can have an impact on our reputation with grant funders if we are engaged, you know, in this kind of operation very frequently.

[0:22:22] Voice 16: I would say generally we don't see that.

[0:22:24] Voice 16: we generally are fulfilling our obligations under grant with grant funders we are prioritizing that

[0:22:29] Voice 16: work this year has been an exceptional one from my perspective thank

[0:22:34] Trustee Fast: you very much okay i see

[0:22:37] Trustee Fast: some nods there trustee graham you're up thank

[0:22:40] Voice 12: you and just a quick question um to director mobs

[0:22:43] Voice 12: regarding the cleanup on thetis is that a recoverable amount is there something that's

[0:22:49] Voice 12: attached to the property, a lien or some way that if in fact it sells at some time down the road,

[0:22:56] Voice 12: we'll recover that money. Is that in the works?

[0:23:00] Voice 16: That is a possibility. It is not a guarantee.

[0:23:03] Voice 16: It is something that I know bylaw enforcement staff are actively working towards. But at this

[0:23:08] Voice 16: juncture, we do not have a lien on the property that would guarantee a return. But it's a

[0:23:13] Voice 16: possibility it's being worked towards. Thank you.

[0:23:17] Trustee Fast: Thank you. I'm seeing the number of questioners.

[0:23:20] Trustee Fast: um reducing and i'm hoping somebody will soon uh bring a motion so that we get get down to the

[0:23:26] Trustee Fast: substantive uh debate this is the financial report to trust council for approval go ahead trustee

[0:23:32] Trustee Fast: boland did you have a question um just

[0:23:35] Voice 19: another very short brief comment but i found this financial

[0:23:39] Voice 19: reporting a really kind of key part of the year it really gives you a a huge kind of possibly

[0:23:46] Voice 19: possibly oversimplified, but easy to digest view of things. So it's quite interesting to

[0:23:53] Voice 19: have some discussion on it. And the thing I want to comment on is the fact that the CityView portal

[0:23:59] Voice 19: is delayed, and it's because of the vendor. And the CityView, that's the bylaw enforcement portal.

[0:24:09] Voice 19: And as far as I remember, the main CityView application processing portal was equally

[0:24:15] Voice 19: delayed by the vendor to the degree that some of the grant money had to be, you know, padded or

[0:24:22] Voice 19: couldn't be spent the following year. So I would challenge why that vendor is creating so many

[0:24:31] Voice 19: delays in the implementation. I would have thought a vendor would be, you know, more than willing to

[0:24:38] Voice 19: support us. So those kind of delays to me are symptomatic of potential problems with the vendor.

[0:24:45] Voice 19: and I'm just wondering if somebody wanted to comment on that.

[0:24:50] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:24:50] Trustee Fast: Maybe somebody could first confirm

[0:24:55] Trustee Fast: or provide some info for the rest of us

[0:24:59] Trustee Fast: who may not have the same information.

[0:25:03] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Trustee.

[0:25:04] Trustee Fast: Director Mobs?

[0:25:07] Voice 16: I think this question is best answered by Director Cermak.

[0:25:11] Trustee Fast: Oh, okay.

[0:25:11] Trustee Fast: Excuse me.

[0:25:12] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Director Cermak.

[0:25:15] Voice 14: I saw Director Mara waving his hand.

[0:25:17] Voice 14: And I hate to say pass the buck, but before I

[0:25:19] Trustee Fast: speak, perhaps he has something to say.

[0:25:21] Trustee Fast: Yes,

[0:25:21] Voice 14: okay, Director Marler,

[0:25:21] Trustee Fast: over to you.

[0:25:22] Voice 17: Yeah, I just wanted to caution that we can't talk about details of contracts in open meeting.

[0:25:28] Voice 17: So it could be just a high level of view of what some of the issues might be.

[0:25:34] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[0:25:36] Voice 8: Okay.

[0:25:36] Trustee Fast: And moving on then, I still see Director Marler's hand.

[0:25:42] Trustee Fast: I see Trustee Getty.

[0:25:48] Voice 13: Can't hear you.

[0:25:49] Voice 13: I just sent a motion to Robert that I move that the Financial Planning Committee,

[0:25:54] Voice 13: no, I can't see the motion, forward the financial report, no, December 31st, 2024 financial report

[0:26:04] Voice 13: to Trust Council for approval.

[0:26:06] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. So we've got a mover,

[0:26:09] Trustee Fast: Judy Getty, and do I have a seconder? I see Trustee Graham. Before we go on, I see Susan

[0:26:17] Trustee Fast: Susan Yates, did you want to chip into the discussion?

[0:26:20] Trustee Fast: No, I was trying to second.

[0:26:22] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:26:23] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[0:26:24] Trustee Fast: Maybe you did and I just missed whose hand went up first.

[0:26:27] Trustee Fast: My apologies.

[0:26:28] Trustee Fast: So any further discussion on this motion?

[0:26:33] Trustee Fast: Trustee Boland?

[0:26:34] Voice 19: Just a quick question.

[0:26:35] Voice 19: Will our discussion and comments go with this when it's forwarded?

[0:26:42] Trustee Fast: I don't believe so.

[0:26:44] Trustee Fast: This is the meeting of the Financial Planning Committee.

[0:26:46] Trustee Fast: committee we're just unless you want to add some add a second motion uh but otherwise our

[0:26:52] Trustee Fast: opportunity as trust counselors is to bring it up at trust council i think outside perhaps in

[0:26:59] Trustee Fast: closed meetings okay

[0:27:01] Voice 19: direct director director mobs

[0:27:03] Trustee Fast: um the

[0:27:08] Voice 16: only comments or notes that i've

[0:27:10] Voice 16: made for myself to update in this report prior to sending it on was related to trustee boland's

[0:27:14] Voice 16: comment that we should highlight in the expense by object that it's not just the way that we

[0:27:19] Voice 16: budgeted this year that's leading to those overspends we do have that commentary in the

[0:27:23] Voice 16: body of the report but i understand a lot of folks um are really gravitate towards the object

[0:27:28] Voice 16: section and so we can beef that section up that's the only um thing that i've noted for change if

[0:27:33] Voice 16: there's additional changes i'm happy to take direction thank you very much any further

[0:27:39] Trustee Fast: Further discussion? Okay. Then I would call the vote. Director Mobs, if you want to take your

[0:27:47] Trustee Fast: hand down and everybody in favor, raise your hand, please. Very good. That looks like that

[0:27:54] Trustee Fast: passes. Anybody opposed? Please lower your hands. Anybody opposed? No. Okay, great. Thank you very

[0:28:02] Trustee Fast: much. So that motion carries and we're moving on to 7.2, starts on page 23. And this is the

[0:28:11] Trustee Fast: the financial forecast it's a briefing please go ahead director mobs thanks

[0:28:17] Voice 16: chair what we're seeing

[0:28:19] Voice 16: in our financial forecast at quarter three is a continuation of the trends that are reported in

[0:28:24] Voice 16: our third quarter financial report which is some underspending on our salaries due to vacancies

[0:28:30] Voice 16: as well as underspending on projects that are not anticipated to be completed by the end of the year

[0:28:36] Voice 16: the level of understanding is noted is slightly offset by some areas of overspend the most

[0:28:41] Voice 16: most significant of that being related to legal costs. We are expecting to spend the majority of

[0:28:47] Voice 16: our budget this fiscal year, which is new for Islands Trust. Generally, we tend to see less

[0:28:52] Voice 16: spending against our plan, and so this year is exceptional in that regard. Because of the almost

[0:28:59] Voice 16: full spending of our budget, we are anticipating to draw a little bit more from our general revenue

[0:29:05] Voice 16: surplus funds than the budget anticipated. And that's primarily because the areas of

[0:29:11] Voice 16: underspending are related to work funded by slipper reserve, as well as related to activity

[0:29:17] Voice 16: associated with tangible capital assets. So simply because we're underspending on an overall

[0:29:22] Voice 16: organizational basis doesn't mean our general revenue surplus fund benefits from that underspending

[0:29:26] Voice 16: entirely. And so we are anticipating pulling out about $72,000 more from general surplus than was

[0:29:32] Voice 16: was planned. This is impacting the amount of surplus that we have available to support

[0:29:36] Voice 16: spending next fiscal year. And so we'll talk about that a little bit when we get to the budget

[0:29:41] Voice 16: section, but it's a contributor to why we are seeing a higher than palatable tax increase,

[0:29:46] Voice 16: I would say. One thing to note in the forecast, we have identified an error as it relates to

[0:29:52] Voice 16: overspending in the information services salaries line to the tune of about $35,000. And so that

[0:29:59] Voice 16: That would actually.

[0:30:00] Voice 16: mean an additional $35,000 will actually not be drawn from the surplus fund as is reported in

[0:30:06] Voice 16: this report. So that amount is now available to support next year's budget. And so we can again

[0:30:12] Voice 16: address that when we look at budget discussions. Happy to take questions on this, but the overall

[0:30:17] Voice 16: update is we are continuing to see the same trend from quarter one, two, and three extended to

[0:30:21] Voice 16: quarter four, resulting in a slight underspend against budget for next year.

[0:30:27] Voice 8: Thank you very much.

[0:30:28] Trustee Fast: chair sorry thanks director mobs and um i think that's kind of a good thing that we're expecting

[0:30:36] Trustee Fast: to spend the budget uh please go ahead uh director uh trustee allen director

[0:30:43] Trustee Allen: chair fast okay um

[0:30:45] Trustee Allen: i'm confused because i'm i'm not an accountant and i'm not really big on budgets to be honest and uh

[0:30:52] Trustee Allen: terrible at numbers but so i might be totally confused here with this question but

[0:30:56] Trustee Allen: So under project, it says forecast is underspending $383,000, but yet further on in the next report, the briefing says expenses planned project costs have increased by approximately $196,000.

[0:31:15] Trustee Allen: Can you explain that to me?

[0:31:20] Trustee Allen: Why up, down, down, up?

[0:31:22] Voice 16: Go ahead.

[0:31:23] Voice 16: Yes. So the report we're looking at now is a forecast for the current fiscal year that we're

[0:31:28] Voice 16: in. It is looking to guess where we might land at the end of the year. And we are assuming or

[0:31:35] Voice 16: expecting that we will not spend our full budget on projects. The other report you refer to is the

[0:31:41] Voice 16: budget for next year. And because we have underspending in the current year, we're

[0:31:45] Voice 16: anticipating that work will flow into next fiscal year. And so we need to bump up next fiscal year's

[0:31:50] Voice 16: amount to acknowledge completion of the current year work.

[0:31:55] Trustee Allen: And then, Cadence, we're going to have, I think we're going to be under

[0:31:58] Trustee Allen: budget again because of staffing issues again, will we not? I'm assuming

[0:32:03] Trustee Allen: this year.

[0:32:05] Voice 16: The primary drivers for an

[0:32:07] Voice 16: anticipated underspend this year are underspends on projects and underspends on

[0:32:11] Voice 16: salaries, which are offset by increases in legal spending.

[0:32:15] Trustee Allen: Okay, thank you.

[0:32:16] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. Trustee Getty?

[0:32:19] Trustee Fast: The

[0:32:24] Voice 13: under revenues, the application fees forecasted at 36% lower than budget because of the new accounting standards.

[0:32:35] Voice 13: But there's another mention somewhere else that the cost recovery has not been sorted out in terms of actual expenses being recorded and part of the development cost process.

[0:32:51] Voice 13: So is there some way of sorting out the new accounting process and the underrepresentation of the actual time that's spent on fees and permits and all the work that the planning department does so that we can sort this out a little bit better?

[0:33:15] Voice 13: Director Mobs?

[0:33:16] Voice 13: Oh, I'm sorry.

[0:33:16] Voice 13: And another part of that is, if not, do we need to budget for some staffing to sort out the problem with actual fees or the actual costs that are reflected in fees?

[0:33:30] Trustee Fast: I think you're referring to the fee review that's underway.

[0:33:36] Trustee Fast: Anyway, go ahead, Director Mobs.

[0:33:37] Trustee Fast: So

[0:33:39] Voice 16: the reason we are seeing an underspend against budget this year is solely due to the new accounting standard, as well as sort of, you know, estimates in the volume of applications we might receive in any given year is just that it's an estimate, we're not going to hit target exactly.

[0:33:56] Voice 16: Exactly. So the current fee structure, which does not recover 100% of costs incurred to process applications, was the fee structure used to set the budget.

[0:34:10] Voice 16: So it was accounted for in the budget already. And so the underspending against budget is solely due to that, as I mentioned, the new accounting standard and perhaps a small change in volume.

[0:34:19] Voice 16: you. The conversation around whether or not the fees we're charging are actually reaching a cost

[0:34:25] Voice 16: recovery that we are meant to under policy is a different conversation, but it is something that

[0:34:31] Voice 16: is being talked about, I think a bit more now than historically. It would bolster our fees revenue

[0:34:38] Voice 16: and help with some of our budget pressures if we were to make changes to local trust committee

[0:34:42] Voice 16: application fees. There is some work required to sort of assess how deficient we are in that

[0:34:47] Voice 16: and sort of determine what the value of fees

[0:34:50] Voice 16: would need to be in order to reach cost recovery.

[0:34:53] Voice 16: I know Director Cermak is working

[0:34:55] Voice 16: on some preliminary analysis associated

[0:34:58] Voice 16: with time tracking that would support that work.

[0:35:03] Voice 16: Fees are set by local trust committees.

[0:35:05] Voice 16: So even if this exercise is, you know,

[0:35:09] Voice 16: an exercise is completed,

[0:35:10] Voice 16: we identify that we are significantly deficient

[0:35:13] Voice 16: and there is a recommendation to adjust the fees

[0:35:16] Voice 16: to better support the rest of our services at islands trust financially it would still be

[0:35:21] Voice 16: within the authority of local trust committees to choose what fee levels they want so there is a bit

[0:35:26] Voice 16: of a limitation there thank

[0:35:30] Trustee Fast: you two sort of related topics okay over to you trustee patrick

[0:35:37] Trustee Fast: you have a question for the director uh

[0:35:39] Trustee Patrick: yes uh before this report i'm sure we're going to move

[0:35:41] Trustee Patrick: that we want to pass this on to the um trust council but there's a a correction that needs

[0:35:47] Trustee Patrick: to occur it's on page 27 it says the salt spring water or the uh that uh as i said the uh we didn't

[0:35:56] Trustee Patrick: spend the money due to the salt spring island local trust committee not engaging in watershed

[0:36:00] Trustee Patrick: coordination activities in the fiscal year and staff vacancies uh it was not done because of

[0:36:07] Trustee Patrick: staff vacancies not a not a not a will on the ltc part there just was no staff so that should

[0:36:15] Trustee Patrick: be corrected please absolutely

[0:36:18] Trustee Fast: i will make a note of that thank you very much okay and uh trustee

[0:36:24] Trustee Fast: allen yeah

[0:36:26] Trustee Allen: on the same uh page there yeah concerns with you know the under spending regarding uh

[0:36:32] Trustee Allen: first nations engagement and um obviously very very busy all indigenous groups right now in bc

[0:36:40] Trustee Allen: and so i'm just wondering um how we're gonna address that in terms of figuring out i'm not

[0:36:46] Trustee Allen: sure what do we have a time frame in terms of where we just leave it open until we hear back or

[0:36:51] Trustee Allen: i'm yeah i'm just wondering how we're going to address that in terms of um because it's like

[0:36:56] Trustee Allen: there's about three or four projects there that have been delayed because of first nations

[0:37:00] Trustee Allen: engagement so i'm just wondering whether you could comment on that thank you director

[0:37:04] Voice 16: mobs um probably

[0:37:07] Voice 16: not a full place to comment as perhaps director cermak um but i will note that um a lot of this

[0:37:14] Voice 16: funding is due to capacity funding that has left the building this year to support First Nations

[0:37:22] Voice 16: engagement. But the work that the dollars are supporting has not yet happened. So the responses

[0:37:29] Voice 16: from First Nations has not yet been received, and they've not completed work at their end.

[0:37:34] Voice 16: And so even though the dollars have left the building, we have to reflect the expense only

[0:37:39] Voice 16: only when the work that those dollars are supporting is completed.

[0:37:43] Voice 16: So it's been punted into next year.

[0:37:45] Voice 16: It is a reflection of the fact that many of these capacity funding agreements

[0:37:48] Voice 16: were signed in January, which is quite late in the fiscal year.

[0:37:52] Voice 16: And so, you know, if projects were,

[0:37:55] Voice 16: if the engagement phase of a project was started earlier in the fiscal year,

[0:37:59] Voice 16: we would see more spending, particularly related to capacity funding,

[0:38:03] Voice 16: potentially because of course the availability of nations and their staff to

[0:38:06] Voice 16: to do the work is also influencing this line.

[0:38:10] Voice 16: So I'd look to Director Cermak

[0:38:11] Voice 16: if he's got any supplementary comments.

[0:38:13] Voice 16: He probably knows more of the detail than I do.

[0:38:16] Trustee Allen: And I'm guessing probably there's, you know,

[0:38:18] Trustee Allen: we just, ComEx for Stations just had elections,

[0:38:20] Trustee Allen: so that could be as well,

[0:38:21] Trustee Allen: but there might be some way Trust Council discuss

[0:38:24] Trustee Allen: how we can facilitate it easier for Stations to.

[0:38:28] Trustee Fast: This is a huge, big topic and I'm looking,

[0:38:32] Trustee Fast: the motion proposed is just to forward this information

[0:38:35] Trustee Fast: for Trust Council.

[0:38:37] Trustee Fast: And so if we can just kind of focus in on this

[0:38:40] Trustee Fast: so that we can get down to the bigger budget.

[0:38:44] Trustee Fast: Director Cermak, did you want to add anything?

[0:38:46] Voice 14: Thank you, Chair.

[0:38:47] Voice 14: I'll just add that, you know,

[0:38:49] Voice 14: these capacity agreements are a big step forward

[0:38:52] Voice 14: for the planning department working with the various LTCs

[0:38:55] Voice 14: and the projects that they're going through.

[0:38:58] Voice 14: And they take time.

[0:38:59] Voice 14: And it's been a really successful venture.

[0:39:02] Voice 14: sure. It's a pilot phase, and they get signed as soon as we could. So we're going through the

[0:39:08] Voice 14: process right now, and I'm really appreciative of the work staff have done.

[0:39:12] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[0:39:13] Trustee Fast: I think it's sometimes, as our mayor puts it, it's challenging and hard to see when you're at

[0:39:19] Trustee Fast: the frothing, cutting edge kind of where it's fuzzy. Thank you very much. And over to you,

[0:39:25] Trustee Fast: Trustee Elliott.

[0:39:28] Trustee Elliott: Thank you, Chair. I will be happy to make the motion to forward this to Trust

[0:39:33] Trustee Elliott: Council for information. But just on that last note, when we get to the considering the LTC

[0:39:40] Trustee Elliott: projects, especially the feasibility study, I would ask this committee to think about

[0:39:47] Trustee Elliott: the business cases that are projecting to do OCP work and such, and whether that work can go forward until and unless First Nations engagement is sort of done at the front end of that piece.

[0:40:08] Trustee Elliott: And so can we consider some of those budgets maybe have to spaced out over a couple of years if First Nations engagement has to happen first?

[0:40:21] Trustee Elliott: Because that is the trend that we're seeing.

[0:40:22] Trustee Elliott: So I think that's the appropriate time for the conversation.

[0:40:25] Trustee Elliott: But I'll move that the December 31, 2024 financial forecast be forwarded to Trust Council for information.

[0:40:32] Trustee Allen: Second.

[0:40:34] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:40:35] Trustee Fast: to the march 2025 trust council i assume is what you meant okay thank you yes all right so we've

[0:40:43] Trustee Fast: had a motion from trustee elliott seconded by trustee allen no

[0:40:47] Trustee Elliott: it is the 2024 it's december

[0:40:50] Trustee Elliott: 31st 2024 is it not yes yeah

[0:40:53] Trustee Fast: and it just says to

[0:40:55] Trustee Fast: the march 2025 trust council oh sorry okay just

[0:40:59] Trustee Fast: yeah i'm just adding in some words that were some of the words okay um assuming that that

[0:41:04] Trustee Fast: what we're looking at is the motion that's on the page 23 of our agenda, which is what I think I

[0:41:11] Trustee Fast: heard. Then I'm going to ask if there's any more discussion before I call the question. Oops,

[0:41:21] Trustee Fast: sorry. I'm looking at the cover page here. And it says, Financial Planning Committee forward the

[0:41:28] Trustee Fast: December 31st, 2024 financial forecast to the March 2025 Trust Council meeting for information.

[0:41:35] Trustee Fast: and um there it is there thank you and uh any more discussion seeing no hands i'll call the

[0:41:43] Trustee Fast: question please raise your hand if you're in favor thank you very much and lower your hands

[0:41:55] Trustee Fast: anybody opposed okay that motion carries unanimously thank you very much everybody

[0:42:02] Trustee Fast: it's 11 12 i propose a 10 minute break until we get into the big budget item so there's a chance

[0:42:09] Trustee Fast: for you to put on the kettle and come back with your full cup of tea ready for good discussion

[0:42:16] Trustee Fast: any last things from staff before we break no okay so we'll come back at 11 23 it just heads

[0:42:27] Trustee Allen: up it's really it's really gusting up here so we'll see how the power stays okay everybody

[0:42:32] Trustee Fast: plug in their devices okay thank you see you at 11 23 okay are we back very good thanks everybody

[0:52:59] Trustee Fast: for joining us again we're going to begin on 7.3 item 7.3 beginning on page 30 30 30 of our agenda

[0:53:10] Trustee Fast: which is like 237 pages or something so we've got a lot of material in front of us and uh i'd like

[0:53:18] Trustee Fast: like to turn it over to uh director mobs if you want to say a few words about this before we get

[0:53:22] Trustee Fast: into the meat of the next item can't hear you how's that

[0:53:34] Trustee Fast: that's much better thank you great

[0:53:37] Voice 16: um so are we looking at agenda item 7.3 did i hear that correctly um

[0:53:43] Trustee Fast: yes i was just wondering

[0:53:44] Trustee Fast: if you wanted to say a few words or if trustees had questions they'd have an opportunity to ask

[0:53:49] Trustee Fast: them there i'll

[0:53:52] Voice 16: just offer a very again very brief comment um so this report just gives a

[0:53:56] Voice 16: a high-level summary for Financial Planning Committee of the changes that have happened

[0:53:59] Voice 16: to the budget since you saw it at your last meeting in January. On an overall basis,

[0:54:05] Voice 16: we have seen an increase in spending. It's now at $11.27 million. Buried in that, we've actually

[0:54:12] Voice 16: seen a decrease in operating spending that's primarily due to reductions in costs for removal

[0:54:17] Voice 16: expenses, as well as a reduction in insurance costs. Total planned project spending has increased by

[0:54:24] Voice 16: by about $196,000 and that's due primarily to projects

[0:54:29] Voice 16: in the current year that are not going to be completed

[0:54:31] Voice 16: and therefore need to have funds carrying over

[0:54:33] Voice 16: into next fiscal year, as well as a new project request

[0:54:37] Voice 16: from the governance committee valued at $15,000.

[0:54:41] Voice 16: And we have seen planned capital spending increasing

[0:54:43] Voice 16: by about $75,000 that's due entirely to delays

[0:54:48] Voice 16: in the Salt Spring Island office renovation.

[0:54:50] Voice 16: And so a chunk of that work will be completed

[0:54:52] Voice 16: next fiscal year. So we need to reflect the expense next fiscal year as well. Of course,

[0:54:58] Voice 16: when we've got increases in spending, we have to pay for them. And so we are seeing an increase

[0:55:02] Voice 16: in revenues primarily from taxation. The local trust area general tax increases moved from 5.97%

[0:55:08] Voice 16: to 7.1%. And we've seen some small changes in grant income and investment income as well,

[0:55:14] Voice 16: due to updates and estimates, as well as projects that are funded by grants that are not being

[0:55:19] Voice 16: completed this year of course we show the expense next year as well as the grant revenue that's

[0:55:23] Voice 16: supporting that work we're also drawing some additional funds from surplus so an additional

[0:55:29] Voice 16: draw from general surplus funds of forty six thousand dollars and an additional draw from the

[0:55:34] Voice 16: LTC reserve of seventy one thousand dollars the detail of the changes is in the report I won't

[0:55:39] Voice 16: speak to it but I can take questions thank

[0:55:42] Trustee Fast: you very much director mobs so this is just a briefing

[0:55:46] Trustee Fast: briefing before we get um into the budget draft budget discussion any questions for the director

[0:55:52] Trustee Fast: director uh sorry trustee graham i

[0:55:55] Voice 12: like director graham um quick question on that seventy five

[0:56:00] Voice 12: thousand dollars uh increase in the salt spring island so is that an increase in the actual cost

[0:56:07] Voice 12: of renovating or is that simply just the seventy five thousand dollars that wasn't spent this

[0:56:11] Voice 12: fiscal but will be spent next fiscal and not an increase in the actual amount of money that's

[0:56:16] Voice 12: being used to renovate that particular office director

[0:56:20] Voice 16: mobs it's not it's not an increase in

[0:56:23] Voice 16: the overall amount to be spent on the renovation i simply we're moving dollars from this year

[0:56:28] Voice 16: into next year thank

[0:56:31] Trustee Fast: you very much okay and uh trustee patrick your hand is up uh i'm gonna just

[0:56:41] Trustee Fast: pass for a minute okay thank you very much all right we'll see no questions oh i did

[0:56:48] Trustee Patrick: okay go

[0:56:49] Trustee Patrick: Go ahead, go ahead.

[0:56:50] Trustee Patrick: Apologize.

[0:56:51] Trustee Patrick: Can't read, write and think at the same time here.

[0:56:54] Trustee Patrick: I know that the Salt Spring Local Trust Committee

[0:56:57] Trustee Patrick: met last week and staff had indicated

[0:56:59] Trustee Patrick: that no work would be occurring on the OCP this year

[0:57:03] Trustee Patrick: and that it all needed to move.

[0:57:05] Trustee Patrick: Was that in factored into this,

[0:57:07] Trustee Patrick: that the money that was expected to be spent

[0:57:09] Trustee Patrick: in this fiscal was being moved to next fiscal?

[0:57:14] Voice 16: So when we completed the third quarter forecast,

[0:57:18] Voice 16: staff did all have a look at their projects

[0:57:20] Voice 16: to understand how much they would not be spending this year and then based on that

[0:57:25] Voice 16: did relay information to finance about how much they would need next fiscal so my expectation is

[0:57:31] Voice 16: that was contemplated by planning staff and that we've got that amount needed for next year

[0:57:36] Voice 16: thank

[0:57:38] Trustee Fast: you very much any more questions or can we move on to our big budget item for today

[0:57:43] Trustee Fast: Dave. Okay, moving on. Now we're on item 7.4. I see Trustee Boland's hand is up right away. No,

[0:57:53] Trustee Fast: she took it down. Okay, 7.4. This is the recommended budget that this committee

[0:58:00] Trustee Fast: will send to Trust Council. When we finish talking about it today, with whatever motions we make,

[0:58:08] Trustee Fast: including the draft motion that's there on page two of our agenda where it says

[0:58:15] Trustee Fast: as amended or presented so let's get the discussion going I just invite director

[0:58:22] Trustee Fast: mobs to introduce the budget to us starting I guess on page 35 whatever you

[0:58:31] Trustee Fast: like I think we've mostly read it so I just be brief yes

[0:58:36] Voice 16: I will be very brief

[0:58:38] Voice 16: Just wanted to note on agenda item 741, page 35, that's the budget session outline that will advance to Trust Council.

[0:58:45] Voice 16: We have two and a half hours planned for the budget session at Trust Council.

[0:58:49] Voice 16: If this committee feels more time is needed, we could put in a request for more time, although I will say that the Trust Council agenda is quite full at this juncture.

[0:58:59] Voice 16: So that's what we've got for the time being.

[0:59:01] Voice 16: Looking at the budget overview report, starting on page 36, this is the draft 2025-26 budget

[0:59:09] Voice 16: overview.

[0:59:10] Voice 16: It contains all of the details of what's in the budget, what the dollars will be funding

[0:59:15] Voice 16: for next fiscal year.

[0:59:16] Voice 16: As Chair Fast mentioned, you know, this is in the agenda.

[0:59:21] Voice 16: Hopefully everybody has read it.

[0:59:22] Voice 16: It's also not the first time that trustees will be seeing this report.

[0:59:26] Voice 16: report. I think this is probably the fourth or fifth time this committee is actually seeing

[0:59:31] Voice 16: this report now. Of course, we've updated it for changes to the budget that were noted

[0:59:35] Voice 16: in the budget changes briefing that we just examined. So, I'm not going to go into detail.

[0:59:41] Voice 16: I did want to provide a bit of background on what we are seeing in this draft of the budget. So,

[0:59:47] Voice 16: as noted, we are seeing an increase to local trust area taxation. It's now reading at 7.1%.

[0:59:56] Voice 16: The Bowen Island tax levy is that...

[1:00:00] Voice 16: point nine percent general levy increase. So those numbers are not percentage increases to be sneezed

[1:00:06] Voice 16: at. They are quite significant. The reason for our high tax increases this year is not due primarily

[1:00:14] Voice 16: to increases in planned spending. The increase that we're seeing in planned spending year over

[1:00:19] Voice 16: year is about two point six percent, which very closely aligns with inflation for the year,

[1:00:27] Voice 16: which is at 2.5%. So on an overall basis, our spending increases are aligning with inflation,

[1:00:34] Voice 16: which is generally to be expected. The reason we are seeing much larger tax increases is because

[1:00:40] Voice 16: revenue sources from non-tax external revenue is decreasing. So we have less revenue from fees

[1:00:47] Voice 16: expected in next year's budget, less revenue from grant income, as well as a reduction in

[1:00:53] Voice 16: in assumed investment income

[1:00:55] Voice 16: as we are starting to see investment rates decrease.

[1:00:58] Voice 16: We are also seeing a reduction in the amount

[1:01:00] Voice 16: that we can transfer from general revenue surplus

[1:01:03] Voice 16: and reserve funds to pay for some of our work

[1:01:07] Voice 16: next fiscal year.

[1:01:08] Voice 16: So when we have a reduction in surplus and reserve,

[1:01:11] Voice 16: and we have a reduction in non-tax revenue sources,

[1:01:14] Voice 16: we have to make up that difference some other way,

[1:01:17] Voice 16: which is coming from taxation.

[1:01:18] Voice 16: And so on page 50 of the agenda, there is a table that's been put together, which hopefully will provide a bit of a numerical overview of the situation to help everybody understand that the driving force for our tax increase is actually not due to significant increases in planned spending.

[1:01:41] Voice 16: We are not alone in experiencing significant tax increases this year.

[1:01:46] Voice 16: I did have a look at where other jurisdictions are landing as far as proposed tax increases

[1:01:52] Voice 16: sort of around the trust area as well as within the trust area.

[1:01:56] Voice 16: And we are seeing tax increases ranging from 7% to almost 11% just for the ones that I

[1:02:04] Voice 16: surveyed.

[1:02:05] Voice 16: And I know that many other jurisdictions are in the same boat.

[1:02:08] Voice 16: So, you know, there is a change in the economic climate.

[1:02:11] Voice 16: The cost of goods and services is on the rise.

[1:02:15] Voice 16: there's additional costs for new activities associated with climate change and adaptation

[1:02:19] Voice 16: as well as engagement with First Nations and so we are not immune from those external pressures

[1:02:25] Voice 16: and so that is a contributing factor to why we are seeing some increases in our spending so I'm

[1:02:32] Voice 16: happy to take some questions on sort of that contextual piece and then also respond to

[1:02:38] Voice 16: questions from the budget itself okay

[1:02:41] Trustee Fast: so looking for questions at the broad kind of overview

[1:02:45] Trustee Fast: context trustee elliott thank

[1:02:49] Trustee Elliott: you chair um just a quick uh request could you director mobs show the

[1:02:56] Trustee Elliott: comparative or relative tax increases in a table just that one paragraph i don't know it's it's i

[1:03:06] Trustee Elliott: I think it is significant, and it's buried a little bit.

[1:03:09] Trustee Elliott: So if that wasn't too much work, I'd love to see a table of that.

[1:03:14] Trustee Fast: Which page is that if you have it?

[1:03:16] Trustee Fast: Oh, yeah, page 38.

[1:03:19] Voice 16: Thank you.

[1:03:21] Voice 16: You're speaking to the proposed tax increases from other jurisdictions.

[1:03:24] Voice 16: Is that correct?

[1:03:26] Voice 16: Yes.

[1:03:27] Voice 16: Yes, I can do that.

[1:03:28] Voice 16: That's easy enough to do.

[1:03:30] Trustee Fast: That would be great.

[1:03:31] Trustee Fast: Make that pop out a little bit more in the report to Trust Council.

[1:03:35] Trustee Fast: Is that what you're asking?

[1:03:37] Trustee Fast: Yep, that's all. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Questions at this broad overview level? Trustee Patrick?

[1:03:45] Trustee Fast: Patrick?

[1:03:47] Trustee Patrick: Well, I'm a bit concerned. I think we need to give some serious thought to the March

[1:03:53] Trustee Patrick: conversation and how much time we might need. A month ago when we met, the world was a very

[1:04:00] Trustee Patrick: different place than it is already today, four weeks after our last meeting. And I'm concerned

[1:04:07] Trustee Patrick: as to what it's going to look like for less than four weeks from now when we meet to discuss the

[1:04:14] Trustee Patrick: budget. So I think we need to anticipate that there will be some serious interest from our

[1:04:21] Trustee Patrick: fellow trustees on trying to reduce the budget and how we can structure that conversation well,

[1:04:27] Trustee Patrick: you know, so that it's productive and focuses us on where to go. And I'm sure we're going to

[1:04:32] Trustee Patrick: have some of that conversation just now today. But I think we should make sure we do have ample time

[1:04:39] Trustee Patrick: put toward this.

[1:04:41] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much, Trustee Patrick. So if people can think about that,

[1:04:44] Trustee Fast: and I've made a note, remind me if we don't get back to that later in the meeting. Trustee Graham.

[1:04:50] Voice 12: Yes, thank you. The provincial government is now sitting and they're starting to suggest that

[1:04:59] Voice 12: the public service agency will be restricting wage increases in light of what Trustee Patrick

[1:05:09] Voice 12: has alluded to and so that that because of course the uh majority of the money that we spend is

[1:05:15] Voice 12: wages and there is a budgeted increase i believe uh that that may go to zero and that that'll make

[1:05:20] Voice 12: a huge impact i think in the tax um that we are asking our constituents to pay so just just keep

[1:05:27] Voice 12: in mind we'll be watching that of course director obviously watching that and that that could be

[1:05:31] Voice 12: good news thank

[1:05:32] Trustee Fast: you very much yes i've heard about belt tightening already um any discussion

[1:05:39] Trustee Fast: or comment there or shall we just move on? Thank you. I didn't hear a question. So I'll go on to

[1:05:46] Trustee Fast: Trustee Getty.

[1:05:47] Voice 13: Thank you. At one point, we talked about trying to make an extra line in some of

[1:05:53] Voice 13: these documents so that I can explain what it is that the 18.9% relates to and then it's not

[1:06:01] Voice 13: anything to do with planning and such. And I haven't been able to find that in any of these

[1:06:06] Voice 13: documents. Is that, have I missed it? Is it in there somewhere?

[1:06:12] Voice 16: It is there. So on page 48 of

[1:06:15] Voice 16: the agenda, that's where our numerical agenda or numerical budget is presented. We did add a column

[1:06:21] Voice 16: to the far left. The heading is BIM contribution. And there's a check mark next to every line that

[1:06:30] Voice 16: Bowen is benefiting from on the revenue side and contributing to on the expense side.

[1:06:34] Voice 16: Okay.

[1:06:35] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[1:06:37] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. Actually, Sue Welland says, just noticing that as well. Okay. Trustee Boland.

[1:06:46] Voice 19: Just a comment. So, indeed, we can look to the other areas where, you know, the tax increases that are proposed are significant or similar to ours.

[1:06:59] Voice 19: But there are equally a lot of agencies and regional districts, et cetera, who've really, you know, clamped down.

[1:07:07] Voice 19: And I think it would be important to name a few of those as our companions as well, because, you know, we're getting a smattering of people who've decided to go with an increase.

[1:07:21] Voice 19: But I think it's important to reflect some of the others that are lower as well, given what we may be facing shortly.

[1:07:28] Voice 19: Thanks.

[1:07:30] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Boland.

[1:07:32] Trustee Fast: Going on now, Trustee Peterson.

[1:07:40] Voice 10: Thank you.

[1:07:41] Voice 10: one thing that um certainly executive committee discussed at our last meeting and um i'm glad to

[1:07:49] Voice 10: see appearing in the draft uh budget survey is around the question of um cost of application

[1:07:58] Voice 10: and to what degree um those costs are being covered by applicants and i just maybe look to

[1:08:07] Voice 10: to staff to sort of update FPC

[1:08:12] Voice 10: on what the direction is around trying to address that.

[1:08:20] Voice 10: Because I think it's a really important piece.

[1:08:24] Trustee Fast: Trustee Peterson, are you referring to the survey

[1:08:27] Trustee Fast: that we'll be discussing down at 8.1?

[1:08:30] Voice 10: Correct, but my mention of that was just that

[1:08:34] Voice 10: I was happy to see a question in there on this topic.

[1:08:38] Voice 10: But for the topic, I'd just like to hear from staff because I don't know that this committee has really delved into that issue much or recently anyway.

[1:08:49] Voice 10: But we don't have to spend a long time here.

[1:08:52] Voice 10: I just want to hear from staff so that the members of FPC kind of know where we're standing on the application fees and cost recovery and sort of what the next steps are.

[1:09:02] Voice 10: And

[1:09:02] Trustee Fast: whether that could affect this coming year's budget or beyond that, maybe. Can I

[1:09:08] Voice 8: turn to you?

[1:09:09] Voice 8: Right, yeah.

[1:09:09] Trustee Fast: Okay. Director Mobs, is that something you can speak to?

[1:09:15] Voice 16: I can, and I'll make sure Director Cermak interjects if I misspeak here.

[1:09:21] Voice 16: so to my recollection there's actually not an exercise that trust council has directed staff

[1:09:26] Voice 16: to undertake to fully evaluate whether or not our fees revenue is nearing cost recovery as it

[1:09:35] Voice 16: should be by policy the direction at this point is simply to have a look at how much staff time

[1:09:41] Voice 16: is being spent processing applications I suspect that is a first step in direction that will be

[1:09:48] Voice 16: provided you know and likely that exercise will result in more of an

[1:09:53] Voice 16: exercise looking at fees recovery. Right now we are struggling with our time

[1:09:58] Voice 16: collection system so I know Director Cermak has been working hard to get

[1:10:02] Voice 16: updated estimates of how much time planning staff are spending processing

[1:10:06] Voice 16: applications and has been significantly hampered by our time tracking system

[1:10:09] Voice 16: which is an internal system developed for Islands Trust that is experiencing a

[1:10:13] Voice 16: lot of bugs at the moment making it difficult for staff to enter their time

[1:10:17] Voice 16: and also making it difficult for managers and directors to extract information from the system

[1:10:23] Voice 16: to then use in any analysis. So that is definitely slowing things down. You will see in this budget

[1:10:31] Voice 16: there is a proposal to fund the purchase of external time tracking software, which would help

[1:10:36] Voice 16: us to do that analysis in a much better way, in a more accurate way, and then we would be able to

[1:10:42] Voice 16: actually do a full assessment of our fees and whether or not they are appropriate in a cost

[1:10:46] Voice 16: recovery context um that is not going to happen in time for this budget review and approval

[1:10:54] Voice 16: and so we are working with what we have at this current juncture okay

[1:10:59] Trustee Fast: thank you and that thanks

[1:11:01] Trustee Fast: for making the link with this software expense that's projected in the budget right to help us

[1:11:07] Trustee Fast: be able to do that next step if needed okay um thank you very much i'm not seeing any more

[1:11:14] Trustee Fast: hands. Anybody else

[1:11:17] Trustee Fast: want to comment on this big

[1:11:18] Trustee Fast: overall umbrella kind

[1:11:21] Trustee Fast: of level? I'm going to put my

[1:11:22] Trustee Fast: hand up here. Just

[1:11:25] Trustee Fast: to say, I think

[1:11:26] Trustee Fast: I agree that there is a level

[1:11:29] Trustee Fast: of chaos beginning,

[1:11:30] Trustee Fast: belt tightening among

[1:11:33] Trustee Fast: funding organizations in the province

[1:11:35] Trustee Fast: and

[1:11:38] Trustee Fast: how

[1:11:41] Trustee Fast: well, I do have a suggestion

[1:11:43] Trustee Fast: about dealing with that regarding the topics so I'll put my hand up when we

[1:11:49] Trustee Fast: get to that part but I'm looking for creativity and ideas from the FPC so we

[1:11:55] Trustee Fast: can bring our best considered recommendations to Trust Council we've

[1:12:00] Trustee Fast: got a careful carefully constructed budget in front of us with detail down

[1:12:09] Trustee Fast: down to a couple of thousand dollars here or there and um maybe i have i have one more question and

[1:12:15] Trustee Fast: that's just about the 35 000 that you said was a correction director mobs um where would that

[1:12:21] Trustee Fast: 35 000 uh show up now in this budget so

[1:12:29] Voice 16: the error was in the forecast for a third quarter

[1:12:34] Voice 16: and so we expect to actually not spend as much on information services salaries as we thought we

[1:12:41] Voice 16: were going to and in the report so that means um we will have more money uh available in the

[1:12:48] Voice 16: surplus fund um to support any spending in next year's budget so there is an additional it's

[1:12:55] Voice 16: actually 36 500 that we could draw from the general revenue surplus fund we could allocate

[1:13:00] Voice 16: it to any number of things provided that they are eligible expenses in line with use of our revenue

[1:13:05] Voice 16: new surplus policy which generally would include most of our project items. Usually we direct our

[1:13:12] Voice 16: surplus towards projects that Bowen Island is contributing to acknowledging that they are

[1:13:17] Voice 16: funding us and should benefit from the surplus draws as well. So if we were to take that approach

[1:13:23] Voice 16: and I recommend to this committee that we do draw that additional $36,500 from surplus that would

[1:13:29] Voice 16: reduce taxation by about 0.4% because of course we'd fund some project from surplus instead of

[1:13:35] Voice 16: taxation. There is, if I may take the opportunity, Chair, to update you on another

[1:13:40] Voice 16: item. I've just

[1:13:41] Voice 16: received word as well that there are amounts related to the City View By-law project included

[1:13:48] Voice 16: in next year's draft budget that will actually be moving forward in the current year. And so

[1:13:54] Voice 16: there's a bit of an advancement there. So that would mean an additional $22,600 can be removed

[1:14:01] Voice 16: from next fiscal year. And that in total then means there's already a 0.7% potential reduction

[1:14:10] Voice 16: in taxation. So great

[1:14:12] Trustee Fast: work, everybody. From the 7.1?

[1:14:15] Voice 16: That's correct.

[1:14:17] Trustee Fast: Okay. Minus 0.7. Okay. Thank you.

[1:14:24] Trustee Fast: So we're looking at

[1:14:24] Voice 16: about 6.4, 6.5% at this juncture. I will be taking care of the

[1:14:31] Voice 16: the piece related to the CityView software.

[1:14:34] Voice 16: And if the committee agrees,

[1:14:35] Voice 16: I will also draw that additional $36,500 from surplus.

[1:14:40] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you very much.

[1:14:42] Trustee Fast: Okay. And then let's move down

[1:14:46] Trustee Fast: into the budget funding requests.

[1:14:52] Trustee Fast: And how can we better align our,

[1:14:57] Trustee Fast: recommend to council, trust council,

[1:14:59] Trustee Fast: that we better align our spending

[1:15:01] Trustee Fast: to the situation as we see it?

[1:15:04] Trustee Fast: Um, I have one suggestion, uh, but I'm not sure how to, um, I don't want to go through these in

[1:15:11] Trustee Fast: order. I'd sooner hear, um, the big ideas like we heard from the previous time. I'll go to put

[1:15:18] Trustee Fast: my hand up first. Here we go. Just to put this out on the floor, um, is, uh, at our previous

[1:15:25] Trustee Fast: meeting, January 22nd, we discussed a little bit, the idea of, uh, taking some trust council

[1:15:31] Trustee Fast: meetings online as opposed to in person. And talking to Director Mobs, I understand that

[1:15:41] Trustee Fast: they're around 33,000 or something each, 135,000 if we took all of them online. And I'm noticing

[1:15:52] Trustee Fast: that Director Marner's info back on page 8.2 says that we can, Trust Council can reconsider

[1:16:02] Trustee Fast: their earlier decision to keep all Trust Council meetings in person because of new information.

[1:16:11] Trustee Fast: And so the new information coming fast and furious over the radio and through the

[1:16:19] Trustee Fast: increases in this budget that we need to respond to as financial planning committee,

[1:16:26] Trustee Fast: I would like to propose to take all trust council meetings online, which all four of them,

[1:16:34] Trustee Fast: that would take one and a half percent off the budget increase for local trust areas. And it

[1:16:48] Trustee Fast: And so that would be a more equitable reduction. And I think that that might also, if I may, because my initial idea for taking Black Trust Council meetings online was because I find that they're more civil and that the interrupting is less common.

[1:17:08] Trustee Fast: I mentioned some of these at the previous meeting, inappropriate comments, you can talk over them or

[1:17:13] Trustee Fast: mute them. Trustees can't sit with like-minded folks to nod at or encourage or seem like an

[1:17:19] Trustee Fast: intimidating group. Side conversations can't distract or affect the ability to hear.

[1:17:25] Trustee Fast: Safety regarding communicable diseases is enhanced and trustees who do not attend in person can

[1:17:33] Trustee Fast: can participate on an equal footing,

[1:17:37] Trustee Fast: which I experienced as I sat out one day in my hotel room due to illness

[1:17:43] Trustee Fast: and experienced the difference coming back to Trust Council

[1:17:47] Trustee Fast: and feeling like I didn't have the same opportunity to participate.

[1:17:55] Trustee Fast: So I propose to take all four Trust Council meet that we recommend

[1:18:03] Trustee Fast: end to take all four trust council meetings uh onto the online world as we've done with all of

[1:18:12] Trustee Fast: our committee meetings uh all of our new um committee the whole meetings and uh as some of

[1:18:20] Trustee Fast: the trust conservancy meetings are are online i'm not sure how many and uh maybe julia can you tell

[1:18:27] Trustee Fast: what kind of effect would that have on our budget today?

[1:18:34] Voice 16: Give me 30 seconds, and I will have that

[1:18:37] Voice 16: for you.

[1:18:39] Trustee Fast: Okay. Meanwhile, go ahead.

[1:18:44] Voice 16: That's about one and a half percent.

[1:18:46] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you. Any

[1:18:51] Trustee Fast: comments on this suggestion? I'm kind of taking, then I'll be more quiet through the rest of the

[1:18:57] Trustee Fast: meeting. And I'm seeing some hands up. Oops, sorry, take mine down. Trustee Graham, I don't

[1:19:05] Trustee Fast: know if this is what you wanted to speak to uh

[1:19:08] Voice 12: thank you chair fast um it was but i think

[1:19:12] Voice 12: initially i think i think you were going to say uh why don't we put some budget um change

[1:19:20] Voice 12: suggestions out there uh before we make any motions because otherwise we get we get caught

[1:19:25] Voice 12: in that uh you know what we get caught in and i was going to also suggest um a reduction in on

[1:19:32] Voice 12: on in-person meetings,

[1:19:34] Voice 12: but I was going to be more conservative

[1:19:36] Voice 12: and suggest two meetings

[1:19:38] Voice 12: because of course we know

[1:19:40] Voice 12: that there'll be a healthy discussion

[1:19:42] Voice 12: at Trust Council.

[1:19:43] Voice 12: And there's lots of reasons

[1:19:44] Voice 12: to meet in person,

[1:19:45] Voice 12: but there's obviously

[1:19:46] Voice 12: from a financial programs perspective,

[1:19:50] Voice 12: our responsibility at this committee

[1:19:52] Voice 12: is to be fiscally responsible

[1:19:53] Voice 12: at the expense sometimes

[1:19:56] Voice 12: of some of the other positive aspects

[1:19:59] Voice 12: of an in-person meeting.

[1:20:00] Voice 12: So anyway, let's start with four off. And then at Trust Council, we might expect to win with two in person and two online. But I also wanted to put my suggestions out there just for general discussion, if that's possible. So I've just got two things that I would like to add to the general discussion of budget reductions, if that's all right.

[1:20:24] Trustee Fast: Please go ahead. Let's make a list of these ideas.

[1:20:27] Voice 12: Good. So one of them, I believe, comes, there's a $10,000 amount for trustee remuneration. And

[1:20:34] Voice 12: this comes from the governance report, and it's been supported by the governance committee. But

[1:20:39] Voice 12: again, I would just suggest that we not do that this next fiscal, that we don't worry about

[1:20:46] Voice 12: trustee remuneration for at least a year. And then the other one is the new request for the

[1:20:53] Voice 12: the office of the secretary. And I'm going to suggest that we don't fund that. From the

[1:20:59] Voice 12: governance report, they recommend that we appoint an incumbent, which suggests we basically put this

[1:21:05] Voice 12: on somebody else's plate. And I'm prepared to suggest that if this is a need to ensure the

[1:21:11] Voice 12: framework is upheld and the operation efficiency, you know, the whole discussion of that particular

[1:21:18] Voice 12: particular person's job, I don't understand. So maybe when we get to that, we could look at that

[1:21:24] Voice 12: further. But those are my suggestions. The one you said, $10,000 from the government's, the trustee

[1:21:30] Voice 12: remuneration and the Office of Secretariat. Thank you.

[1:21:33] Trustee Fast: Secretary, thank you very much. Okay. This is

[1:21:36] Trustee Fast: great. I'm making a list here. Trustee Elliott.

[1:21:40] Trustee Elliott: Thank you, Chair. I concur that four meetings

[1:21:45] Trustee Elliott: meetings would be a lot. But I do recognize what you're saying, Chair, about the equity

[1:21:54] Trustee Elliott: in everybody being in the same space, whether it's electronic or in person. It is really

[1:22:01] Trustee Elliott: challenging. I was going to suggest one meeting be made electronic. This was debated at executive

[1:22:08] Trustee Elliott: committee and and decided to bring it back to this body and to council for

[1:22:13] Trustee Elliott: discussion I would say that if we're going to make any electronic and if the

[1:22:22] Trustee Elliott: proposal is to do two out of four that we alternate and then if March is in

[1:22:29] Trustee Elliott: person June could be electronic and I would request specifically that September

[1:22:37] Trustee Elliott: September, which is scheduled to be on Gabriela Island, remain as an in-person meeting. There is

[1:22:45] Trustee Elliott: some work being done in the background to hopefully get some participation in terms of

[1:22:55] Trustee Elliott: a forum with Snenemoch to talk about governance. We've been working on it for a while. I'm just

[1:23:01] Trustee Elliott: hopeful it'll work out, but it would make sense to have that conversation in their territory

[1:23:07] Trustee Elliott: on a gulf island so that's my proposal is at least two out of four committee council meetings be in

[1:23:14] Trustee Elliott: person and alternating i had sent a motion to fpc about potential reductions uh so speaking with my

[1:23:23] Trustee Elliott: conservancy board hat on um there are four potential reductions in the itc budget line items

[1:23:36] Trustee Elliott: um i don't know if you want me to go through the list or i could if the discussion is just on

[1:23:43] Trustee Elliott: trust council meeting then we could uh go through the list why

[1:23:48] Trustee Fast: don't you just why don't you just

[1:23:49] Trustee Fast: list them out um these other reductions and and if this if these are all the ones that were in

[1:23:56] Trustee Fast: your email this morning yeah yeah so so people and

[1:24:00] Trustee Elliott: so for the conservancy um we had a board

[1:24:04] Trustee Elliott: board meeting and didn't make any significant reductions. But subsequent to that, I was asking

[1:24:09] Trustee Elliott: questions and confirmed with staff that there are four potential reductions that could be made

[1:24:15] Trustee Elliott: without impacting operations. So the ITC Conservancy Conservation Planning and Land

[1:24:21] Trustee Elliott: Securement line item could be reduced by $10,000. ITC legal costs could be reduced by $1,000.

[1:24:29] Trustee Elliott: dollars ITC board training so before this we had requested an extra three thousand dollars in board

[1:24:39] Trustee Elliott: training to bring in somebody to talk about Indigenous conserved and protected areas

[1:24:45] Trustee Elliott: remove that request so now it's down to 1600 and we could reduce that to 500 it's these are sort of

[1:24:53] Trustee Elliott: ad hoc opportunities, maybe to send a board member to a land trust convention. But it doesn't

[1:25:04] Trustee Elliott: necessarily impact operations at all. So that could be something to reduce. And then ITC meeting

[1:25:10] Trustee Elliott: costs. We've got two new staff people on board. So ITC is suggesting that we have at least one

[1:25:19] Trustee Elliott: in-person meeting. And so that budget item could be reduced from $2,850 to $1,000.

[1:25:27] Trustee Elliott: So those are the ITC potential reductions. I agree that the Secretariat Services business case

[1:25:35] Trustee Elliott: is not well fleshed out. I don't understand it. It doesn't look like staff understands it.

[1:25:41] Trustee Elliott: And that is the responsibility of governance committee. You need to vet

[1:25:45] Trustee Elliott: these and make sure that it's clear so that when the RFP goes out,

[1:25:50] Trustee Elliott: you're getting the right consultant for the right job.

[1:25:52] Trustee Elliott: And I just don't think this is ready for this year.

[1:25:56] Trustee Fast: Thanks, we're just making a list.

[1:25:57] Trustee Fast: We're just making a list at this point.

[1:25:59] Trustee Fast: And we've got a few more minutes until noon.

[1:26:02] Trustee Fast: I'm hoping to do what we can do,

[1:26:04] Trustee Fast: and I didn't mean to cut you off,

[1:26:05] Trustee Fast: is to have a kind of a list of the ideas

[1:26:08] Trustee Fast: that trustees are bringing.

[1:26:10] Trustee Fast: And then when we take a lunch break,

[1:26:13] Trustee Fast: trustees can ponder it and read the emails

[1:26:16] Trustee Fast: that people have sent and that kind of thing.

[1:26:19] Trustee Fast: So thank you, Trustee Elliott. Was that a few more?

[1:26:23] Trustee Elliott: So the LTC executive expenses on LTCs, this is in Director Mobb's appendix of potential discretionary funding. I'm not clear about that, but I think it was $4,600 of potential extra costs for EC members to attend meetings that are not just LTC meetings.

[1:26:41] Trustee Elliott: So I think we could get some clarity on that, but I saw a reduction of potentially up to $4,600.

[1:26:47] Trustee Elliott: Application sponsored by EC, this was debated at executive committee.

[1:26:51] Trustee Elliott: A motion was made and it was defeated to reduce that budget line item.

[1:26:55] Trustee Elliott: So as an executive committee member, I will not put that forward.

[1:26:59] Trustee Elliott: But if somebody else, anyway, it was in my email, but just to clarify.

[1:27:04] Trustee Elliott: And I did recommend that history and heritage funding grants and aid be reduced by $2,000.

[1:27:08] Trustee Elliott: so that's all in the email to everybody

[1:27:12] Trustee Fast: thanks okay thank you for putting that in an email

[1:27:15] Trustee Fast: because there's a lot there and we can look at it hopefully over uh lunch thanks for your

[1:27:20] Trustee Fast: suggestions other suggestions making a list of possible uh recommendations that we might

[1:27:26] Trustee Fast: make to the draft budget i see director mobs his hand is up i'm going to speak to her first

[1:27:32] Trustee Fast: thanks

[1:27:33] Voice 16: sir i just wanted to clarify um there's a difference between the secretariat services

[1:27:38] Voice 16: services business case and the secretariat research business case um the secretariat

[1:27:43] Voice 16: services i believe it was the 1700 secretariat research i think it's 15 000 um i would need to

[1:27:51] Voice 16: i'll just go double check that but their names are very close i don't want us to get confused

[1:27:56] Voice 16: and accidentally reduce funding for uh one and not the one that's intended so we'll just pay

[1:28:01] Voice 16: close attention to that thank

[1:28:04] Trustee Fast: you okay i'm just checking to see if there's any other staff hands

[1:28:09] Trustee Fast: Hands up. No. OK, so then I'm going to go down to Trustee Yates.

[1:28:14] Voice 21: Well, thank you, Chair Fast. And I'm I'm worried that my power might go out because my lights and clocks have blinked twice.

[1:28:21] Voice 21: I'll try to be very fast here. I do not agree with having our council meetings online.

[1:28:31] Voice 21: I think we then remove ourselves completely from the the very people that we are supposed to be representing and serving.

[1:28:41] Voice 21: And I know certainly for the proposed March council meeting in Nanaimo, which I'm sorry it's not on Gabriola, but it's in Nanaimo.

[1:28:48] Voice 21: And I know people already who are interested in attending.

[1:28:53] Voice 21: They want to see who the trustees are from the other islands.

[1:28:57] Voice 21: And they want to be able to engage with us.

[1:29:00] Voice 21: My biggest worry is that we lose connection with ourselves.

[1:29:06] Voice 21: selves. And I, I did not sign up to sit for three days in June, in front of my computer. I just

[1:29:16] Voice 21: that's, that's just not the kind of person I am. And that's not how I work. And one of the things

[1:29:22] Voice 21: I really like about in person meetings is that we get to talk to staff at our breaks. And that

[1:29:29] Voice 21: is so valuable. And there are things, you know, there are meetings that go on before, after and

[1:29:35] Voice 21: and in between our formal meetings that I find really helpful.

[1:29:39] Voice 21: And the last meeting we had in December,

[1:29:43] Voice 21: I got to talk to San Juan County Commissioner Jane Fuller for quite a while,

[1:29:47] Voice 21: and I also got to meet Mayor Andrew Leonard from Bowen,

[1:29:51] Voice 21: and I really, really appreciated that.

[1:29:54] Voice 21: So I do not support any of our council meetings being not in progress.

[1:30:00] Voice 21: person but i certainly do okay a number i there are lots of other budget cuts that i do support

[1:30:05] Voice 21: thank you for listening

[1:30:06] Trustee Fast: okay i thank you and i know that you're worried about your power so i

[1:30:10] Trustee Fast: let you speak there but did you have other ideas that have not already been mentioned for changes

[1:30:15] Trustee Fast: to the budget so just so we can have them on our list um

[1:30:19] Voice 21: uh not no but i do agree with a number of

[1:30:22] Voice 21: proposed cuts okay

[1:30:24] Trustee Fast: thank you very much just checking in because i'm afraid we might lose you

[1:30:28] Trustee Fast: and then I'm going to move on.

[1:30:31] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Yates.

[1:30:33] Trustee Fast: And I'm going to move on.

[1:30:34] Trustee Fast: We're at 12.01.

[1:30:35] Trustee Fast: I'm hoping to have a sort of list

[1:30:37] Trustee Fast: that we can ponder on as we eat our lunch.

[1:30:40] Trustee Fast: Trustee Peterson.

[1:30:44] Voice 10: Yeah, thank you.

[1:30:45] Voice 10: Thank you, Trustee Yates.

[1:30:47] Voice 10: I couldn't agree more.

[1:30:48] Voice 10: I think there's a lot of benefits

[1:30:50] Voice 10: that may not be tangible,

[1:30:53] Voice 10: but that exist for in-person meetings.

[1:30:57] Voice 10: Also wanted to thank Director Mobs

[1:30:59] Voice 10: around the naming around Secretariat because Secretariat Services is quite different than

[1:31:07] Voice 10: the proposed item from the Governance Committee. So thank you for that clarity.

[1:31:11] Voice 10: And I'm going to keep it short, but I just want to express a certain amount of frustration

[1:31:20] Voice 10: that both at this committee and then at Trust Council and then back at this committee,

[1:31:24] Voice 10: we keep going over the same ground over and over again decisions are made and then we revisit then

[1:31:31] Voice 10: we just decide to revisit i find it a little frustrating i'm just going to leave it there

[1:31:35] Voice 10: thank you

[1:31:36] Voice 10: okay

[1:31:38] Trustee Fast: thank you yeah meanwhile situations are changing as well as fpc members and chairs

[1:31:44] Trustee Fast: which i wasn't at the earlier meeting so of course i was at trust council okay on to uh thank you

[1:31:51] Trustee Fast: trustee peterson and uh i see trustee yates your hand is up again or is it still up sorry i forgot

[1:32:00] Trustee Fast: i couldn't

[1:32:01] Trustee Fast: get it down sorry okay that's fine thank you trustee boland your

[1:32:05] Voice 19: idea um i support

[1:32:09] Voice 19: the um moving trust council to online and my primary reason for that is not just the cost

[1:32:18] Voice 19: but the cost is not factored in of time spent by staff.

[1:32:23] Voice 19: I think the amount of time, you know, we have a huge scope of work that isn't getting done year by year.

[1:32:30] Voice 19: And the number of hours spent by staff setting up and running those face-to-face meetings must be enormous.

[1:32:42] Voice 19: And the other one that I would call into question is this stewardship education.

[1:32:46] Voice 19: education. I think it's a really good thing to do, but can we afford it right now? There are a lot

[1:32:52] Voice 19: of other organisations, Raincoast, Salspring Island Transition, etc, running similar stewardship

[1:33:00] Voice 19: online webinars. And it's not really about the cost, which, you know, it seems not very large,

[1:33:08] Voice 19: but there are 200 staff hours involved in running those webinars now 200 hours is or 230 in fact

[1:33:18] Voice 19: it's estimated that to me that's a very very significant thing when we look at the underspend

[1:33:25] Voice 19: on programs where we are not achieving like our basic core work of delivering updates to OCPs and

[1:33:34] Voice 19: and LUVs. So 2.30 staff hours, have a think about it

[1:33:38] Voice 19: on stewardship education. Thanks.

[1:33:41] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. And thanks for

[1:33:43] Trustee Fast: being brief, everybody. I know we all want to get to lunch.

[1:33:45] Trustee Fast: I'm moving along here. Trustee Getty,

[1:33:50] Trustee Fast: something for our list?

[1:33:51] Voice 13: All right. So I'm not sure if the

[1:33:55] Voice 13: item number nine from the Executive Committee with respect to

[1:33:59] Voice 13: page 57 is a $25,000

[1:34:01] Voice 13: sponsorship of land use applications and that's an increase from of ten thousand dollars from

[1:34:08] Voice 13: fifteen thousand last year and um i understand that that could be a hardship for people that

[1:34:15] Voice 13: are in our community but it's also um you know the the whole of the region paying to subsidize

[1:34:24] Voice 13: um basically somebody wanting to develop and i think that that uh needs if that's what toby

[1:34:29] Voice 13: was talking about, or Trustee Elliott, sorry, then I'm in agreement with respect to

[1:34:37] Voice 13: suggesting that there be a reduction, either back to the last year's amount of $15,000,

[1:34:43] Voice 13: but certainly a reduction of some kind. The other one that I've got is on page 59,

[1:34:49] Voice 13: number 16. That's the art. And I really hate having to recommend this, but I mean,

[1:34:59] Voice 13: My house is wall-to-wall.

[1:35:00] Voice 13: I'm a hardcore collector, and I've got stuff piled up in my basement that I could probably donate.

[1:35:08] Voice 13: But I think that that is a luxury, and it's a bonus, and there's possibly some other options.

[1:35:15] Voice 13: It's a very small amount, but I think that it needs to be reconsidered.

[1:35:20] Voice 13: The business about the compensation, there's an issue of timing there.

[1:35:25] Voice 13: And if we want to get something decided before the end of our term so that it comes into play for the next term, not ourselves, then we have to make some move on this sooner rather than later so that we've got it through council, possibly the minister.

[1:35:48] Voice 13: I can't remember if it needs to be corrected.

[1:35:50] Voice 13: But Director Marler, I'm not sure if we were solid on the amount of $10,000.

[1:35:56] Voice 13: And that's finding an outside consultant and figuring out what the range of costs might be.

[1:36:04] Voice 13: We had discussed in detail in terms of not wanting it to be in-house.

[1:36:09] Voice 13: Although we would understand all of the details of the work, it might be considered to be a conflict.

[1:36:15] Voice 13: So, I'm not sure if that is flexible. And I see Director Marler's just come on camera. And with respect to the Secretariat...

[1:36:28] Trustee Fast: Hang on, let me just go to Director Marler and then I'll come back to you, Judy, because I can see you're adding to the list. Go ahead, Director Marler.

[1:36:36] Voice 17: Yes, so the reference of 10,000, what was that to Trustee Getty?

[1:36:41] Voice 13: Yes, that was for the compensation.

[1:36:43] Voice 13: compensation yeah

[1:36:44] Voice 17: so that was a compensation review um i think 10 000 is reasonable because

[1:36:49] Voice 17: um like everything else prices are going up and consultants are costing more than they have in

[1:36:55] Voice 17: the past so um i think you might want to hold it at that level and um otherwise you might find

[1:37:03] Voice 17: yourself going off a budget okay

[1:37:06] Voice 13: okay thank you very much

[1:37:07] Trustee Fast: and go ahead trustee getty so the last

[1:37:10] Voice 13: one was the Secretariat and I'm I have put myself in a very difficult position

[1:37:16] Voice 13: because I'm chair of the Governance Committee and that was passed by the

[1:37:20] Voice 13: Governance Committee to bring forward but I personally I voted against it and

[1:37:27] Voice 13: I'm not in support so I'm not the strongest person to be advocating for

[1:37:32] Voice 13: this but I if it's a position that is a trained professional you know we're

[1:37:39] Voice 13: We're looking at the research into whether or not we need somebody that is probably going to be a budget item of, you know, $150,000 for an annual salary, at least.

[1:37:49] Voice 13: And the position is very, very unclear, both in respect to the governance review that was tabled in 22 and with respect to all of the discussion and the work that we've had on the governance committee.

[1:38:10] Voice 13: This is something that Director Middleton is very strong on, and he convinced Trust

[1:38:17] Voice 13: Council that this should become a priority for Governance Committee.

[1:38:21] Voice 13: So that's why we've looked at it, and he's been persuasive in terms of getting this as

[1:38:28] Voice 13: a business case at the very last minute at our last Governance Council.

[1:38:34] Voice 13: So it is not formulated.

[1:38:36] Voice 13: We'd have to spend a whole lot of time figuring out the terms of reference of who would be the consultants that would be hired and what they would do.

[1:38:44] Voice 13: And my recommendation is that if we are going to pursue this, and I believe the Governance Committee is going to want to pursue it, that we figure out the terms of reference first.

[1:38:56] Voice 13: And I would suggest that there's no real urgency in terms of getting it on to this year's budget.

[1:39:06] Voice 13: So it's been two years coming up with this suggestion, and I'm not sure that we need to sort it out with all of these other demands and constraints and worries on this budget.

[1:39:21] Voice 13: So the governance committee is strong, but that's my opinion in terms of where we are on this.

[1:39:30] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[1:39:30] Trustee Fast: Well, you're on this committee, and this is the hat you're wearing today.

[1:39:35] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[1:39:36] Trustee Fast: that's great we'll add those to our list and last on the speaker's list i have trustee patrick

[1:39:43] Trustee Fast: before we go to lunch something for our list of ideas to adjust the draft budget go ahead trustee

[1:39:52] Trustee Fast: patrick yeah

[1:39:54] Trustee Patrick: um i i believe it's probably on the list from someone else is the planning

[1:39:59] Trustee Patrick: application sponsorship but i'd like to add a little caveat to that well i think it could be

[1:40:03] Trustee Patrick: reduced by probably 15,000, but I think it should be directed toward applications that

[1:40:12] Trustee Patrick: are affordable housing or children, you know, facilitate children initiatives like daycares

[1:40:22] Trustee Patrick: and anything of that nature.

[1:40:26] Trustee Patrick: This is a time we have to cut deeply.

[1:40:30] Trustee Patrick: I think we need to look at reducing the UBCM ABI-CC by 50%.

[1:40:36] Trustee Patrick: I think only half of the trust executives should attend, not the entire.

[1:40:44] Trustee Patrick: I do know, I'm glad to hear that projects weren't put on.

[1:40:47] Trustee Patrick: I do support that the local trust committee projects continue because they're important.

[1:40:54] Trustee Patrick: They're serving the needs of the communities.

[1:40:56] Trustee Patrick: communities, I know there will be raised that there isn't enough money for the capacity funding

[1:41:02] Trustee Patrick: for First Nations. But that's part of the projects going forward is having those conversations and

[1:41:07] Trustee Patrick: relationships with First Nations to really understand what is the capacity funding that

[1:41:11] Trustee Patrick: needs to be on the table. And we as a body are going to have to determine where that's going

[1:41:16] Trustee Patrick: to come from, because I think it's a order of magnitude greater than what we have in the budget

[1:41:21] Trustee Patrick: it today.

[1:41:23] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. That's a great long list, everybody. And I'm looking forward to

[1:41:30] Trustee Fast: discussing these in detail after lunch. And so with your permission, it's 1212. So let's come

[1:41:39] Trustee Fast: back at 1245. That's half an hour or would people prefer to come back at one? I know at least one

[1:41:47] Trustee Fast: One trustee has to leave at 2.

[1:41:49] Trustee Fast: So I'm not seeing any strong reactions.

[1:41:53] Trustee Fast: So let's say 12.45.

[1:41:55] Trustee Fast: We'll get back together online.

[1:41:58] Trustee Fast: And I'm seeing a thumbs up.

[1:42:00] Trustee Fast: That's great.

[1:42:01] Trustee Fast: Thank you, everybody.

[1:42:02] Trustee Fast: See you at 12.45.

[2:14:57] Trustee Fast: Hello, everybody.

[2:15:01] Trustee Fast: Oh, going to.

[2:15:29] Voice 21: Hi, Sue Ellen.

[2:15:30] Voice 21: Can you hear me?

[2:15:34] Voice 21: Hey.

[2:15:36] Voice 21: Yes, we can.

[2:15:37] Voice 15: We can hear you.

[2:15:38] Voice 21: Are you with us?

[2:15:39] Voice 21: Great.

[2:15:40] Voice 21: Thank you.

[2:15:45] Trustee Fast: I can't hear you.

[2:15:52] Trustee Fast: But something happened.

[2:15:53] Trustee Fast: I think you might have muted yourself or something.

[2:15:56] Trustee Fast: We'll find out if Trustee Yates is with us or not.

[2:16:00] Trustee Fast: I'm with you.

[2:16:02] Trustee Fast: I'm with you, Chair Feltz.

[2:16:03] Voice 21: Director

[2:16:03] Trustee Fast: Mobs to turn her camera on before we reconvene.

[2:16:10] Trustee Fast: There she is.

[2:16:11] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[2:16:12] Trustee Fast: Thank you. I just wanted to make sure we were, most of us were present, especially director mobs. Okay. Hopefully this stormy weather holds back for us to discuss these various ideas that people have put forward.

[2:16:29] Trustee Fast: forward. Thank you, Trustee Elliott, for putting yours into the email. I have a long list. I'm not

[2:16:36] Trustee Fast: quite sure how to do this, except that it might be a good idea to do. Oh, thank you. Recording's

[2:16:42] Trustee Fast: back on. Sorry, Robert. Okay, let's reconvene. And people are still finishing their lunch,

[2:16:53] Trustee Fast: I understand. And I'm wondering how to tackle these ideas. It seems to me that looking at the

[2:17:00] Trustee Fast: big ones first might be an idea. The reducing in-person trust council meetings to zero would

[2:17:08] Trustee Fast: be $135,000 reduction or a one and a half percent increase in local trust committee tax increase.

[2:17:18] Trustee Fast: increase and um and then we've got a list from um toby some of which are reduced by five hundred

[2:17:26] Trustee Fast: dollar no reduced by a few thousand dollars and um what are some of the other uh larger ones that

[2:17:34] Trustee Fast: people would like to discuss um first or director mobs do you have an idea for how to figure out

[2:17:42] Trustee Fast: which ones to do in what order i can't hear you all

[2:17:52] Voice 16: right your video chair is just a green gosh

[2:17:54] Trustee Fast: Oh, I see what's happening. My mistake. Okay.

[2:18:02] Voice 16: It's still just a green screen. We don't actually see you. As far as working through,

[2:18:09] Voice 16: that's better. As far as working through budget adjustments. So I was keeping a list running of

[2:18:15] Voice 16: all of the various pieces that SEC members were discussing prior to the break. We can bring that

[2:18:21] Voice 16: list up on screen Nancy's got that with her so we can do that if there's any other pieces that

[2:18:27] Voice 16: members would like to add to that list we might want to do that before we begin discussion and

[2:18:32] Voice 16: debate because one of the things that's really important when we're looking at potentially

[2:18:37] Voice 16: cutting budget items is not necessarily just to look at the value of an initiative as on its own

[2:18:43] Voice 16: merit but to compare the value of that initiative to others when you're having this discussion so

[2:18:49] Voice 16: So thanks, Nancy, for bringing that on screen.

[2:18:52] Voice 16: If you think this is helpful, Chair, we can work through this.

[2:18:56] Trustee Fast: That sounds great.

[2:18:57] Trustee Fast: And we can work through, I'm hoping the next break would be 2.15 or 2 o'clock, something like that.

[2:19:06] Trustee Fast: Let's say 2 o'clock, some people have to leave then.

[2:19:09] Trustee Fast: And so I'm hoping we can, let's find out who would like to add something to this list that isn't there already.

[2:19:17] Trustee Fast: ready. Can I see any hands? Seeing no hands, if another idea does come up, please let us know as

[2:19:30] Trustee Fast: soon as you can. And meanwhile, I'm wondering if you can make the part of the screen with the words

[2:19:38] Trustee Fast: on it a little bigger, or I can move it over so that I can, okay, I can do that too. That's good.

[2:19:46] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you very much. And so, what was that? Sorry, I'm trying to catch up on the chat.

[2:20:00] Trustee Fast: Yeah, all right. So the software update, updated for city bylaw amounts.

[2:20:12] Trustee Fast: That's, oh, these are the ones that you've already taken into account. Is that right, Julia?

[2:20:16] Trustee Fast: Julia?

[2:20:18] Voice 16: That's correct. And so that's why I've shown them separately there is I'm assuming that

[2:20:23] Voice 16: those are desired corrections because they are just based on new information and an error.

[2:20:29] Voice 16: As it relates to the salary forecast error, that will result in additional funds that we can draw

[2:20:34] Voice 16: from surplus. You'll see a question mark there as to whether or not Bowen would benefit from that

[2:20:39] Voice 16: and to what extent potentially is, of course, the allocation of those new reserve funds matters.

[2:20:44] Voice 16: and we don't yet know what that would be.

[2:20:48] Voice 16: The middle part of what's on the screen there

[2:20:51] Voice 16: is all of the items that were collected

[2:20:53] Voice 16: from discussions at FDC prior to lunch.

[2:20:56] Voice 16: The last three items there were highlighted

[2:20:58] Voice 16: in Director Surmak's Planning Services Feasibility Report.

[2:21:02] Voice 16: So I've added them for discussion

[2:21:04] Voice 16: just to make sure that doesn't get lost.

[2:21:07] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much, Director Mobs.

[2:21:09] Trustee Fast: And those final three,

[2:21:11] Trustee Fast: the line 20 row 24 25 and 26 down there uh if you look on the bottom of page two of your agenda

[2:21:20] Trustee Fast: it's item 7.4.3.4.2 is where that uh report or the briefing is there about these um projects

[2:21:31] Trustee Fast: and what they might uh what what the feasibility is of doing them so um very good where would we

[2:21:41] Trustee Fast: we like to start. The TC Move All In-Person Trust Council meetings might be a good place to start,

[2:21:52] Trustee Fast: but I'm looking at the hands. And Trustee Graham, why don't you take the lead?

[2:21:56] Voice 12: Thank you, Chair. Wonderful spreadsheet. Could you add in that spreadsheet the

[2:22:03] Voice 12: the percentage of the tax hit, if all of those were adopted, and if you link it to the data

[2:22:15] Voice 12: in your spreadsheet, because it's a spreadsheet, then as we change the choices, that would

[2:22:22] Voice 12: also affect the tax amount.

[2:22:25] Voice 12: Is that too much to ask?

[2:22:27] Voice 12: I just would love to see how good it could look versus how it will end up looking.

[2:22:32] Voice 12: Oh, there you go.

[2:22:33] Voice 12: Thank you.

[2:22:34] Voice 12: Thank you.

[2:22:34] Voice 12: Perfect.

[2:22:35] Voice 16: Before you do that, Nancy, it's already at the top of the page.

[2:22:39] Voice 16: And there's the total.

[2:22:41] Voice 16: I think you've got your panel frozen.

[2:22:44] Voice 16: You'll have to unfreeze and actually show the totals at the top of the page.

[2:22:47] Voice 16: It does total up the dollars.

[2:22:49] Voice 16: It also totals up the approximate impact to local trust areas versus

[2:22:53] Voice 16: Stone Island.

[2:22:54] Voice 16: And those numbers will change as we manipulate the spreadsheet.

[2:22:58] Voice 12: Thank you so much.

[2:22:59] Voice 12: I did not see those totals.

[2:23:01] Voice 12: You were way ahead of.

[2:23:03] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[2:23:04] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. Okay, and then we'll move to Trustee Patrick.

[2:23:11] Trustee Patrick: One on the items that Stefan added, a groundwater strategy. I don't think that was it. We had three sub-projects that were approved. I thought it was a groundwater monitoring project.

[2:23:24] Trustee Patrick: project. And so I think that we need to get some clarity because that was about dealing with

[2:23:30] Trustee Patrick: equipment that is in wells actively monitoring now, if that's going to continue or not that

[2:23:35] Trustee Patrick: amount. But the SWPA plan coordination, while I'm not representing the full local trust committee,

[2:23:43] Trustee Patrick: I think that money should remain in, that is money that would remain in reserve until a project is

[2:23:51] Trustee Patrick: is very clear uh to be created on that and that we know we've got staff resources to do it i'm you

[2:23:56] Trustee Patrick: know after three years um i'm concerned that we we don't have that those resources to continue

[2:24:02] Trustee Patrick: right now so i think the 55 definitely the other one we need to figure out oh the other question

[2:24:10] Trustee Patrick: i had was in regard to staffing probably more of a question to be directed to ceo brawny i know that

[2:24:16] Trustee Patrick: that the province's freeze that they're putting forward

[2:24:20] Trustee Patrick: does not affect us, but I guess a little insight

[2:24:24] Trustee Patrick: as to what we heard yesterday in the throne speech and so forth,

[2:24:27] Trustee Patrick: is there a chance that it could trickle down and affect us

[2:24:30] Trustee Patrick: and what that could look like or affect if that were to happen

[2:24:34] Trustee Patrick: to the budget as we have it now?

[2:24:37] Trustee Patrick: CAO?

[2:24:38] Voice 1: Yeah, thank you, Chair, and thank you for the question, Trustee Patrick.

[2:24:41] Voice 1: I think it's unlikely that it would because the provincial staffing

[2:24:45] Voice 1: staffing restrictions are really a budget-driven piece for the province to manage their budget.

[2:24:53] Voice 1: And because this is one of the advantages, I suppose, of us not being significantly funded

[2:24:59] Voice 1: by the province, any impact for us around restricting staffing doesn't accrue to the

[2:25:05] Voice 1: province's bottom line. So it seems unlikely that that would extend to us. We have the option

[2:25:13] Voice 1: option from a budget management standpoint of course of taking similar steps should we should

[2:25:18] Voice 1: we choose to but that that also has significant impacts too but I think to answer your question

[2:25:22] Voice 1: I think it's unlikely that it would extend to us even the discussion around whether it might extend

[2:25:28] Voice 1: to broader public sector again that has a more direct impact on the province's budget picture

[2:25:35] Voice 1: than our operating budget does so I think it's a minimal risk for us thank you thank

[2:25:41] Trustee Fast: you okay

[2:25:44] Trustee Fast: Just to go back quickly, I think it's on page 143, is the Director Cermak's feasibility assessment of those projects. I think it does say well monitoring, Salt Spring Island's well monitoring project.

[2:26:02] Trustee Fast: Director Cermak, is that different from the groundwater sustainability strategy or not? Is that the same?

[2:26:12] Voice 14: It is the same. It's the well monitoring program, as Trustee Patrick indicated, and as per my feasibility report.

[2:26:18] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Okay. I just wanted to confirm, I was thinking about the same thing. I'm not as familiar. And thank you. Okay. Let's go on. I'm going to go to Trustee Allen next.

[2:26:35] Trustee Allen: Thank you, Chair. We're talking about the TC meetings at this point. Is that correct? Because we kind of...

[2:26:41] Trustee Fast: We can.

[2:26:41] Trustee Allen: Wait, Salt Spring, I thought that's what you just said earlier.

[2:26:45] Trustee Fast: Sure, if you'd like to, take it away.

[2:26:48] Trustee Allen: All right. Well, I think we're being constrained by our design as 26 trustees all getting together.

[2:26:58] Trustee Allen: And it's unfortunate because both arguments for and against in-person versus virtual are very compelling and I agree with all of them.

[2:27:07] Trustee Allen: But I don't agree with having all the in-persons cut out and just virtual.

[2:27:15] Trustee Allen: I think we could have maybe rotate an island and be nice to get out in Nanaimo, frankly.

[2:27:21] Trustee Allen: I think Nanaimo is just turning into a gong show down there.

[2:27:26] Trustee Allen: So, you know, I'd like to see two sort of Victoria, Nanaimo or whatever, some other city,

[2:27:34] Trustee Allen: and a big island and then two of our other islands rotating but have two virtual and two

[2:27:42] Trustee Allen: live in person so that's your proposal

[2:27:45] Trustee Fast: okay my

[2:27:46] Trustee Allen: proposal but is this my my view what i think

[2:27:49] Trustee Fast: thank you i'm gonna put my hand up just here because uh the this topic i just want to put

[2:27:56] Trustee Fast: a few other considerations to having all meetings online that um i've been thinking about one of

[2:28:03] Trustee Fast: of them is uh it may reduce our legal expenses if we can improve civility um and this is uh there's

[2:28:13] Trustee Fast: a i can i can send this email around anyway there's a um uh city in ontario called sarnia

[2:28:21] Trustee Fast: where they um are have moved all their meetings online because of um an elected official's um

[2:28:32] Trustee Fast: um, behavior. And, uh, they, um, they are already up to $80,000 in legal bills. And I just wanted

[2:28:42] Trustee Fast: to bring that possibility to us. I haven't been party to any, uh, I'm just a new finance,

[2:28:50] Trustee Fast: financial planning committee chair, uh, member. So I haven't been party to anything. I don't know

[2:28:55] Trustee Fast: anything, um, except I'm looking at other, uh, places in Canada. I think it might, uh, also

[2:29:03] Trustee Fast: reduce staff turnover, as we've been talking about. These aren't exact costs. And I think

[2:29:10] Trustee Fast: it also makes it easier for us to receive guests. So whether that's a expert coming in to give us

[2:29:17] Trustee Fast: advice or another elected official, for example, from a regional district or from an Indigenous

[2:29:25] Trustee Fast: Indigenous community leaders, I think that also is easier for people to come and go and less

[2:29:32] Trustee Fast: expensive for them as well. So I just wanted to put a few more of those ideas out and in favor of

[2:29:41] Trustee Fast: the remove all in-person TC meetings. However, that's the last I'm going to say about that. I'm

[2:29:46] Trustee Fast: going to leave it up to trustees in order to decide what you'd like to decide about how many

[2:29:52] Trustee Fast: or if we're going to recommend remove any in-person TC meetings.

[2:30:00] Trustee Fast: And how many to move online?

[2:30:02] Trustee Fast: And I'll stop.

[2:30:04] Trustee Fast: I'm going to go back to chairing here.

[2:30:05] Trustee Fast: Okay, so Trustee Getty.

[2:30:09] Voice 13: Thank you.

[2:30:11] Voice 13: I think we have to, at this point, figure out what we're going to recommend to a trust council.

[2:30:18] Voice 13: And then all the reasons and all of our arguments around it can be spoken to there.

[2:30:27] Voice 13: So, you know, it's good to get our heads around it, but I'm not sure that we're going to sort it out here today.

[2:30:35] Voice 13: My question is more general in terms of if the province and possibly the federal government are going to take a position that they need to cut back and cut back drastically, then the optics are that we need to do that as well.

[2:30:50] Voice 13: and I think both to be financially responsible

[2:30:55] Voice 13: but also in terms of just the general attitude

[2:31:00] Voice 13: that's out in the community about taxation.

[2:31:03] Voice 13: So I think that we need to,

[2:31:07] Voice 13: and again, this goes back to the purpose

[2:31:10] Voice 13: of our corporate planning.

[2:31:12] Voice 13: If we were to cut this down to the bone,

[2:31:14] Voice 13: what do we think are the most important?

[2:31:17] Voice 13: And I think that's the discussion we're having now

[2:31:19] Voice 13: And what is it that we think is important enough to push through the hard times?

[2:31:25] Voice 13: So what are our priorities and what are the optics?

[2:31:30] Voice 13: And I think that what we present to Trust Council is, you know, not necessarily a unified opinion on it and open it up so that everybody's free to discuss it.

[2:31:43] Voice 13: But, you know, I think that this, the one about the in-person trust council meetings, it's like we can go back and forth here a lot.

[2:31:53] Voice 13: And I think it's ultimately got to be a trust council decision.

[2:31:58] Trustee Fast: So this motion you're suggesting could be just reduce in-person trust council meetings?

[2:32:04] Trustee Fast: Yeah.

[2:32:05] Trustee Fast: Would that be a motion that you would be interested in?

[2:32:09] Voice 13: Well, I mean, you know, if we recommend four and, you know, we open up the discussion so that it might end up as two.

[2:32:17] Voice 13: But, you know, we've got some sort of a budget that comes in.

[2:32:22] Voice 13: You know, if we start off with less than 135, then people know that they're adding to whatever the tax bill.

[2:32:29] Voice 13: If that's unmanageable for director mobs, then I don't think we should do it that way.

[2:32:37] Voice 13: But I think that in terms of the conversation and the decision-making, there has to be a fulsome discussion at council.

[2:32:44] Trustee Fast: Well, I like your way of looking at it from the high-level view.

[2:32:49] Trustee Fast: Rather than going through each of these one at a time with the hour or whatever we've got, because we do have other things on the agenda,

[2:32:58] Trustee Fast: we could forward all of these as recommendations to trust council, assuming that there's going to be a lot of discussion there.

[2:33:09] Trustee Fast: And I like the number at the top there, 3.4% would be the reduction that we're doing as our duty to bring to Trust Council as recommendations, or do I have that right? I'm seeing changes happening up there. Anyway, I'm wondering what trustees think. I'm going to go to Trustee Peterson.

[2:33:38] Trustee Fast: Thank

[2:33:40] Voice 10: you. So yeah, just again, if we make any recommendation that changes Trust Council's last decision, which I'll point to again, which we spent some time at Trust Council in December, arriving at the recommendation around in-person meetings, yeah, we'll spend plenty of time again at Trust Council hashing it out again.

[2:34:05] Voice 10: So I agree, you know, I won't belabor the point that we're creating more time at Trust Council to rehash this again.

[2:34:17] Voice 10: I can't support complete elimination of in-person meetings, and I'll leave it there.

[2:34:23] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee.

[2:34:25] Voice 10: One more item, though, in terms of Chair's recommendation to forward this list as is to Trust Council, I also can't support that.

[2:34:33] Voice 10: I think we need to debate some of these items individually.

[2:34:36] Voice 10: Thank you.

[2:34:36] Voice 10: Thank

[2:34:37] Trustee Fast: you. I was looking for some general kind of, is it really, or should we debate it more? I think we'll be doing that. Okay, thank you very much. Trustee Yates?

[2:34:49] Voice 21: I support exactly what Trustee Peterson just said. Thank you.

[2:34:54] Voice 21: Thank you. Okay. Trustee Boland?

[2:35:00] Voice 19: I would support pretty much all of these I think we have a huge opportunity in front of us as well

[2:35:07] Voice 19: as a threat the threat is that fiscal rectitude is going to be the order of the day and it will

[2:35:15] Voice 19: come as pressure from every direction that we reduce costs but going hand in love with that

[2:35:23] Voice 19: is the fact that many of the items here have a significant staff resource assigned so we could

[2:35:31] Voice 19: move forward on our core business which is land use planning by removing these budget items

[2:35:39] Voice 19: and redirecting staff resources and I think in particular the TC meetings but as I said earlier

[2:35:49] Voice 19: or the other one is this Church of Education.

[2:35:52] Voice 19: I actually looked on YouTube to see the views of those webinars,

[2:35:57] Voice 19: and there are views, but we're talking about, you know, 100 people.

[2:36:00] Voice 19: We're talking about 20 people attending in Nanaimo

[2:36:04] Voice 19: when it was convenient because it was close to Mudge

[2:36:07] Voice 19: and they had an issue.

[2:36:08] Voice 19: People in general don't come to those meetings

[2:36:13] Voice 19: other than some few people from a very local area.

[2:36:19] Voice 19: So I really think it's a huge opportunity. And if we could have some view or consideration of staff resources, that would be freedom.

[2:36:29] Voice 19: I also think that the turnover in staff resources is heavily influenced by the fact that we don't complete things.

[2:36:37] Voice 19: And if I was staff looking for a job full of job satisfaction, I have to say, you know, the rate at which we actually move through and complete what I would regard as our core business is pretty low and must contribute to that general feeling of dissatisfaction and the staff turnover.

[2:36:57] Voice 19: So

[2:36:57] Voice 10: I would support all of this.

[2:36:59] Voice 10: Point of order.

[2:37:00] Voice 10: Thank you.

[2:37:03] Trustee Fast: Pardon?

[2:37:04] Trustee Fast: I heard a point of order and we're moving on.

[2:37:07] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Boland.

[2:37:10] Trustee Fast: I'm gonna go to unless you want to speak to your point of order trustee Peterson

[2:37:15] Trustee Fast: we're gonna go well

[2:37:15] Voice 10: I think we should be I just want to say I think we should be

[2:37:18] Voice 10: really careful about just speculating about staff morale and stick to our lane

[2:37:27] Voice 10: which is the finances and and I certainly don't want to get us into a

[2:37:33] Voice 10: space where we're edging into potential trouble uh when

[2:37:39] Voice 19: we do talk about

[2:37:40] Voice 10: things like staff morale

[2:37:41] Voice 10: so just just a caution more than anything okay

[2:37:45] Voice 19: no i take your point and i apologize for going a

[2:37:47] Voice 19: little too far on that thank you thank

[2:37:50] Trustee Fast: you both trustees okay so now we're going to move on um

[2:37:55] Trustee Fast: i've got trustee allen on the list yeah

[2:37:59] Trustee Allen: thank you chair um yeah i totally agree with trustee

[2:38:01] Trustee Allen: to get you into in terms of um i think we should present options to trust council i just you know

[2:38:09] Trustee Allen: narrow it down to options regarding the meetings you know what ford all in person just give them

[2:38:16] Trustee Allen: some options and bring that to trust council to make a decision because um you know and it's

[2:38:21] Trustee Allen: going to be we're going to constantly trustee peterson go around around circles on this one

[2:38:25] Trustee Allen: because uh 26 trustees agreeing on this is a is a huge one because it's there's so much involved

[2:38:32] Trustee Allen: like meeting people in person but then i will want to address it it's a band-aid and we're enabling

[2:38:40] Trustee Allen: bad behavior if we're going to hold meetings virtual because of that only you know i just

[2:38:47] Trustee Allen: don't see if we're just avoid in-person meetings because of three bad apples or whoever um that's

[2:38:53] Trustee Allen: just frankly enabling them to carry on their behavior thank you thank

[2:38:58] Trustee Fast: you trustee okay let's

[2:39:01] Trustee Fast: go to Trustee Luckham. We haven't heard from you yet. I'm interested in what you've got to say.

[2:39:05] Trustee Luckham: Well, I'm going to be brief because there's not a lot of time. I am concerned about an omnibus

[2:39:13] Trustee Luckham: motion from this body to simply remove an entire list of items of which some of us might support

[2:39:20] Trustee Luckham: some of them and others will support others. So we have to be careful about that, but I respect the

[2:39:26] Trustee Luckham: efficiency associated with it. I am against, I'm just going to phrase it as I've been thinking

[2:39:33] Trustee Luckham: about it, taking the people out of council. If we don't have people in council, and that's

[2:39:39] Trustee Luckham: meeting in person and engaging in very meaningful and real ways, or if we don't provide opportunities

[2:39:45] Trustee Luckham: for members of the public to engage with council as real people, and we sacrifice webinars or

[2:39:54] Trustee Luckham: internet access to meetings because there's not sufficient attendance then we're taking the people

[2:40:00] Trustee Luckham: and the humans out of council and i just don't agree with that and i will just say uh in terms

[2:40:08] Trustee Luckham: of budget cutting absolutely there needs to be some reductions where we can reasonably do that

[2:40:14] Trustee Luckham: um how and i'm not in favor of the secretariat service because not enough of us understand it

[2:40:21] Trustee Luckham: It was never agreed upon out of the governance report.

[2:40:24] Trustee Luckham: The material in the governance report is inadequate to base a decision on, especially when we're

[2:40:31] Trustee Luckham: talking about $10,000, $10,000 here, $10,000 there, and all that stuff.

[2:40:36] Trustee Luckham: That's it.

[2:40:37] Trustee Luckham: Oh, and yeah, let's stick to the topic of advancing materials to council, not debating

[2:40:44] Trustee Luckham: the merits of any given thing.

[2:40:47] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[2:40:48] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee.

[2:40:49] Trustee Fast: It's hard to advance materials to council.

[2:40:51] Trustee Fast: when we need to debate them to some degree as a committee.

[2:40:57] Trustee Fast: But I take your point.

[2:40:58] Trustee Fast: I think shortly I'm going to sever this list

[2:41:01] Trustee Fast: and we can look at them individually.

[2:41:04] Trustee Fast: And perhaps if trustees have priority ones

[2:41:07] Trustee Fast: that they want to come off this list or leave on the list,

[2:41:11] Trustee Fast: you could indicate that in your remarks.

[2:41:14] Trustee Fast: That would be useful.

[2:41:16] Trustee Fast: Trustee Luckham, your hand is still up.

[2:41:18] Trustee Fast: Did you have something else you wanted to add?

[2:41:20] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[2:41:21] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[2:41:21] Trustee Fast: uh trustee graham thank

[2:41:23] Voice 12: you chair um i think it's uh the debate on obviously the the four

[2:41:30] Voice 12: meeting needs or the no meetings in person should be left to trust counsel this is these are

[2:41:37] Voice 12: recommendations from a committee whose whose work is aimed at financial responsibility so regardless

[2:41:45] Voice 12: Regardless of whether you like it or not, that's our role to make a recommendation to

[2:41:51] Voice 12: Trust Council.

[2:41:51] Voice 12: And at Trust Council, that's when all of these wonderful reasons why we should or shouldn't

[2:41:56] Voice 12: do something are debated.

[2:41:58] Voice 12: Let's not try and come to consensus with this group.

[2:42:02] Voice 12: That's just impractical because we know that people have different views.

[2:42:06] Voice 12: So I recommend you have a quick vote on each of these and we send forward to Trust Council

[2:42:12] Voice 12: those that reach a majority and and don't let's not debate it let's just vote and then we might

[2:42:21] Voice 12: be able to get out of here by three o'clock thank

[2:42:24] Trustee Fast: you trustee graham that's what i was proposing

[2:42:26] Trustee Fast: with the idea of severing them individually and then we can vote on those and decide whether to

[2:42:32] Trustee Fast: forward them as recommendations from the committee and uh so that's great thank you and um i'm going

[2:42:40] Trustee Fast: going to go next to last speaker on this before we begin severing. I'll go to Trustee Patrick.

[2:42:49] Trustee Patrick: Yes, I want to follow on Trustee Graham's comments there. This is not the first financial

[2:42:54] Trustee Patrick: planning committee to find itself in this position, having to make tough cuts to make

[2:42:58] Trustee Patrick: recommendations. What we did a few years back, I can't recall which one, is we did make it a

[2:43:05] Trustee Patrick: recommendation. We made it very clear and presented it to Trust Council. So just like us looking at

[2:43:11] Trustee Patrick: this list, could focus on the list. And it did work effectively at Trust Council. There may have

[2:43:17] Trustee Patrick: been one or two other things people brought forward off of the general budget, but it did

[2:43:22] Trustee Patrick: help Trust Council focus their conversations and have deep debates on the items that were on the

[2:43:27] Trustee Patrick: recommendation list. So I strongly support calling it a recommendation and being very clear on

[2:43:33] Trustee Patrick: anything we recommend. Thank you. I'm going to go to Director Mobs.

[2:43:39] Voice 16: Thanks, Chair. So any changes

[2:43:43] Voice 16: that Financial Planning Committee directs to the budget today will create FPC's recommended budget

[2:43:49] Voice 16: to Trust Council. So the way you shape things today, that final result will travel to Trust

[2:43:56] Voice 16: Council as the recommended budget, which will incorporate any reductions you might make today.

[2:44:01] Voice 16: what i traditionally do will prepare a report that summarizes all of the um decisions that

[2:44:11] Voice 16: financial planning committee made throughout the budget cycle so there will be a highlight of you

[2:44:15] Voice 16: know fpc removed this or remove that and where i can i'll provide some rationale so trip council

[2:44:21] Voice 16: will have the full information but the goal today is to get to a budget that is financial planning

[2:44:27] Voice 16: Committee's recommended budget based on its understanding of Trust Council's top priorities

[2:44:32] Voice 16: and also the current financial pressures that exist.

[2:44:36] Trustee Fast: Very good. Thank you very much. So assuming

[2:44:40] Trustee Fast: that this work that with the next stage of this meeting will be something like, I'm not making a

[2:44:51] Trustee Fast: motion here, that Financial Planning Committee forward the budget materials contained in

[2:44:54] Trustee Fast: uh item 7.4 to trust council um as amended if we propose to send any of these forward

[2:45:05] Trustee Fast: uh then what would the list be i'm going to begin um asking the questions so everybody get your hand

[2:45:15] Trustee Fast: over your uh up or down um hands up or down or leave them down when we go through um the list

[2:45:26] Trustee Fast: one by one to see whether we'll be recommending this by voting and i see you your hand up uh

[2:45:34] Trustee Fast: trustee boland did you have something to relate to the process yeah

[2:45:38] Voice 19: i'm just concerned that because

[2:45:40] Voice 19: because we have removed all in-person Trust Council meetings

[2:45:45] Voice 19: and, you know, that will, you know,

[2:45:48] Voice 19: we'll do yes or no, move it forward.

[2:45:51] Voice 19: Like if we had a second option removed too,

[2:45:56] Voice 19: you know, would that have a higher,

[2:45:59] Voice 19: would that be an alternative that more people would consider?

[2:46:02] Voice 19: I'm just trying to see, like, I haven't really understood.

[2:46:06] Voice 19: In my view, we could bundle this together

[2:46:09] Voice 19: other and send it as a recommendation each item would then be deliberated on at trust council

[2:46:16] Voice 19: but if we say no then it never goes forward even for a rediscussion and given the situation we're

[2:46:23] Voice 19: in right now in terms of pressure from outside i wonder whether they shouldn't all be considered

[2:46:30] Voice 19: we

[2:46:31] Trustee Fast: already had that decision and uh and i heard from other trustees so we're going to go through

[2:46:35] Trustee Fast: them uh one by one thank you for your input and uh director mobs can't

[2:46:45] Voice 16: hear you um i think line

[2:46:48] Voice 16: by line makes more sense because you know as mentioned some trustees may agree with some of

[2:46:53] Voice 16: the items on this list uh but not with others and so we do prefer to see items um talked about and

[2:46:59] Voice 16: voted on individually um if there is a desire to you know we could start getting some motions on

[2:47:06] Voice 16: the floor uh someone could move you know reducing all four in-person meetings if that's defeated you

[2:47:11] Voice 16: could try again at two in-person meetings uh you could start at two in-person meetings but i think

[2:47:16] Voice 16: um you know having a discussion with a motion at the end of the day on each item is necessary

[2:47:24] Trustee Fast: i missed that last word necessary yeah okay thank you um i'm going to go through

[2:47:31] Trustee Fast: one at a time here and I think the motion is that financial planning committee direct or request

[2:47:45] Trustee Fast: staff to amend the budget by something like that would that work as a motion if we go through one

[2:47:53] Trustee Fast: by one and vote on these director mobs

[2:47:56] Voice 16: yes I had thrown some suggested wording into the chat a

[2:48:01] Trustee Fast: earlier

[2:48:01] Voice 16: 1153 um i can bring it back again uh the suggested wording is that financial planning

[2:48:09] Voice 16: committee direct staff to remove x dollars for whatever the activity is uh from the draft 2025

[2:48:15] Voice 16: 26 budget thank

[2:48:19] Trustee Fast: you okay does everybody have that oh i see it there sorry i'm i'm wasn't paying

[2:48:27] Trustee Fast: attention to that part let me see if i can cop oops okay um hopefully everybody's got that

[2:48:38] Trustee Fast: wording there and uh i'm going to try to be true to the wording um and i'm just going to go through

[2:48:45] Trustee Fast: one at a time and if anybody wants to bring up other ones at the end that'll be okay yeah excuse

[2:48:51] Trustee Allen: me chair

[2:48:51] Trustee Allen: i'm working on a motion right now i'm just typing it up regarding the first regarding

[2:48:55] Trustee Allen: regarding trust meetings and just quickly typing it up okay

[2:49:01] Trustee Fast: um does that mean that we're not going

[2:49:05] Trustee Fast: to do our process well

[2:49:07] Trustee Allen: no can you just hold on to just a second you can go to the next one

[2:49:11] Trustee Allen: you're gonna go

[2:49:11] Trustee Allen: online just a second thank you okay

[2:49:19] Trustee Fast: or we can pick it up at the end

[2:49:21] Trustee Fast: right

[2:49:22] Trustee Allen: well send part of it right now just so we can get it going

[2:49:25] Trustee Fast: are you putting it in the chat no

[2:49:27] Trustee Allen: i sent it to uh staff robert okay okay

[2:49:37] Trustee Fast: trustee luckham

[2:49:38] Trustee Fast: just

[2:49:42] Trustee Luckham: trying to seek some clarity here to expedite working through this um i it was it seemed to me

[2:49:49] Trustee Luckham: that the recommendation was that FPC recommend removing $15,000 by removing the Secretariat

[2:50:02] Trustee Luckham: Research Project from the budget. Is that the idea?

[2:50:09] Trustee Fast: That sounds to me like what I see in the text.

[2:50:13] Trustee Fast: Director Mobs, is that what you're looking for? Would that be most effective?

[2:50:17] Trustee Fast: either

[2:50:20] Voice 16: language is fine i mean staff the wording i've provided gives direction to staff to remove

[2:50:25] Voice 16: dollars from fbc's recommended budget so it's um it will be taken as a recommendation from

[2:50:32] Voice 16: trust council um even if

[2:50:33] Voice 16: the word recommend is not in the resolution uh because you are giving

[2:50:37] Voice 16: direction to staff to actually make a change okay

[2:50:40] Trustee Luckham: so then if i might uh chair fast i would move

[2:50:45] Trustee Luckham: that $15,000 and the removal of the secretariat research be recommended to council.

[2:50:56] Trustee Fast: Thank you. That's helpful to see that on the board. And so people can see which one we're

[2:51:02] Trustee Fast: talking about. That's the one that came to us from a governance committee. And I can see other

[2:51:09] Trustee Fast: motions coming in. So we'll do it this way. Do I have a seconder? Trustee Luckham, your hand is

[2:51:15] Trustee Fast: still up did you want to okay i

[2:51:17] Voice 9: see trustee graham okay

[2:51:19] Trustee Fast: thank you trustee graham has seconded the

[2:51:21] Trustee Fast: motion uh any uh discussion on this one trustee patrick um

[2:51:30] Trustee Patrick: i know there's been a lot of confusion

[2:51:31] Trustee Patrick: uh stated today um and i think the governance committee was originally but i thought where we

[2:51:36] Trustee Patrick: ended the conversation before voting to bring this forward was that this isn't necessarily

[2:51:43] Trustee Patrick: about a new position. It's about understanding the corporate secretary role that is required

[2:51:48] Trustee Patrick: through the Islands Trust Act to have. We apparently have freedom to figure out what

[2:51:54] Trustee Patrick: that is and what it means. So it wasn't just about a new position that was a little unknown.

[2:52:00] Trustee Patrick: It was really focusing in on the position we have and what the options were to make it better.

[2:52:05] Trustee Patrick: So I just wanted to make sure people have that clarity.

[2:52:11] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Yeah, this is the one. It doesn't have the case fleshed out around it, and it's difficult to know what it means. I'm going to go to Tim Peterson on this motion.

[2:52:25] Trustee Fast: yeah

[2:52:27] Voice 10: thank you um it's trust council still hasn't had the opportunity which we have um

[2:52:37] Voice 10: identified as a need through governance committee and we're looking at doing a committee of the

[2:52:42] Voice 10: whole to go through the report um and while i'm not against the notion of doing the research at

[2:52:52] Voice 10: at all um i i think i think that trust council um opportunity to speak will really uh will really

[2:53:01] Voice 10: help um flesh out what the point is in people's minds and and uh it's unfortunate that governance

[2:53:08] Voice 10: committee hasn't managed to get a a more fulsome report out so that it's easier for people to

[2:53:14] Voice 10: understand but that's where we are today thank

[2:53:17] Trustee Fast: you any more the words i were looking for was

[2:53:20] Trustee Fast: business case, and I didn't see it there, or I couldn't understand it. Any more discussion?

[2:53:28] Trustee Fast: Then I'm going to call the question, and the question is, are we going to remove...

[2:53:36] Trustee Fast: Robert, can you read the thank you? That financial planning committee directs staff to remove

[2:53:44] Trustee Fast: $15,000 for secretariat research from the draft budget, and that's been moved by Trustee Luckham

[2:53:52] Trustee Fast: and seconded by trustee graham all those in favor raise your hand i have to close the chat okay

[2:54:06] Trustee Fast: thank you and uh is somebody counting these i hope yeah

[2:54:14] Voice 17: i see six hands up thank

[2:54:16] Trustee Fast: you and if

[2:54:16] Trustee Fast: everybody could lower their hands and those opposed please raise your hands thank you

[2:54:26] Trustee Fast: oh there was another one i'll wait another minute trustee peterson i thought you voted before okay

[2:54:35] Voice 17: I see three hands, three opposed.

[2:54:37] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[2:54:38] Trustee Fast: And thank you for the head nodding.

[2:54:42] Trustee Fast: Very good.

[2:54:43] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[2:54:43] Trustee Fast: That motion carries.

[2:54:45] Trustee Fast: And then we're going to go to which one?

[2:54:50] Trustee Fast: Somebody's sending them in by email, or have you received more, Robert?

[2:54:54] Trustee Fast: Are those the other ones on there?

[2:54:56] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[2:54:56] Trustee Fast: I can see Robert has highlighted the next one.

[2:54:59] Trustee Luckham: It would be handy to have that on the screen, the list.

[2:55:04] Trustee Fast: Yeah, just a minute.

[2:55:05] Trustee Fast: I want to see oh this is about the trust council meeting options virtual or in person what I see

[2:55:13] Trustee Fast: on the screen is all virtual all in person half and half so if we can go back to the well we don't

[2:55:22] Trustee Fast: need to really it's a it's a 135,000 for all four to be online and it's about between 33 and

[2:55:32] Trustee Fast: $35,000 each, if you want to do the calculations. Would that be correct, Julia?

[2:55:38] Trustee Fast: Correct.

[2:55:41] Voice 16: It is $33,750 per in-person meeting. That's an average. Of course,

[2:55:47] Voice 16: it's slightly different depending on location.

[2:55:49] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Okay. So who wants to make this motion?

[2:55:55] Trustee Fast: For which one? Is this yours, Alex? Please go ahead, Trustee Allen.

[2:55:58] Trustee Fast: alan yes

[2:55:59] Trustee Allen: it's mine a bit of a typo there um and there's another half i sent to um robert

[2:56:06] Trustee Allen: another second part of it regarding location okay yeah

[2:56:12] Trustee Allen: so anyways this one is i move in second

[2:56:14] Trustee Allen: i move in second ha i moved that financial planning committee for the following trust

[2:56:21] Trustee Allen: council meeting options for trust council to consider one all virtual two all in person

[2:56:28] Trustee Allen: three half in person and half virtual and i don't know if there's another option at all

[2:56:32] Trustee Allen: is there another option or not at all okay four um

[2:56:40] Trustee Fast: okay but this doesn't i don't know if this

[2:56:44] Trustee Fast: helps staff adjust the budget so that they can bring a recommended budget to trust council so

[2:56:49] Trustee Fast: which do you pick of those three no

[2:56:51] Trustee Allen: sorry i'm speaking to bring this all because i just don't

[2:56:55] Trustee Allen: see any of us agreeing on these in this particular meeting and as trustee getty said i think it

[2:57:02] Trustee Allen: should be brought back sorry trustee peterson to trust council but in you know options you can only

[2:57:08] Trustee Allen: choose the options and no discussion because um i don't think we're there yet that's why i'm bringing

[2:57:13] Trustee Allen: this motion forward okay

[2:57:17] Trustee Fast: i uh i don't see that this is in the uh format that director mobs was

[2:57:24] Trustee Fast: was asking for that would be effective in helping her and her staff bring one budget forward.

[2:57:33] Trustee Fast: However, I see her hand is up. So Director Mobs.

[2:57:39] Voice 16: Thanks, Chair. So everything in the budget is at

[2:57:42] Voice 16: Trust Council's discretion. Everything that is included in the budget and items that have been

[2:57:47] Voice 16: excluded, because we forward that material as well, is going to be up for Trust Council discussion

[2:57:52] Voice 16: in March. It is ultimately their decision. This body needs to make a decision as to what it

[2:57:57] Voice 16: wants to recommend to be included in that budget. So council can always decide it doesn't want to

[2:58:04] Voice 16: take that path and can make changes to the budget. And we have seen that the last few years,

[2:58:09] Voice 16: financial planning committee has removed many items from the budget, usually at the February

[2:58:13] Voice 16: meeting and trust council has opted not to take that recommendation and has added back several

[2:58:17] Voice 16: items in March. So yeah, the motion as it reads is it's already going to happen. Trust Council

[2:58:28] Voice 16: already has options to consider. So I think that this body needs to decide if it wants to

[2:58:36] Voice 16: recommend to Trust Council that all meetings be in person, that half the meetings be in person,

[2:58:40] Voice 16: and then the budget will reflect that and Council can make its own call in March.

[2:58:44] Voice 16: thank

[2:58:45] Trustee Fast: you very much director we need to we need to pick um okay i

[2:58:51] Trustee Allen: understand that now thank you

[2:58:52] Trustee Allen: and also um we'll see how the vote comes out at this particular committee it might say something

[2:58:57] Trustee Allen: so

[2:58:58] Trustee Fast: which do you choose there um alex do you want to choose all virtual all in person or half and

[2:59:05] Trustee Fast: half

[2:59:05] Trustee Allen: half and half okay

[2:59:07] Trustee Fast: so the trustee is adjusting his motion and uh i am seeing sorry

[2:59:14] Trustee Allen: Sorry, point of order, not point of order, clarification here.

[2:59:19] Trustee Allen: I thought this is going to be a vote by all the financial committee right now.

[2:59:22] Trustee Allen: Okay, so

[2:59:23] Trustee Allen: why are you asking me, why don't you have this, why don't you put this out as a chair to find out whether this body is going to go half in person, half virtual?

[2:59:33] Trustee Allen: You know what I mean?

[2:59:34] Trustee Allen: I don't understand the process here.

[2:59:36] Trustee Fast: I'm just going to go ahead.

[2:59:37] Trustee Fast: You've got a motion on the floor.

[2:59:38] Trustee Fast: And I see Trustee Graham, are you seconding the motion?

[2:59:42] Trustee Fast: okay so we've got a motion that's moved and seconded on the floor and I'm trying

[2:59:47] Trustee Fast: to move the meeting along we'll see what happens here does anybody have any

[2:59:53] Trustee Fast: questions about the motion is it clear okay so any discussion on the motion

[2:59:59] Trustee Fast: that's

[3:00:00] Trustee Fast: and moved and seconded trustee Mobs.

[3:00:03] Trustee Fast: Oh, sorry.

[3:00:04] Trustee Fast: Thank you for the promotion, Chair Fath.

[3:00:06] Trustee Fast: I will take it.

[3:00:07] Trustee Allen: And it was the second.

[3:00:10] Voice 16: I just want to, for the information of this committee,

[3:00:13] Voice 16: if it influences how you vote here,

[3:00:15] Voice 16: staff have already begun planning

[3:00:17] Voice 16: for some of our in-person meetings.

[3:00:19] Voice 16: We do that quite early on.

[3:00:20] Voice 16: There are no signed agreements at this point with any venues,

[3:00:23] Voice 16: but conversations have begun with our venues

[3:00:26] Voice 16: on Salt Spring Island and Gabriela.

[3:00:28] Voice 16: again nothing signed so we're not bound by anything but conversations have begun we've

[3:00:33] Voice 16: asked for those places to be held so considering reputation might be something you would

[3:00:39] Voice 16: contemplate in this but again half in person half virtual does allow us to move forward with the two

[3:00:45] Voice 16: that are already in planning thank

[3:00:48] Trustee Fast: you and if if i'm right the dollar figure would be something like

[3:00:51] Trustee Fast: like 67,000. She's

[3:00:54] Trustee Fast: nodding. Yes, that's right. Okay, good. And as I what I think I saw Trustee

[3:01:01] Trustee Fast: Allen, and I can't tell if you're

[3:01:02] Trustee Fast: speaking is Trustee Graham has seconded the motion.

[3:01:11] Trustee Fast: Trustee David Mahler, are you trying to say something to us?

[3:01:17] Voice 17: No, apologies.

[3:01:18] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you. Okay, so we've got a motion that's been moved and seconded,

[3:01:22] Trustee Fast: described um and i'm don't not seeing any more hands so i'm going to call the question all those

[3:01:29] Trustee Fast: in favor raise your hand i

[3:01:37] Voice 17: see six in favor thank

[3:01:39] Trustee Fast: you and lower your hands please and those opposed

[3:01:44] Trustee Fast: please raise your hand and

[3:01:51] Voice 17: four opposed okay

[3:01:53] Trustee Fast: so the motion carries thank

[3:01:55] Voice 19: you very much okay just

[3:01:57] Voice 19: record i i was but i can't get my hand up something's gone wrong you

[3:02:01] Trustee Fast: were in in favor

[3:02:02] Trustee Fast: No,

[3:02:03] Voice 19: opposed. So that was for opposed. Yeah.

[3:02:05] Trustee Fast: Okay. But I believe

[3:02:07] Trustee Fast: the motion still carries.

[3:02:08] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Yeah,

[3:02:09] Voice 17: it still carries.

[3:02:10] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you very much. And very good, trustees.

[3:02:17] Trustee Fast: We are moving down the list. So the next one is a blank one. And this one is waiting for

[3:02:28] Trustee Fast: for somebody to make a motion was there something in the email that i haven't seen because i can't

[3:02:34] Trustee Fast: open too many things and still be watching everybody okay i'm gonna have to print off my

[3:02:43] Trustee Fast: little screen cap that i got from the where is it there it is because i need to see that excel

[3:02:56] Trustee Fast: spreadsheet again oh there oh no i'm i'm having trouble here there we go thank you okay that's

[3:03:06] Trustee Fast: great to see it that way um suddenly there's music and the sound of my printer okay and uh it's

[3:03:12] Trustee Fast: stopping i'm um wondering what's the next motion trustee allen are you going to make another motion

[3:03:18] Trustee Fast: well

[3:03:20] Trustee Allen: i'm just wondering um do we need to determine venues meeting trust council venues at this point

[3:03:26] Trustee Allen: or just just leave it at that yeah

[3:03:28] Trustee Fast: we're just doing the dollars i

[3:03:29] Trustee Allen: think okay great thank you

[3:03:31] Trustee Fast: thank you okay um then who would like to bring a motion on one of these other topics

[3:03:42] Trustee Fast: no then i will i guess so i'm going to um ask about well not that one trustee luckham

[3:03:59] Trustee Luckham: i will move that the ubcm avicc be reduced for two executive committee members uh and reduce

[3:04:07] Trustee Luckham: the budget to nine to reduce it to nine thousand dollars okay

[3:04:13] Trustee Fast: so if we could have that one

[3:04:18] Trustee Fast: highlighted on the screen if it's there road 21 i think yes go ahead chair

[3:04:28] Voice 15: if i may if uh trustee

[3:04:30] Voice 15: luckham could repeat that please it um it wasn't in the format that i was expecting so it threw me

[3:04:36] Voice 15: me off i need to capture that please oh

[3:04:39] Trustee Luckham: sorry um ideally in the same format as the previous one but

[3:04:43] Trustee Luckham: i moved the financial planning committee uh removed ubcm uh abicc uh item from to reduce

[3:04:53] Trustee Luckham: the executive committee members to two uh and reduce the amount to nine thousand dollars

[3:05:06] Trustee Fast: okay we'll see if robert's been able to catch that it's a challenge oh i know what i can do

[3:05:12] Trustee Fast: sorry i'm trying to figure out ways that i can help myself help the meeting at this end

[3:05:17] Trustee Fast: maybe if i do that could

[3:05:20] Voice 16: i provide some feedback on the recent motion chair yes

[3:05:23] Trustee Fast: please do direct

[3:05:24] Trustee Fast: mobs uh

[3:05:26] Voice 16: so the motion is looking for us to reduce that budget line down to nine thousand dollars

[3:05:30] Voice 16: The table is suggesting reducing the budget line by $9,000.

[3:05:35] Trustee Luckham: So whichever way.

[3:05:38] Trustee Luckham: Yeah.

[3:05:38] Trustee Luckham: So by $9,000, if that's the way it's intended.

[3:05:43] Voice 16: Thank you.

[3:05:44] Voice 16: And for anybody who is paying very close attention to the nitty gritty numbers, as I know many

[3:05:49] Voice 16: of you are, that is not an exact 50% reduction.

[3:05:52] Voice 16: It is a few hundred dollars off.

[3:05:54] Voice 16: And that's because at this point, we wouldn't know which two executive committee members

[3:05:58] Voice 16: would be traveling to those conventions.

[3:06:00] Voice 16: And, of course, different locations result in different travel.

[3:06:03] Voice 16: So I've taken a conservative approach there.

[3:06:06] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:06:08] Trustee Fast: I'm doing urgent screenshots here to try and get the wording so that it's in front of me all the time.

[3:06:19] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:06:21] Trustee Fast: So do we have a motion?

[3:06:25] Trustee Elliott: It needs to be cleaned up a little bit.

[3:06:28] Trustee Elliott: There needs to be a request staff reduce the, sorry, I shouldn't interrupt, but we need some more words in there.

[3:06:35] Trustee Elliott: there trustee luckham the

[3:06:38] Trustee Luckham: financial planning committee recommends that the ubcm abicc

[3:06:42] Trustee Luckham: i

[3:06:48] Trustee Fast: don't see the motion be

[3:06:50] Trustee Luckham: removed after item be removed or no sorry the item uh it's reduced

[3:07:03] Voice 13: the

[3:07:03] Trustee Luckham: budget be adjusted to reduce to two executive committee members by whatever

[3:07:12] Trustee Elliott: i think director mobs has put something in the chat that might help thank you

[3:07:18] Trustee Fast: oh thank you

[3:07:19] Trustee Fast: director mobs trustee

[3:07:34] Trustee Elliott: luck sorry i

[3:07:36] Trustee Elliott: need somebody to read that new motion because the ones that's

[3:07:40] Trustee Elliott: on screen is not yeah i

[3:07:44] Trustee Luckham: move that the financial planning committee recommend that the ubcm abicc

[3:07:49] Trustee Luckham: budget be adjusted to reduce the executive committee members to two and reduce the amount

[3:07:55] Trustee Luckham: by nine thousand dollars that seems good enough well

[3:08:00] Trustee Fast: where are you seeing this motion that you're

[3:08:03] Trustee Fast: reading because i do not see that

[3:08:05] Trustee Luckham: screen shared by robert i guess it's his editing that's going

[3:08:10] Trustee Luckham: on there

[3:08:11] Trustee Fast: okay i've lost that part

[3:08:13] Trustee Luckham: live from robert yeah thank

[3:08:16] Trustee Fast: you i seem to have lost the live part

[3:08:19] Trustee Fast: So

[3:08:20] Trustee Luckham: scroll the screen or go to split screen.

[3:08:32] Trustee Luckham: Up at the top

[3:08:33] Trustee Luckham: corner, I think, so you get a bunch of window layouts and you probably want.

[3:08:41] Voice 13: It's

[3:08:41] Trustee Luckham: a shared screen with the Zoom meeting.

[3:08:46] Trustee Luckham: How did I do that?

[3:08:47] Trustee Luckham: Let me read it out one more time.

[3:08:49] Trustee Luckham: Yes.

[3:08:49] Voice 8: it'll

[3:08:49] Trustee Luckham: be clear i move that the financial planning committee recommend that the ubcm abicc budget be

[3:08:56] Trustee Luckham: adjusted to reduce the exec committee members to two and reduce the amount by nine thousand dollars

[3:09:04] Trustee Luckham: that's what it says okay

[3:09:06] Trustee Fast: and i i'm gonna figure out this screen business later and i see

[3:09:12] Trustee Fast: trustee graham is seconding the motion thank you and so we've got a motion moved and seconded

[3:09:18] Trustee Fast: apologies everybody i don't know what button i hit but you are seeing something different than i am

[3:09:24] Trustee Fast: and uh however i heard that and uh it's about a reduction by nine thousand dollars and um i'm

[3:09:31] Trustee Fast: gonna call seeing no hand any more discussion

[3:09:37] Trustee Allen: trustee alan go ahead um i'm not in favor of

[3:09:41] Trustee Allen: this motion because i seem to remember a trust council that a lot of trustees that weren't on

[3:09:49] Trustee Allen: EC expressed interest and then there was

[3:09:51] Trustee Allen: a discussion over some sort of lottery

[3:09:54] Trustee Allen: where random members

[3:09:55] Trustee Allen: would be able to attend and I don't know what happened to that

[3:09:57] Trustee Allen: but yeah

[3:09:59] Trustee Allen: I still think that

[3:10:01] Trustee Allen: other trustees that are not

[3:10:03] Trustee Allen: on an executive should be allowed to go to

[3:10:06] Trustee Allen: randomly like a lottery

[3:10:07] Trustee Allen: and that's what we did discuss

[3:10:09] Trustee Allen: I don't know whether it was in December or September

[3:10:11] Trustee Allen: Okay,

[3:10:13] Trustee Fast: thank you

[3:10:14] Trustee Fast: and I've fixed my screen in the meantime

[3:10:16] Trustee Fast: Trustee Mobs, sorry

[3:10:17] Trustee Fast: Director Mobs

[3:10:20] Trustee Fast: So

[3:10:20] Voice 16: there is a Trust Council policy on AVICC and UBCM membership and attendance.

[3:10:26] Voice 16: The policy says that executive committee members will attend on behalf of Trust Council subject to funding availability in the budget.

[3:10:34] Voice 16: So we are addressing that here today.

[3:10:37] Voice 16: The attendance for other trustees is at the purview of local trust committees.

[3:10:43] Voice 16: If other trustees would like to attend,

[3:10:45] Voice 16: the LTC must pass a resolution indicating that,

[3:10:49] Voice 16: and then the amount will be included in the LTC budget

[3:10:52] Voice 16: and Trust Council will approve it

[3:10:53] Voice 16: as part of the budget discussion.

[3:10:55] Voice 16: So that's the intention with providing funding support

[3:10:58] Voice 16: for other trustees to attend.

[3:11:00] Voice 16: We have seen that policy leaned into

[3:11:03] Voice 16: by the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee,

[3:11:04] Voice 16: and we do have funding in the budget

[3:11:06] Voice 16: for one Salt Spring Island trustee

[3:11:08] Voice 16: to attend these conventions this year.

[3:11:10] Voice 16: We did not receive any other requests

[3:11:13] Trustee Fast: Thank you. I know one year we had a request from Hornby Island. Grant Scott came to AVICC, but I think that was when he was first elected and he hadn't had the advantage of the other training.

[3:11:28] Trustee Fast: So we've got a motion that's moved and seconded in front of us. Thank you. Financial planning reduced the amount by 9,000 for these things. Any more discussion? Trustee Yates?

[3:11:41] Trustee Fast: Oh, thank you. Can you hear me?

[3:11:43] Voice 21: Yeah. Oh, thank goodness. I'm really not in favor of this motion, mainly because of what

[3:11:49] Voice 21: Trustee Allen just said about our recent discussion at council. I guess that was,

[3:11:55] Voice 21: what is this one? That was our December council meeting. And I think, or maybe it was September.

[3:12:01] Voice 21: Anyway, one of the things that we got out of that at council was a really, really good report.

[3:12:07] Voice 21: court, several reports, actually, not just from staff, but also from the trustees who did attend.

[3:12:14] Voice 21: And if we can get those same reports from only two executive committee members, great. But that

[3:12:22] Voice 21: does put a lot of pressure on them. And it also, as people have pointed out, it doesn't give others

[3:12:28] Voice 21: a chance to see what it's like to attend those meetings. Thank you. Thank you.

[3:12:34] Trustee Fast: Any more discussion?

[3:12:36] Trustee Fast: Trustee Yates, your hand is still up, and I'm about to call the question.

[3:12:39] Trustee Fast: Trustee Patrick?

[3:12:41] Trustee Patrick: I think it's important to note that there are a lot of municipalities in the region that are also questioning the attendance of their full councils and so forth, because the costs have driven up.

[3:12:51] Trustee Patrick: So this is not something that's unique to us.

[3:12:55] Trustee Patrick: Thank you.

[3:12:56] Trustee Fast: Any more discussion, trustees?

[3:12:59] Trustee Fast: Then I'm going to call the vote for this $9,000 issue.

[3:13:02] Trustee Fast: All those in favor with this motion, please raise your hand.

[3:13:11] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:13:11] Trustee Fast: I see nine.

[3:13:12] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:13:13] Trustee Fast: Lower your hands, please.

[3:13:16] Trustee Fast: Any trustees opposed?

[3:13:20] Trustee Fast: Raise your hand.

[3:13:24] Trustee Fast: Trustee Allen is opposed.

[3:13:26] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:13:27] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:13:28] Trustee Fast: That carries.

[3:13:29] Trustee Fast: And who's next?

[3:13:31] Trustee Fast: We're at 145.

[3:13:33] Trustee Fast: Trustee Luckham has to leave at two.

[3:13:37] Trustee Fast: We're working our way down, maybe not as quickly as I'd hoped.

[3:13:41] Trustee Fast: What's the next one here?

[3:13:43] Trustee Luckham: Get that spreadsheet up.

[3:13:45] Trustee Luckham: would be helpful

[3:13:46] Voice 15: trustee

[3:13:48] Trustee Fast: graham thank

[3:13:50] Voice 12: you chair and if that um template motion was back on my

[3:13:55] Voice 12: screen i would fill in the blanks with the ec sponsorship budget amount but i'm not going to

[3:14:02] Voice 12: wing it until i can read it robert sorry okay i don't

[3:14:12] Trustee Fast: know if trustee graham can see the chat

[3:14:14] Trustee Fast: it depends on people's devices yeah

[3:14:17] Voice 12: okay um can

[3:14:20] Trustee Fast: you see i

[3:14:21] Voice 12: don't see anything in the

[3:14:22] Voice 12: chat that would help me okay can we not

[3:14:25] Trustee Elliott: get the 1153 julia mobs had put that in that financial

[3:14:30] Trustee Elliott: planning committee direct staff to remove x amount for this activity so you just make

[3:14:35] Voice 12: that motion

[3:14:38] Voice 12: I'm not seeing it. I'm sorry. I'm an old guy. I need to think simply.

[3:14:45] Voice 12: I'm

[3:14:45] Voice 19: an old person too, but I don't see it in the chat. Oh, the last chat.

[3:14:50] Voice 19: Well, I can't see 11, whatever, but I can see 237.

[3:14:55] Voice 19: I'll

[3:14:56] Trustee Elliott: just move the wording and then Trustee Graham, you can fill in the blank.

[3:15:00] Trustee Elliott: So I'm a financial planning committee direct staff to remove the dollar figure.

[3:15:06] Trustee Elliott: EC

[3:15:06] Voice 12: sponsorship amount, and I don't know what amount that was.

[3:15:12] Trustee Elliott: So, we're moving $15,000.

[3:15:13] Voice 12: $15,000, thank you, from EC sponsorship.

[3:15:17] Trustee Elliott: Application sponsored by Executive Committee from the Draft 2025-26 Budget Collaboration here.

[3:15:25] Voice 9: Thank you.

[3:15:26] Trustee Elliott: So, that's been moved by who?

[3:15:29] Trustee Fast: Trustee Graham?

[3:15:30] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:15:31] Voice 13: Apparently me.

[3:15:32] Trustee Fast: Can I

[3:15:33] Voice 13: speak to that before we get a seconder?

[3:15:36] Trustee Fast: Yes, please go ahead, Trustee Getty.

[3:15:37] Voice 13: Okay, so on the original business case, I think it was $15,000 last year, and they'd increased it to $25,000.

[3:15:45] Voice 13: And I was suggesting that we put it back to $15,000.

[3:15:51] Voice 12: Thank you.

[3:15:53] Voice 12: That's exactly what I was hoping to do, is put it back to last year.

[3:15:56] Voice 12: So the amount should be $10,000, Robert, not $15,000.

[3:15:59] Voice 12: Thank you.

[3:16:00] Voice 12: Okay,

[3:16:01] Trustee Fast: thank you for your help.

[3:16:04] Trustee Fast: And is that clear?

[3:16:06] Trustee Fast: Then, seeing no hands, I'm going to ask for a seconder.

[3:16:09] Trustee Fast: Do I have a seconder?

[3:16:10] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Peterson.

[3:16:13] Trustee Fast: So we have the motion.

[3:16:14] Voice 13: Robert Barlow's hand is up.

[3:16:17] Trustee Fast: Oh, sorry, Robert, go ahead.

[3:16:22] Trustee Fast: I can't hear you.

[3:16:25] Voice 15: Chair, thank you very much.

[3:16:27] Voice 15: I just wanted to point out that we can only show one screen at a time.

[3:16:30] Voice 15: So though we have a, we're unfortunately able to show you the model that was suggested by Julia, which is on the screen here.

[3:16:40] Voice 15: And also the table at the same time.

[3:16:45] Voice 15: Just so

[3:16:46] Voice 15: you understand, we can't show both at the same time.

[3:16:49] Trustee Fast: That's why I'm trying to run my printer here.

[3:16:52] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:16:52] Trustee Fast: And we will see if I can.

[3:16:58] Trustee Fast: Gosh, come on.

[3:16:59] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you.

[3:17:00] Trustee Fast: I'm just talking to myself.

[3:17:02] Trustee Fast: All right.

[3:17:03] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[3:17:03] Trustee Fast: We've got a motion moved and seconded about the $10,000.

[3:17:10] Trustee Fast: Any more discussion?

[3:17:11] Trustee Fast: I see Trustee Patrick.

[3:17:13] Trustee Patrick: Would it be appropriate to make the suggestion that the remaining funds be directed toward housing availability and children, or would that be dealt

[3:17:26] Trustee Fast: with at a later date?

[3:17:27] Trustee Fast: I didn't hear Trustee Graham say that, so I'm just going with what he said.

[3:17:32] Trustee Fast: Julia Mobs.

[3:17:34] Voice 16: It wouldn't be appropriate for this committee to be giving any direction to Executive Committee on what it chooses to sponsor or not.

[3:17:40] Voice 16: There is a policy that guides the sponsorship of applications, which is a council policy.

[3:17:46] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[3:17:48] Trustee Fast: I see a couple more hands up.

[3:17:49] Trustee Fast: Trustee Peterson?

[3:17:53] Voice 10: Yeah, although I hadn't intended to second it, but that's fine.

[3:17:56] Voice 10: I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to the actuals for last year on this piece.

[3:18:05] Voice 10: The actuals were 16,136.

[3:18:13] Voice 10: And I hope everyone's had a chance to read through the guidelines for sponsorship.

[3:18:21] Voice 10: In general, these are, you know, these are assisting important community activities by non-profits.

[3:18:33] Voice 10: I mean, if you look at the policy, that's the main focus.

[3:18:37] Voice 10: There are some exceptions.

[3:18:38] Voice 10: exceptions um i i guess i i i guess i'm sort of in support of the motion but i certainly wouldn't

[3:18:48] Voice 10: be interested in bringing any lower that's it's bringing this this this motion brings it uh two

[3:18:54] Voice 10: thousand one hundred thirty six dollars lower than was actually uh spent last year uh supporting

[3:19:00] Voice 10: those local projects so just want to

[3:19:02] Trustee Fast: okay keep

[3:19:03] Voice 10: that in mind thank you hearing

[3:19:05] Trustee Fast: the ambivalence

[3:19:06] Trustee Fast: I'm going to ask you, did you mean to second this?

[3:19:10] Voice 10: I said at the outset that that wasn't my intention, but that's okay.

[3:19:14] Trustee Fast: I don't mind.

[3:19:14] Voice 10: We don't have to strip my second thing.

[3:19:16] Voice 10: That's fine.

[3:19:17] Voice 10: Okay.

[3:19:18] Trustee Fast: I was, it just wasn't clear to me.

[3:19:20] Trustee Fast: That's all.

[3:19:21] Trustee Fast: So I don't have a seconder then yet.

[3:19:28] Trustee Fast: And I see several hands go up.

[3:19:32] Trustee Fast: I'm going to go in order.

[3:19:33] Trustee Fast: So trustee Maude, trustee Maude, we can't hear you if you're talking.

[3:19:44] Trustee Maude: No, the hand

[3:19:45] Trustee Maude: went down. I've got you.

[3:19:48] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:19:49] Trustee Maude: Thank you, Chair.

[3:19:50] Trustee Maude: Just for the committee's information, as staff informed us, basically, a typical application

[3:19:55] Trustee Maude: costs $8,000. And these tend to be, as Trustee Peterson pointed out, community organizations,

[3:20:04] Trustee Maude: non-profits, mostly housing. We put up our fees. So this is basically, if we're at the $15,000

[3:20:13] Trustee Maude: number is going to allow us to sponsor two projects amongst 13 islands. These are important

[3:20:20] Trustee Maude: community projects, which is why I put the motion forward to up it to 25 so we can perhaps sponsor

[3:20:29] Trustee Maude: three of these projects over the year. This is important community work. It's the one thing that

[3:20:35] Trustee Maude: a trust house can really say demonstrate supports the community and i'm really reluctant to reduce

[3:20:43] Trustee Maude: it thank you thank

[3:20:44] Trustee Fast: you i'm not hearing a second from you either this is great thank you for your

[3:20:48] Trustee Fast: clarity um and i'm going in order from the hands i see on the zoom panel trustee elliott thank you

[3:20:58] Trustee Elliott: chair really briefly um it's been my observation that there's been a lot of housing um projects

[3:21:05] Trustee Elliott: projects moving ahead. We've sponsored what we could. However, we know now that our application

[3:21:14] Trustee Elliott: fees are not even covering half of the costs, the real costs. So essentially, the Islands Trust is

[3:21:20] Trustee Elliott: already subsidizing development in some way. And so is this the year? I do want to absolutely

[3:21:29] Trustee Elliott: support non-profit uh societies and everything but we can also choose to subsidize 50 or 25

[3:21:36] Trustee Elliott: of an application and spread that out so i think we can't it's hard to make some hard and fast

[3:21:42] Trustee Elliott: decisions here but can i ask

[3:21:45] Trustee Fast: trustee elliot are you uh seconding this oh has it not been seconded

[3:21:52] Trustee Fast: it still has not been seconded and uh i thought

[3:21:55] Trustee Elliott: we were speaking the motion sorry

[3:21:56] Trustee Fast: oh i see trustee

[3:21:57] Trustee Fast: Allen has seconded the motion. Thank you, Trustee Allen. Okay, so now we have that. And then can I

[3:22:03] Trustee Fast: get some clarity from you, Trustee Elliott? Are you in favor of this motion?

[3:22:08] Trustee Elliott: I am in favor and

[3:22:10] Trustee Elliott: was just providing some additional context. Thank

[3:22:12] Trustee Fast: you. I was just checking probably because I was

[3:22:15] Trustee Fast: preoccupied with seconding. Okay, thank you. So now we've got a motion moved and seconded.

[3:22:20] Trustee Fast: And I'm going back to my list here, Trustee Patrick. Are you in favor?

[3:22:25] Trustee Patrick: I am in favor of the

[3:22:27] Trustee Patrick: motion. I agree that our application fees are a drop in the bucket compared to what any non-profit

[3:22:34] Trustee Patrick: or charitable organization faces to get through our application process. We could help by reducing

[3:22:42] Trustee Patrick: that bureaucracy and prioritizing the projects and moving them as hastily as possible through

[3:22:47] Trustee Patrick: the process would save them a lot of money. But this would be an item, a line item in the budget

[3:22:54] Trustee Patrick: And sort of like legal, you can go over budget, but you'd have to consider that at the time you have your application in front of you in the circumstances before you. So, you know, I see Julia Mobbs going to say, no, you can't. But I know EC has done it in the past. But, you know, it's like we can't pre-guess what's going to happen next year. I think we do the best we can. $15,000 at least gets us some applications and we can deal with if we get more.

[3:23:21] Trustee Patrick: Thank you, Trustee Patrick. Director Mobbs.

[3:23:25] Voice 16: Thanks, Trustee Patrick. Saw my hand go up there real quick. So we don't want to be taking an

[3:23:32] Voice 16: approach where we're planning to under budget everything. But there are, of course, we never

[3:23:37] Voice 16: land our budget exactly correct. So you do end up in a space where you see some overspending here

[3:23:42] Voice 16: and some under spending there. Our policy dictates that if you are going to overspend on a particular

[3:23:47] Voice 16: budget line, you must fund it with savings on another budget line. So that is something that

[3:23:54] Voice 16: that needs to be acknowledged that, you know, we can't overspend on a line and just think it's

[3:23:59] Voice 16: all fine unless we're actually finding another place to fund it. And so EC would have to manage

[3:24:03] Voice 16: that.

[3:24:04] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Director Mobs. And thank you for your patience. Trustee Graham, over to you.

[3:24:09] Voice 12: Yes, thank you. Thank you. I do want to speak to my motion. I appreciate the hard work that

[3:24:15] Voice 12: non-profit organizations put into these various applications. And the, you know, this gives

[3:24:22] Voice 12: gives a community an opportunity to really show their support by fundraising and bake sales and

[3:24:29] Voice 12: car washes and the types of things that communities can do to generate money at the island level.

[3:24:34] Voice 12: But the reality is, I mean, on Denman, we have two pieces of property that were sponsored and

[3:24:41] Voice 12: rezoned and they sit vacant because the real problem with affordable housing is not these

[3:24:47] Voice 12: is not these small financial hits, such as an application.

[3:24:52] Voice 12: They are the building funds that are not available.

[3:24:55] Voice 12: So maybe we should be slowing down on these applications

[3:24:59] Voice 12: and really going back to those organizations

[3:25:02] Voice 12: and encouraging them to really get a firm commitment

[3:25:06] Voice 12: from somebody to build it before we give them the hope

[3:25:10] Voice 12: by rezoning the property.

[3:25:13] Voice 12: It's just a suggestion.

[3:25:14] Voice 12: Anyway, I'm ready to call the vote.

[3:25:16] Voice 12: Okay.

[3:25:18] Trustee Fast: Thank you. I'm stumbling around over here. Okay, then seeing no more hands,

[3:25:25] Trustee Fast: I've got to call the question. And all those in favour, raise your hand, please. Do I have a

[3:25:42] Trustee Fast: number? I'm waiting on Director Marner. We

[3:25:53] Voice 17: have nine in favour.

[3:25:55] Trustee Fast: Thank you. And lower your hands, please. And all those opposed, please raise your hand.

[3:26:04] Voice 17: And I see three opposed.

[3:26:05] Voice 17: thank

[3:26:05] Trustee Fast: you that motion carries all right chair fast

[3:26:09] Trustee Elliott: your hand was raised

[3:26:10] Trustee Fast: oh sorry

[3:26:11] Trustee Fast: that was two should have been two thank

[3:26:13] Voice 8: you very much who's

[3:26:16] Trustee Fast: distracted over here me okay and uh

[3:26:19] Trustee Fast: now let's see uh where we're at um thank you julius put the draft uh wording back at the

[3:26:30] Trustee Fast: the bottom of the chat. Again, that's a good idea. Thank you. And so what's next, trustees? Do we

[3:26:37] Trustee Fast: want to make more motions? We're at two o'clock. I'm going to propose to take a break. And maybe

[3:26:44] Trustee Fast: we could take a 10 minute break. I think Trustee Luckham may be leaving us. Here's where we're at

[3:26:50] Trustee Fast: so far. Thank you. Bye, Trustee Luckham. He's waving. And I'm thinking if we take a break now

[3:27:00] Trustee Fast: until like eight minutes after two.

[3:27:04] Trustee Fast: Everybody can be looking at this

[3:27:07] Trustee Fast: and thinking about what the next motions are going to be.

[3:27:11] Trustee Fast: Or does that sound fair to take a break?

[3:27:15] Trustee Fast: Trustee Allen, are you going to speak to a motion

[3:27:17] Trustee Fast: or can we take a break?

[3:27:18] Trustee Allen: No, I was just going to ask

[3:27:20] Trustee Allen: whether we'd be able to have the dollar amount

[3:27:21] Trustee Allen: that's been removed each time we take something away.

[3:27:26] Trustee Fast: If that's possible.

[3:27:27] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:27:28] Trustee Fast: Okay, there she's showing us on the on the numbers there. And it's up at the top of the column. I think it says 289 650.

[3:27:37] Trustee Fast: That's

[3:27:37] Trustee Allen: how much we've taken away.

[3:27:39] Trustee Allen: No, no,

[3:27:40] Voice 16: no, we've removed just over 100,000 101,500. And that is approximately 1.2%.

[3:27:50] Voice 16: Okay, thank you.

[3:27:52] Voice 8: Thank

[3:27:53] Trustee Fast: you. 1.2% so far. Okay. And just before we go for a break, Trustee Boland?

[3:27:59] Trustee Fast: How

[3:28:00] Voice 19: many of us are present? Because I see nine, two. But if I count in participants with trustee

[3:28:06] Voice 19: in front of the name, I don't see 11 or so. I'm just checking in on, you know, I know that

[3:28:16] Voice 19: But Trustee Lockham has just left.

[3:28:20] Voice 19: But even still, can we just do a check on that, please?

[3:28:24] Voice 19: Thanks.

[3:28:25] Voice 19: Nancy?

[3:28:26] Voice 3: Hi, I just want to mention I'm recording the votes as David Marler's counting them and saying them.

[3:28:31] Voice 3: So either some people weren't here or they didn't vote.

[3:28:36] Voice 3: Okay.

[3:28:37] Voice 3: Or their power has gone out.

[3:28:39] Voice 3: Yeah.

[3:28:40] Voice 19: I'm not concerned

[3:28:41] Voice 19: with the six.

[3:28:44] Voice 19: I'm more concerned with the nine, too.

[3:28:45] Voice 19: but anyway okay can we just check that before we come back okay okay we were 11

[3:28:52] Trustee Elliott: before when we

[3:28:53] Trustee Elliott: started so we

[3:28:55] Trustee Fast: were 11 and now trustee luckham is gone we're going to take a break until 10

[3:28:59] Trustee Fast: minutes after two o'clock and we'll see how many of us come back um i'm hoping we all come back

[3:29:04] Trustee Fast: and may i say at this point thank you everybody for volunteering to sit on this committee this

[3:29:09] Trustee Fast: is not an easy job uh i appreciate it and some trustees do volunteer some do not and i really

[3:29:15] Trustee Fast: really appreciate your contributions today. So I'm hoping you come back at 2.10. Thank you.

[3:39:37] Trustee Fast: Thank you, trustees. Here we come. How are you doing, Robert? Just while everybody's

[3:39:46] Trustee Fast: gathering, have you got everything you need so far? Okay, good. Thank you.

[3:39:57] Trustee Fast: Okay, so while the trustees are coming back, I just want to remind us that we've also got

[3:40:09] Trustee Fast: 7.6.1 and 2. That's the revenue plan, financial plan bylaw to Trust Council and the revenue

[3:40:17] Trustee Fast: new anticipatory borrowing to Trust Council on our agenda today.

[3:40:27] Trustee Fast: So hopefully we can do them.

[3:40:28] Trustee Fast: I'm wondering if we're going to get to 8.1 and 10.1 is our work program.

[3:40:35] Trustee Fast: So we've got other business that goes to Trust Council and that informs future years

[3:40:41] Trustee Fast: if we get to it.

[3:40:43] Trustee Fast: and uh i'm just thinking i'm gonna make sure that director mobs is there she is good very good

[3:40:57] Trustee Fast: thank you we didn't i didn't want to start without uh the most important parts okay um then i'm going

[3:41:05] Trustee Fast: to go open the meeting again and go to trustee getty trustee getty what's your pleasure um i'd

[3:41:12] Voice 13: I'd like to move that Financial Planning Committee direct staff to remove $2,000 for the Coast Salish Art, item number 21 on this list, from the draft 2526 budget.

[3:41:27] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:41:28] Trustee Fast: That's nice and clear.

[3:41:29] Trustee Fast: We're getting down into the low numbers, but it's a good start here.

[3:41:33] Trustee Fast: And I see Trustee Graham has seconded that motion.

[3:41:37] Trustee Fast: Any comment or discussion?

[3:41:39] Trustee Fast: Or would you like to speak to your motion, Trustee Getty?

[3:41:41] Trustee Fast: Or did you?

[3:41:42] Voice 13: No, that's fine.

[3:41:43] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:41:44] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:41:45] Trustee Fast: Then I'm going to, seeing no hands, I'm going to call the questions.

[3:41:49] Trustee Fast: All those in favor of the motion highlighted on the screen to remove the $2,000 from Coast Salish Art, raise your hand.

[3:41:57] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:41:59] Trustee Fast: And I'll wait for a count.

[3:42:04] Trustee Fast: Director Marler, somebody is there.

[3:42:09] Voice 8: Uh-oh.

[3:42:12] Trustee Fast: Who can see that?

[3:42:13] Trustee Fast: One, two, three, four.

[3:42:15] Trustee Fast: It's eight.

[3:42:15] Trustee Fast: Eight. And if I

[3:42:16] Voice 10: might chair fast, if you hit the participants button, it will show you a side panel and at the very

[3:42:26] Voice 10: top is a number.

[3:42:28] Voice 10: So good for your

[3:42:29] Voice 10: reference in the future.

[3:42:31] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Very good. Thank you. Okay, so eight in favor, please lower your hand. All those opposed. One is opposed.

[3:42:43] Trustee Fast: proposed. Thank you, everybody. And I'm assuming you're getting this, Nancy.

[3:42:53] Voice 3: Yes, I'm

[3:42:54] Voice 3: getting it. Yeah, I'm recording them as

[3:42:55] Voice 3: you do them on the sheet and updating things. Yeah.

[3:42:58] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. Okay, good.

[3:43:00] Trustee Fast: I just want to make sure everybody was connected.

[3:43:02] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you. That carries. Thank you very much. Okay, what's next? Is there a bigger figure

[3:43:08] Trustee Fast: that we can work with? Or who would like to make a motion? Trustee Elliott?

[3:43:12] Trustee Fast: uh

[3:43:15] Trustee Elliott: thank you chair um sorry nancy could we see the screen again with the excel sheet

[3:43:25] Trustee Elliott: i think she's just updating it i move the financial planning committee direct staff to remove uh

[3:43:35] Trustee Elliott: ten thousand dollars wow that's very small ten thousand dollars for uh islands trust

[3:43:43] Trustee Elliott: Trust Conservancy Board, Conservation, Land Securement, from the draft 2025-26 budget.

[3:43:52] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:43:54] Trustee Fast: Trustee Yates, would you like to say something or are you seconding?

[3:43:58] Trustee Fast: I'm seconding. Thank you.

[3:44:00] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:44:01] Trustee Fast: Trustee Yates is also on the Alliance Trust Conservancy Board.

[3:44:05] Trustee Fast: So anybody want to speak to this motion?

[3:44:07] Trustee Fast: Trustee Peterson.

[3:44:09] Voice 10: Just super briefly, since I haven't been following the Conservancy Board meetings closely,

[3:44:15] Voice 10: Trustee Elliott, can you speak to the conservancy conversation around this so that we can all understand a little better?

[3:44:22] Voice 10: Thank you.

[3:44:25] Trustee Elliott: Sure.

[3:44:27] Trustee Elliott: Yeah.

[3:44:28] Trustee Elliott: Let me just bring up an email from staff where we.

[3:44:31] Trustee Elliott: um so the the land securement and conservation budget line item funds a number of different

[3:44:40] Trustee Elliott: activities and it's fairly unpredictable year to year to to see what it is need to be needed

[3:44:48] Trustee Elliott: needs to be covered it depends on how many um covenants come across how much research needs

[3:44:54] Trustee Elliott: needs to be done but generally this item was we're losing your audio less

[3:45:07] Trustee Elliott: oh sorry

[3:45:13] Trustee Elliott: so it covers a range of activities to secure lands and it depends on how many applications

[3:45:18] Trustee Elliott: come in and at what stage they're at um the board is really focused on first nations engagement on

[3:45:28] Trustee Elliott: the itc plan and less so on securing land so there's a few pieces that are in process that do

[3:45:35] Trustee Elliott: need um budget associated with it but uh staff assured me that work could continue if this was

[3:45:43] Trustee Elliott: was reduced by $10,000.

[3:45:45] Trustee Elliott: Thank you very much.

[3:45:46] Voice 10: Thanks so much.

[3:45:47] Trustee Fast: Okay, good.

[3:45:49] Trustee Fast: Seeing no more hands up, I'm gonna call the question.

[3:45:52] Trustee Fast: All those in favor of this motion

[3:45:54] Trustee Fast: that's highlighted on the screen about the $10,000,

[3:45:56] Trustee Fast: please raise your hand.

[3:46:00] Trustee Fast: Thank you, so that looks like 10 in favor.

[3:46:03] Trustee Fast: Please lower your hands.

[3:46:08] Trustee Fast: I'm waiting for Trustee Allen to lower his hand

[3:46:11] Trustee Fast: if it'll go down.

[3:46:12] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:46:13] Trustee Fast: And all those opposed?

[3:46:17] Trustee Fast: Seeing none opposed, thank you.

[3:46:19] Trustee Fast: that informs we've got 10 people in the meeting. Very good. Thank you, everybody. That motion

[3:46:24] Trustee Fast: carries. What's the next one? Can we, I think we probably need to see that spreadsheet again.

[3:46:36] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Okay, we're working our way down. Maybe could we go to the 9500 one? And I hesitate to do

[3:46:47] Trustee Fast: this because I'm going to vote against it. But anyway, who would like to make this motion? Go

[3:46:51] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Trustee Boland.

[3:46:55] Voice 19: Yes, I actually sent a motion.

[3:46:58] Voice 19: So I don't know if that, I think it's correct.

[3:47:03] Voice 19: So I moved that FPC recommends to Trust Council

[3:47:07] Voice 19: that the stewardship education program, $9,500

[3:47:12] Voice 19: and 230 staff hours is removed from the 2024-25 budget.

[3:47:21] Voice 19: Does that

[3:47:22] Trustee Fast: cover it?

[3:47:23] Trustee Fast: I think we only deal with dollars here, not the hours, but I don't think...

[3:47:29] Trustee Fast: Sure. I

[3:47:30] Trustee Fast: just wanted it

[3:47:30] Voice 19: in the motion because it's, to me,

[3:47:33] Voice 19: it's a very important part of the consideration.

[3:47:37] Voice 19: Okay. And I'm

[3:47:42] Trustee Fast: not seeing a seconder yet for stewardship education.

[3:47:48] Trustee Fast: Trustee Allen has seconded stewardship education. Okay.

[3:47:52] Trustee Fast: Okay, so this one, I'm going to put my own hand up here.

[3:47:57] Trustee Fast: Sorry, it takes me a second.

[3:47:59] Trustee Fast: I'm going to be voting against this motion.

[3:48:02] Trustee Fast: I'm all for stewardship education.

[3:48:05] Trustee Fast: There's a lot of private land on the islands, and it requires cooperation and understanding and awareness and appreciation.

[3:48:15] Trustee Fast: if we want these fine folks to take action

[3:48:19] Trustee Fast: that relies on their goodwill and their voluntary efforts

[3:48:24] Trustee Fast: and in helping us to preserve and protect

[3:48:28] Trustee Fast: in cooperation as per the Act.

[3:48:31] Trustee Fast: I think there's lots of good work that we've been doing.

[3:48:35] Trustee Fast: And I also think that there's work in the program

[3:48:41] Trustee Fast: we've been talking about helping people understand the rules better and so they

[3:48:47] Trustee Fast: don't have bylaw infractions and reaching out to Realtors and all kinds

[3:48:52] Trustee Fast: of things like that so there are new things in the works as well and I think

[3:48:59] Trustee Fast: that it's also very important for us to reach out with through the stewardship

[3:49:06] Trustee Fast: education program so I'll be voting against this motion who's next who'd like

[3:49:10] Trustee Fast: like to speak trustee peterson yeah

[3:49:15] Voice 10: i'm going to speak against the motion um i think we get a huge

[3:49:18] Voice 10: bang for a buck in terms of engagement with the public um there are the things like the wildfire

[3:49:26] Voice 10: the invasive species these are things that get people excited about attending uh islands trust

[3:49:33] Voice 10: um sponsored webinars and the other thing that um we've been talking about at trust programs

[3:49:40] Voice 10: committee which i am the ec appointee to is um is actually being able to turn all of these into

[3:49:48] Voice 10: a learning library so that there's enduring value beyond just the initial presentation

[3:49:53] Voice 10: of the webinar so they can be accessed um in later years so i'm uh not in favor of gutting it

[3:50:02] Voice 10: uh to the point that it no longer exists thank you thank

[3:50:06] Voice 21: you um trustee yates

[3:50:08] Voice 21: exactly what trustee peterson just said and and besides it gives us really good

[3:50:16] Voice 21: collaboration and cooperation possibilities with some of the local conservancies for example

[3:50:23] Voice 21: or with freshwater sustainability experts and every comment i have heard from certainly from

[3:50:31] Voice 21: people living on gabriola salt spring has been wow we love those webinars keep them going

[3:50:38] Voice 21: thank you thank you trustee yates trustee allen thank

[3:50:43] Trustee Allen: you chair yes i'll be voting against this

[3:50:45] Trustee Allen: motion as a vice chair of the committee it's it's um we all agree that it's been it's been really

[3:50:52] Trustee Allen: good in our community and i think if in terms of um what's the thing god attendance i think it's

[3:51:01] Trustee Allen: up to us because every time i get up to the community and say this is happening lots of

[3:51:05] Trustee Allen: people are attending so it's up to us to get people to attend i don't think it's a lack of

[3:51:09] Trustee Allen: of interest and um i also feel that so the specific webinars we do have are specific to

[3:51:14] Trustee Allen: our locations i mean no there's lots lots of information out there but we've been trying to

[3:51:18] Trustee Allen: get specific webinars specific to our islands which is uh unique of course so i am totally in

[3:51:24] Trustee Allen: favor in favor not

[3:51:26] Trustee Allen: in favor thank

[3:51:27] Trustee Fast: you okay thank you for the clarity uh trustee boland

[3:51:33] Voice 19: um i'm in favor of communication and education i just feel that this is a luxury at the moment

[3:51:39] Voice 19: the number of staff hours in particular as i spoke to we have webinars from the itc very

[3:51:46] Voice 19: successful ones on species at risk we have webinars from rain coast we have webinars from

[3:51:53] Voice 19: transition soul spring and you know the honest trust participates in many of those to one degree

[3:52:00] Voice 19: or another and this year we have a huge rollout of the trust policy statement which will you know

[3:52:07] Voice 19: has a budget for communication and engagement we have first nations engagement under communications

[3:52:12] Voice 19: and we have you know engagement under each of the ltc projects and we have a communications plan

[3:52:21] Voice 19: so i just think in the current environment it would behove us to reduce this and direct the

[3:52:30] Voice 19: staff hours to some of those other projects. Thank you. Thank

[3:52:35] Trustee Patrick: you, Trustee Boland. Trustee Patrick?

[3:52:38] Trustee Patrick: I'm a bit on the fence because this is from surplus, so the tax effect on this, I think, is

[3:52:45] Trustee Patrick: zero at the moment, as I understand. I see, oh, look at that. I got Julia Mobb to raise her hand

[3:52:49] Trustee Patrick: immediately on that. Director

[3:52:50] Voice 16: Mobbs? So Trustee Patrick is right. It doesn't have an immediate

[3:52:56] Voice 16: impact on taxation. However, it does provide surplus that can be redirected. So I can take

[3:53:02] Voice 16: those surplus monies are now free and redirect them to pay for something else which will

[3:53:06] Voice 16: therefore influence the tax increase so it does indirectly influence it thank you there we go

[3:53:13] Trustee Patrick: thank you um i am a huge fan of the stu of stewardship education and i am not on the

[3:53:20] Trustee Patrick: trust programs uh committee um but i do think we could do a far better job uh working in

[3:53:28] Trustee Patrick: cooperation and really focusing our education like on a program really intensely with all of

[3:53:36] Trustee Patrick: our partners to get far more reach. Because I do attend all the webinars. I know they're not always

[3:53:42] Trustee Patrick: as well attended as I'd like to see. And it seems to be the same group of us that are at each of

[3:53:48] Trustee Patrick: them. So I think we could do a lot better job. I'm not really prepared to say let's cut this now,

[3:53:53] Trustee Patrick: But I really would encourage us to do a really good program in cooperation with a whole bunch of different groups at the same time and get big reach.

[3:54:04] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Patrick. I'm just going to put myself on the list once more as a Trust Programs Committee member.

[3:54:11] Trustee Fast: Remember, one of the things also that's been happening, just for the information of the committee members, is that we've started to bring in, staff have started to bring in First Nations hosts or speakers, and it's bringing a whole new kind of approach to stewardship, which I'm really appreciating.

[3:54:35] Trustee Fast: I think it's great. So it's fresh that way, too. And I'm not seeing any more hands. So I'm going

[3:54:42] Trustee Fast: to call the question. I'll be voting against this. I'm going to ask those who are in favor of

[3:54:50] Trustee Fast: reducing the stewardship education program to raise their hands in favor.

[3:54:59] Voice 16: Do we have a seconder at this point?

[3:55:02] Voice 16: uh

[3:55:03] Trustee Fast: i believe that trustee alan seconded the motion early on yes he's nodding oh okay and uh

[3:55:11] Trustee Fast: so take your hands down please and all whoops all those opposed raise your hand please

[3:55:18] Trustee Fast: thank you

[3:55:21] Voice 17: nine opposed thank

[3:55:23] Trustee Fast: you that motion fails very good and uh moving on what's the next

[3:55:30] Trustee Fast: one we're going to deal with we have to go back to the big screen we're making progress it's 2 26

[3:55:44] Trustee Fast: we've got other things on the agenda will we make more motions and who will put their hand up i see

[3:55:53] Trustee Fast: whoops that's me get that i'm not seeing any more hands going up there's one director mobs

[3:56:03] Voice 16: no motions for me i do have a question of clarification for trustee graham uh he's

[3:56:09] Voice 16: still here hmm trustee graham are you still with us yes i see him on the list there um so on this

[3:56:18] Voice 16: list that's okay i added a trustee remuneration review for ten thousand dollars to this list

[3:56:25] Voice 16: um can you confirm for me that is what you were speaking to in your comments before the lunch or

[3:56:31] Voice 16: were you referencing the annual increase that is afforded to trustees in their standard

[3:56:37] Voice 16: remuneration.

[3:56:41] Voice 12: Thank you, Director Mobs. I was referring to the governance review that is

[3:56:47] Voice 12: proposed for $10,000. Yeah.

[3:56:50] Trustee Fast: Great. Thank you. We got it right then. Okay. Thank you. And would

[3:56:55] Trustee Fast: you like to make a motion to this one since we're on it there? I would. I

[3:57:00] Voice 12: move. I'm looking for that.

[3:57:02] Voice 12: I move that the Financial Planning Committee direct staff to remove $10,000 for trust remuneration

[3:57:09] Voice 12: um work study whatever it's called um from the draft 2025-26 budget thank you

[3:57:20] Voice 12: it's a review not

[3:57:21] Voice 12: study not work it's a review i'll second

[3:57:24] Voice 19: that okay

[3:57:27] Trustee Fast: thank you we had a bunch of seconders i

[3:57:29] Trustee Fast: think trustee boland will put you down as the seconder and um i'm going to uh whoops what am

[3:57:39] Trustee Fast: am I doing? Oh, that wasn't me clicking. Very good. Thank you. Robert Bartle's got it up there

[3:57:44] Trustee Fast: on the screen, highlighted. This is the motion that's been moved by David Graham and seconded

[3:57:50] Trustee Fast: by Mari Boland. And would you like to speak to your motion a bit more, Trustee Graham? It's

[3:57:57] Trustee Fast: getting later in the afternoon.

[3:57:58] Voice 12: Happy to. And I appreciate the comments from members of the

[3:58:02] Voice 12: Governance Committee, particularly Trustee Geddes. I appreciate that there's a time

[3:58:06] Voice 12: requirement to get things through the various process um and in fact in in my mind if it isn't

[3:58:13] Voice 12: if it's taken up by the next iteration of the trust council i would be i would be happy um i

[3:58:19] Voice 12: just don't see it as a priority um i know that there's concern that we're not attracting young

[3:58:25] Voice 12: people because of the um remittance that's uh available for trustees this is an old argument

[3:58:32] Voice 12: We had it 12 years ago when I was a trustee.

[3:58:36] Voice 12: You know, you'd have to add a zero.

[3:58:39] Voice 12: You'd have to a substantial increase to make it attractive to young people these days that are facing ridiculous cost of living.

[3:58:46] Voice 12: So I don't I don't think we that's just not going to make a difference in my mind.

[3:58:51] Voice 12: And on Demand, we were lucky enough to get a 32 year old apply.

[3:58:54] Voice 12: And gosh, that was just fantastic.

[3:58:56] Voice 12: So his interest was was more spiritual than financial.

[3:59:03] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Speaking for others, however, you know him well.

[3:59:08] Trustee Fast: Okay, I'm going to go to the hands that are up. Trustee Getty.

[3:59:13] Voice 13: Thank you. In addition to the timing, so that it's not, and that was particular in terms of not leaving it until the beginning of the next term,

[3:59:22] Voice 13: because then there would be possible bias in terms of dealing with something for themselves and their own interests.

[3:59:30] Voice 13: But it was also the recommendation from UBCM is that this become a regular feature, not necessarily annually, but once a term, and that you just try to keep pace with not so much attracting other people, but try to keep pace with both what's available in the market for people that do want to get some work out of it,

[3:59:57] Voice 13: but also what's happening with other places.

[4:00:00] Voice 13: So that we're not the, somewhere possibly in the middle of the pack, not the least and not the most.

[4:00:07] Voice 13: Bowen's just gone through this process and we did it internally.

[4:00:11] Voice 13: And that I suppose might be possible, but there's real questions in terms of this council and, you know, having enough faith in terms of, and loading up our staff in terms of another project.

[4:00:26] Voice 13: So this was an estimate in terms of what it would take to hire somebody that could do it fairly quickly, would have the experience.

[4:00:34] Voice 13: It's not a difficult process, but it does take some time.

[4:00:38] Voice 13: So it was trying to make it so that the other thing is that we're getting more and more and more meetings.

[4:00:44] Voice 13: So our Committee of the Whole, once every month or once every couple of weeks, is an additional commitment that we're making on a regular basis so that it's a huge amount of time that is being set aside by people to work on things that you may have a spiritual interest in, but still it becomes very difficult for people that are trying to pay mortgages and food costs and all the other rising costs that we've got.

[4:01:13] Voice 13: So we're doing more work for less money. And we're trailing behind. We haven't had this review for maybe 10 or 12 years. And it's something that has come up a couple of times. It was in the governance review, and it's come up at Trust Council. And it was your fellow trustee from Denman that felt very strongly in terms of us putting this into our urgent and important part of the matrix. So that's how it ended up here.

[4:01:40] Voice 13: Thank

[4:01:41] Trustee Fast: you very much, Trustee Getty. I'm going to go now to Trustee Patrick.

[4:01:46] Trustee Patrick: At the risk of getting Director Mobbs' hand raised really quick,

[4:01:53] Trustee Patrick: we are apples to oranges on being compared to municipalities with the complexity of the

[4:01:58] Trustee Patrick: structure that the Islands Trust is. Oh, look, I'm getting a nod, not a hand raised.

[4:02:03] Trustee Patrick: So I think that is why this does require a little bit deeper look. It has not been looked at for

[4:02:11] Trustee Patrick: for a long time and as trustee Getty said,

[4:02:17] Trustee Patrick: timing is why this is here now and needs to go forward

[4:02:21] Trustee Patrick: so that we aren't having this end up

[4:02:23] Trustee Patrick: being the beginning of a term.

[4:02:25] Trustee Patrick: This is something we can look at, update.

[4:02:26] Trustee Patrick: It doesn't necessarily mean there could be more money.

[4:02:29] Trustee Patrick: It's a review of the structure, how it's calculated

[4:02:32] Trustee Patrick: and it'll be good information to make decisions on.

[4:02:36] Trustee Patrick: Thank you very much,

[4:02:37] Trustee Fast: Trustee Patrick.

[4:02:38] Trustee Fast: So I'm gonna go now to Trustee Peterson.

[4:02:43] Voice 10: uh thank you just want to echo what i've heard from uh both uh trustee getty and trustee patrick

[4:02:49] Voice 10: who i'll also sit on the governance committee as as well as myself um and i just want to point out

[4:02:55] Voice 10: that this actually was kicked down the road from the previous trust council um this is i believe

[4:03:03] Voice 10: it was trustee bouchakin who was championing this in our previous term so my concern is uh is

[4:03:11] Voice 10: is somewhat like what I heard

[4:03:13] Voice 10: from the other people

[4:03:14] Voice 10: speaking against this motion

[4:03:17] Voice 10: is I don't want this

[4:03:19] Voice 10: to just linger around forever

[4:03:20] Voice 10: and not have the work done by us

[4:03:23] Voice 10: and then again leave it

[4:03:24] Voice 10: as a legacy for next council

[4:03:26] Voice 10: to also not do the work.

[4:03:28] Voice 10: I think at some point

[4:03:29] Voice 10: it's important for us

[4:03:31] Voice 10: to spend the money,

[4:03:33] Voice 10: do the work and move on

[4:03:36] Voice 10: so we're not leaving these problems

[4:03:38] Voice 10: in the lap of future councils.

[4:03:40] Voice 10: Thank you.

[4:03:40] Voice 10: Thank

[4:03:42] Trustee Fast: you, Trustee Peterson. Trustee Borland.

[4:03:44] Voice 19: I suppose my issue is that I don't really know what the scope could be.

[4:03:50] Voice 19: So from my perspective right now, I feel like this is an issue that can only be solved by a provincial review of the structure of the Islands Trust, the way it's created.

[4:04:02] Voice 19: You know, as a trustee on Saterna Island with a smaller population, I can't actually see that, you know, a minor increase up or down or sideways is going to actually bring forward younger people who need a decent salary to do this job.

[4:04:22] Voice 19: So I may be wrong about this, but I see this as kind of fiddling while the loan burns.

[4:04:28] Voice 19: you know and it really is a question that has to be answered under the auspices of the provincial

[4:04:37] Voice 19: review so

[4:04:39] Trustee Fast: but for this motion yeah for this motion do you support this motion um

[4:04:44] Voice 19: i if somebody could

[4:04:45] Voice 19: answer me if that scope could include like i don't know where the the controls it can they

[4:04:52] Voice 19: change it so substantially and or make recommendations so substantially that they

[4:04:59] Voice 19: would change it beyond we think everybody should get six percent next year that's my question

[4:05:05] Voice 19: thank you director mobs

[4:05:08] Voice 19: so

[4:05:10] Voice 16: i can't speak to what any results might look like from this kind of

[4:05:14] Voice 16: review my expectation would be that a review would be somewhat of a benchmarking exercise

[4:05:20] Voice 16: side. So taking a look at other agencies, other jurisdictions that are doing similar work and then

[4:05:26] Voice 16: normalizing for our operations. So as Trustee Patrick mentioned, our operations do look a bit

[4:05:31] Voice 16: different to local governments, municipalities out there. So we'd look at baseline elsewhere

[4:05:36] Voice 16: and then make adjustments that are appropriate in our context and then compare where that lands to

[4:05:42] Voice 16: what our current remuneration policy affords trustees. Again, that's an assumption that I'm

[4:05:50] Voice 16: making that a consultant would likely take that route it is the methodology that was applied by

[4:05:55] Voice 16: the consultant who lasted this work in 2010 I think it was it would not be scoping in a change

[4:06:02] Voice 16: in our structure that might come out of the provincial review the only way that it would

[4:06:07] Voice 16: be scoping that in is if we had a result from that provincial review in hand which would not

[4:06:13] Voice 16: be the case in this timeline thanks

[4:06:16] Voice 19: therefore i am in favor thank you thank

[4:06:19] Trustee Fast: you trustee allen

[4:06:20] Trustee Fast: last speaker i hope yeah

[4:06:23] Trustee Allen: i'm not in favor of this and also because uh as somebody who has to you

[4:06:28] Trustee Allen: know i have a full-time job and i have to carry on with my full-time job even though i paid off

[4:06:33] Trustee Allen: my mortgage etc um so you know and then the more committees you join then you can the more money

[4:06:40] Trustee Allen: you make but then i can't join committees because i have not enough time so i've had to step down

[4:06:45] Trustee Allen: from committees which is unfortunate and then of course the cow committee is not paid um and that's

[4:06:51] Trustee Allen: all the times where i can't attend as well so if there was a bit more money people it wouldn't

[4:06:57] Trustee Allen: necessarily attract a younger person but at least they'd you know they wouldn't have to have a full

[4:07:01] Trustee Allen: time job per se and they could have two part-time jobs so i'm totally against this removing it from

[4:07:08] Trustee Fast: the budget yeah thank

[4:07:09] Trustee Fast: you uh trust uh director mobs

[4:07:12] Voice 16: um so i've heard a few comments about how

[4:07:17] Voice 16: committee the whole is not remunerated um there is potential for trust council to amend its

[4:07:21] Voice 16: remuneration policy itself to include remuneration for those meetings um we did see an adjustment to

[4:07:27] Voice 16: the policy a few years ago 2019 i believe to add compensation for committee meeting attendance

[4:07:32] Voice 16: So there's potential for council to take that on, even if there is no fulsome review by a consultant.

[4:07:41] Voice 16: Just wanted to offer that as a consideration.

[4:07:45] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[4:07:46] Trustee Fast: So with the motion in front of us and no hands up on the board, the highlighted motion reads to remove $10,000 for the review from the budget.

[4:07:56] Trustee Fast: All those in favor of removing?

[4:08:04] Trustee Fast: I see three.

[4:08:05] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[4:08:06] Trustee Fast: And lower your hands, please.

[4:08:11] Trustee Fast: and all those opposed raise your hands uh

[4:08:19] Voice 17: seven opposed thank

[4:08:21] Trustee Fast: you so that motion fails

[4:08:23] Trustee Fast: thank you okay and uh trustee boland do you had your hand up first

[4:08:30] Trustee Fast: that's gone trustee yates

[4:08:36] Voice 21: okay trustee yates oh thank you chair fast i i just wanted to say

[4:08:41] Voice 21: as people have mentioned on this one we just voted on timing is everything i really don't

[4:08:46] Voice 21: want to get the next trust counsel stuck with making this decision this is or doing this work

[4:08:53] Voice 21: just to do the research that's all we're asking for it's going to take about that much money to

[4:08:58] Voice 21: do the research and then we don't feel like we're we're you know shoving it down the line one more

[4:09:03] Voice 21: term thank you

[4:09:06] Trustee Fast: trustee yates who wants to make the next motion or shall we call this our

[4:09:11] Trustee Fast: our recommendations and move the big motion that is up there on page two of our agenda.

[4:09:20] Trustee Fast: Is this what we're going to forward the budget materials to trust council or are there more to

[4:09:25] Trustee Fast: be adjusted? Trustee Elliott.

[4:09:28] Trustee Elliott: Could we see the Excel sheet again? There were two other smaller

[4:09:33] Trustee Elliott: smaller items but um if they're not significant enough to make much of an impact um so i was

[4:09:44] Trustee Elliott: looking at itc legal could be reduced by a thousand and itc board training by 1100 leaving 500 for

[4:09:53] Trustee Elliott: that um i wanted to talk about exec on ltc expenses this 4600 was um highlighted by director

[4:10:02] Trustee Elliott: Dr. Mobbs, and your potential discretionary funding items that were flagged. Sorry,

[4:10:13] Trustee Elliott: I'm just looking at the page here.

[4:10:20] Voice 5: I know we've got a lot more to go through.

[4:10:23] Trustee Elliott: Trustee, or sorry, jeepers, you are trustee today, Dr. Mobbs. Sorry, could you clarify,

[4:10:30] Trustee Elliott: was this $4,600 in addition to the usual or sort of the budgeted amount for the last few years?

[4:10:39] Trustee Elliott: Was this going to be an anticipated extra request?

[4:10:43] Voice 16: So the request for executive on LTC amounts is

[4:10:49] Voice 16: coming directly from the executive committee and so staff have not amended it. When we compare that

[4:10:55] Voice 16: amount to what current spending trends are to fund chairs on their LTC work, we're not seeing

[4:11:03] Voice 16: spending levels to the extent that's requested in next year's budget. So if the current spending

[4:11:09] Voice 16: trends are reflective of what the plans are for next year, we could reduce that budget amount

[4:11:13] Voice 16: by that value.

[4:11:15] Voice 5: That's what I wanted to know. I'm still looking for this page. Where did I see that

[4:11:19] Voice 5: that $4,600? $216, I think is what you're looking for. Thank you. $215. $216? $16. No. While the

[4:11:39] Trustee Fast: trustee is looking, what about those two bigger items at the bottom? That's a lot of money there.

[4:11:53] Trustee Fast: Trustee Patrick?

[4:11:54] Trustee Patrick: Well, take your eyes off of the sweep of money. Those were Salt Spring Island

[4:11:58] Trustee Patrick: island taxpayers that contributed that money. And so stop salivating. It can only be returned

[4:12:07] Trustee Patrick: back to the reserve. I guess my question to staff is I am frustrated. I'll be clear. We have not

[4:12:13] Trustee Patrick: been able to resource this work. And I think there needs to be more conversations. There's

[4:12:22] Trustee Patrick: more conversations that need to be done with other agencies as well as to moving forward

[4:12:26] Trustee Patrick: with watershed protection on salt spring we have a plan we know it needs to be done we just don't

[4:12:31] Trustee Patrick: have the um the resources or staff resources to commit to it but there could be other agencies

[4:12:37] Trustee Patrick: that could step up and play other roles if we were to take it out of the budget for now to remove

[4:12:43] Trustee Patrick: money from the salt from the this reserve would that that would need trust consult action um is

[4:12:49] Trustee Patrick: that the only thing in in the next year so that if it did set aside so i guess that's a question to

[4:12:54] Trustee Patrick: Director Mobs is if we were to take it out of the budget, just returns it back to the reserve

[4:12:58] Trustee Patrick: to remove it from the reserve, what would need to be done?

[4:13:04] Voice 16: So at this point, the draft budget hasn't been approved yet. And so the amounts have not been

[4:13:10] Voice 16: pulled out of reserve. So they are still sitting in the reserve fund. If we removed them from the

[4:13:18] Voice 16: budget and Trust Council approved a budget that did not show that reserve funding in it, it would

[4:13:23] Voice 16: limit the spending potential on work that's funded from the reserve because any draws from

[4:13:28] Voice 16: our reserve funds are supposed to be in the approved financial plan did that answer your

[4:13:34] Voice 16: question i

[4:13:35] Trustee Patrick: i yes um but this money was in the budget for this year it didn't get spent it's

[4:13:40] Trustee Patrick: you know so we can either leave it here and it'll be in next year's budget and then hopefully we can

[4:13:47] Trustee Patrick: come you know figure that out then um how we can get it resourced so

[4:13:52] Voice 16: if it's um so it isn't

[4:13:54] Voice 16: currently in the reserve fund if it's not spent this year it just stays in the reserve fund

[4:13:59] Voice 16: and it will stay there unless trust council includes a draw from that reserve fund in its

[4:14:04] Voice 16: approved budget to use next year no

[4:14:07] Trustee Patrick: i understand that but we did have a draw for that we just

[4:14:10] Trustee Patrick: didn't it didn't get used yeah

[4:14:13] Voice 16: so the current the current year's budget approved a draw if it was

[4:14:16] Voice 16: needed it wasn't needed and so it won't be drawn out this year it will stay in the reserve fund

[4:14:22] Trustee Patrick: All right. So then I guess we would leave this as is. And like I said, there is risk the work won't be done, but hopefully there's a lot of interest in seeing watershed protection moved forward on Salt Spring. So I really hope we can make it work.

[4:14:40] Voice 16: if there's anticipation sorry chair can i yeah

[4:14:43] Trustee Patrick: please go ahead

[4:14:44] Voice 16: if there's anticipation that

[4:14:46] Voice 16: we'd be looking to advance that work it is to say for option to include it in the financial plan

[4:14:50] Voice 16: and you know again if it's unspent it just stays in that reserve fund um it's unspent money but

[4:14:56] Voice 16: that's how i'd approach okay

[4:14:59] Trustee Fast: so i'm not hearing a motion to remove it from trustee patrick and

[4:15:04] Trustee Fast: i'm going to go back to my hands trustee elliott thank

[4:15:08] Trustee Elliott: you chair uh so page 220 of the agenda

[4:15:10] Trustee Elliott: And we were provided with some options for reducing additional discretionary budget lines.

[4:15:17] Trustee Elliott: And so this is where I had gotten the LTC executive expense on LTCs reduce up to $4,600.

[4:15:25] Trustee Elliott: And so Director Mob said if aligned with the current year forecast means no extras for LTC

[4:15:31] Trustee Elliott: traveling to non-regular meetings.

[4:15:32] Trustee Elliott: So I would put a motion forward to reduce that as well as ITC board training, not the ITC training here, that's the, I think that's staff training, but my motion had been board training to reduce to 500 or I think by 1100 and then ITC legal could be reduced by 1000.

[4:15:57] Trustee Elliott: So that's

[4:15:59] Voice 5: where I was getting those three numbers and I'd be happy to put them forward in a motion.

[4:16:03] Trustee Fast: I think that would be a good idea because it's hard to follow.

[4:16:08] Trustee Fast: Being not a super spreadsheet-oriented person, my eyes follow that cursor, but I do the best I can.

[4:16:14] Trustee Fast: So if you could bring those as a motion, that would be great.

[4:16:17] Trustee Fast: Just everybody is 245 and we still have a bunch of agenda in front of us.

[4:16:23] Trustee Fast: So I'm hoping, Trustee Peterson, you're bringing something to happen.

[4:16:28] Trustee Fast: Could I move a motion then?

[4:16:30] Trustee Fast: Oh, if you're

[4:16:31] Trustee Fast: ready, go ahead.

[4:16:31] Voice 8: So

[4:16:32] Trustee Elliott: I moved that FPC direct staff to remove $1,000 for ITC legal, and I'm going to clump these together for efficiency, $1,100 for ITC board training, and $4,600 for executive committee, executive expenses

[4:16:59] Voice 5: on LTCs from the draft 2025-2022.

[4:17:04] Voice 5: 26 budget. Sorry, Robert.

[4:17:10] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. And I'm seeing Judy Getty is seconding the motion.

[4:17:15] Trustee Fast: Thank you. And would you like to speak any further to your motion? Just that you've run it past

[4:17:21] Trustee Fast: staff?

[4:17:24] Trustee Elliott: Yes. So $1,000 for executive committee legals, ITC legal, $1,100 for ITC board training.

[4:17:31] Trustee Elliott: Yeah, that's all been run by staff. Thank you. Okay. Thank

[4:17:35] Trustee Fast: you. And so I've got a mover and

[4:17:38] Trustee Fast: a seconder and i've see trustee peterson your hand is up speak are you speaking to this motion

[4:17:44] Voice 10: yes thank you and and i don't know trustee there was one other itc item that didn't seem to make

[4:17:49] Voice 10: it into your motion but um my concern is i would like to sever the 46 for uh executive ltc spent

[4:17:58] Voice 10: expenses from this motion. And so I will move to sever the motion to separate the ITC items from

[4:18:09] Voice 10: the executive expenses for LTC.

[4:18:13] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you. My understanding is that that just

[4:18:16] Trustee Fast: happens automatically. You don't need to seconder and debate and things like that.

[4:18:20] Trustee Fast: So appreciated those hands that went up and then promptly came down again.

[4:18:25] Trustee Fast: and uh so we're going to move we've got a motion and a seconder for um the first part

[4:18:34] Trustee Fast: and for the second part uh but the second okay the second part i think all you need to do robert

[4:18:41] Trustee Fast: is take that um 4600 down the last part of that down yeah no it becomes its own motion so it would

[4:19:11] Trustee Fast: and say from the draft 2025-26 budget.

[4:19:21] Trustee Fast: Anybody correct me if I'm wrong,

[4:19:22] Trustee Fast: but that's what I understand severing to be.

[4:19:24] Trustee Fast: Yeah, that's right.

[4:19:25] Trustee Fast: Cut and paste.

[4:19:27] Voice 8: Copy.

[4:19:31] Trustee Fast: But I think it has to come under that top one.

[4:19:33] Trustee Fast: Sever becomes

[4:19:33] Voice 19: remove, maybe, rather than sever.

[4:19:37] Trustee Fast: It needs to have the word.

[4:19:40] Trustee Fast: By severing, you're dividing.

[4:19:42] Trustee Fast: So the part about the 4,600 needs to come out of the top motion.

[4:19:48] Trustee Fast: just divided it into two is that correct trust uh director mobs i'd

[4:19:56] Voice 16: have to look to director

[4:19:57] Voice 16: marler for that um but if indeed that subsevering works makes complete sense to me that we need to

[4:20:02] Voice 16: delete the last part of that first motion robert after the semicolon and 4600 for executive

[4:20:10] Voice 16: expenses for ltc because we that's right

[4:20:14] Voice 16: into its own motion yeah

[4:20:17] Trustee Fast: that's right so the first

[4:20:20] Trustee Fast: part there has been moved and seconded and so has the second part trustee get

[4:20:24] Voice 13: a question for

[4:20:25] Voice 13: clarification is it islands trust legal so the first part of it remove a thousand dollars for

[4:20:32] Voice 13: islands trust legal wasn't it not

[4:20:33] Trustee Fast: itc legal and everything thank you

[4:20:37] Voice 5: yeah

[4:20:41] Trustee Fast: same for board training

[4:20:43] Trustee Fast: okay from the 26 good

[4:20:45] Voice 13: yep yeah okay

[4:20:46] Voice 19: and so the second motion should have removed rather than

[4:20:51] Voice 19: sever in it i believe yes yeah

[4:20:54] Trustee Fast: very good thank you yeah and we'll do them one at a time so for

[4:21:01] Trustee Fast: the top motion uh that was moved and seconded this is remove a thousand dollars from itc legal

[4:21:08] Trustee Fast: remove eleven hundred dollars from itc board training uh any further discussion call the

[4:21:15] Trustee Fast: question all those in favor raise your hand six seven very good eight that motion carries

[4:21:27] Trustee Fast: Oh, lower your hands, please. And those opposed? None opposed. Thank you. Does that mean we're down to eight? We better hurry. Okay. And the second motion there, it was moved and seconded as part of the first one. I'm going to assume that that's correct. And we're going to, Trustee Peterson?

[4:21:52] Trustee Fast: Yeah,

[4:21:58] Voice 10: I have some concerns about this, and maybe Director Mobs can help us wash those.

[4:22:06] Voice 10: What I'm seeing as an LTC chair at this point is a desire by LTCs to, for example, in the case of Salt Spring meetings with the local community commission,

[4:22:20] Voice 10: The value of which for coordination and cooperation between the two agencies, I don't think it can be underestimated.

[4:22:29] Voice 10: So I have some concerns there.

[4:22:31] Voice 10: The other space that is certainly emerging and I have experienced in now all three of the LTCs at which I'm chairing is meetings with First Nations.

[4:22:44] Voice 10: Certainly in two out of the three LTCs that I am chairing, there have been standing resolutions passed to cover the chair travel expenses to these type of joint meetings and First Nations meetings.

[4:22:59] Voice 10: So I'm just a little bit unclear about whether this, if this motion passes, if that's going to restrict the ability of the chair to travel for those type of meetings.

[4:23:13] Trustee Fast: Director Mobs, do you have an answer for that?

[4:23:17] Voice 16: The answer is it depends.

[4:23:19] Voice 16: If in the first three quarters of the current year,

[4:23:24] Voice 16: fairs have been attending those types of meetings,

[4:23:27] Voice 16: then the current spending trends will be reflected in the numbers

[4:23:31] Voice 16: that staff have used to propose a potential reduction.

[4:23:34] Voice 16: If that meeting attendance has not been already happening

[4:23:38] Voice 16: in the first three quarters of the current year,

[4:23:40] Voice 16: then our current spending trends are not reflective of desired plans and so you would

[4:23:46] Voice 16: want next year's budget to be an increase over the current spending trends um it's interesting

[4:23:53] Voice 16: that you say local trust committees have passed resolutions to pay for chairs to attend uh

[4:23:59] Voice 16: different meetings of course ltcs have control of their own budget lines

[4:24:04] Voice 16: this is a budget line that has been set by executive committee um but you know knowing

[4:24:11] Voice 16: that of course as the chair of your various ltcs you do know the planned activities for next year

[4:24:16] Voice 16: and so um if you want to be able to fund those um you would probably look for an increase

[4:24:23] Voice 16: or not a reduction sorry not a reduction thank you so

[4:24:27] Voice 10: unfortunately that that leaves me a little

[4:24:31] Voice 10: little bit confused um and how how how do i know which is funded by ltc's and which is funded

[4:24:39] Voice 10: through the executive request here um and i'm sorry if if i'm coming across as obtuse or here

[4:24:46] Voice 10: but i i just want to know understand what i'm thinking about here yeah

[4:24:51] Voice 16: so this line is uh the

[4:24:52] Voice 16: request of executive committee right so local trust committees are not setting this budget line

[4:24:57] Voice 16: this came through executive committee um so executive committee knows the activities of

[4:25:01] Voice 16: If they're local trust committees, if they know, such as you do, that there is an expectation or a desire or a plan for chairs to be traveling more associated with local trust committee work, then there would be a request for a higher amount, which is what has happened, right?

[4:25:16] Voice 16: So that is why executive committee has requested an amount that is higher than our current spending trends is because the comments you've made here today were also raised at executive committee.

[4:25:24] Voice 16: So if we were to reduce it, then there would be a limitation on the volume of those meetings that chairs can attend.

[4:25:32] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[4:25:33] Trustee Fast: Does that clear it up for you, Trustee Peterson?

[4:25:39] Voice 9: Yes, thank you.

[4:25:40] Trustee Fast: Okay, great.

[4:25:40] Trustee Fast: Trustee Patrick?

[4:25:42] Trustee Patrick: As I say, if it's in regard to anything, the local trust committee and the local community commission meetings that will continue to meet jointly, I think as time goes on, the virtual attendance of the chair will be easier as we move into our forming stage.

[4:25:59] Trustee Fast: So does this mean you're in favor of the motion, just so we can get an indication?

[4:26:02] Trustee Patrick: That's correct.

[4:26:03] Trustee Patrick: I'm in favor of it.

[4:26:04] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[4:26:05] Trustee Fast: Okay, seeing no more hands up, I'm going to call the question. Who's in favor of removing $4,600? Thank you. Six people are in favor. Okay, thank you. Lower your hands. And those opposed? Two opposed?

[4:26:31] Voice 8: to post thank

[4:26:32] Trustee Fast: you very much so uh whoops lower your hands please thank you that motion carries

[4:26:38] Trustee Fast: and uh what's next trustees or can we move on to another part of the agenda after we move the big

[4:26:44] Trustee Fast: forward this to trust council motion we have other things i'm seeing no more okay trustee elliott

[4:26:53] Trustee Fast: we

[4:26:57] Trustee Elliott: do have other things so i'm not going to make another motion to reduce however um i think there

[4:27:02] Trustee Elliott: There is a conversation to be had about the El Aliskidi OCP project,

[4:27:09] Trustee Elliott: and I'm just using this to highlight what we need to look at systematically

[4:27:13] Trustee Elliott: with all of our OCP reviews, so not making a motion here.

[4:27:20] Trustee Elliott: But this appeared on the feasibility report by Director Cermak,

[4:27:24] Trustee Elliott: along with Salt Spring Island one.

[4:27:26] Trustee Elliott: The discussion at RPC was that this project would not likely start

[4:27:30] Trustee Elliott: until later in the fiscal due to staff planning project was finished then staff

[4:27:41] Trustee Elliott: resources could be allocated to that so just in future consideration I think OCP

[4:27:47] Trustee Elliott: projects need to foreground First Nations engagement first so that $8,000

[4:27:53] Trustee Elliott: that's currently allocated for First Nations engagement consultation could

[4:27:59] Trustee Elliott: could be funded in the current fiscal for Liskiti's OCP review and then the rest of it the following year

[4:28:05] Trustee Elliott: because it's not going to start probably until halfway through the year.

[4:28:09] Trustee Elliott: So that is another potential reduction, but I'm not going to bring it forward here.

[4:28:12] Trustee Elliott: Okay.

[4:28:15] Trustee Fast: I've lost your voice, but I think you've got the idea.

[4:28:19] Trustee Fast: We can talk about it at Trust Council if needed.

[4:28:21] Trustee Fast: Okay. Director Cermak, I see you popped up.

[4:28:28] Voice 14: Thank you, Chair. No, I heard my name. I heard planning.

[4:28:31] Voice 14: I was ready to respond.

[4:28:32] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[4:28:33] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[4:28:34] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[4:28:35] Trustee Fast: Trustees, I'm looking forward to a motion that financial plan,

[4:28:41] Trustee Fast: this is on page two of our cover sheet.

[4:28:44] Trustee Fast: And Director Mobs, over to you.

[4:28:49] Voice 16: Chair, so there is one more desired motion that I'd be seeking for,

[4:28:54] Voice 16: and that's related to the error in the forecast related to information

[4:28:59] Voice 16: services salaries.

[4:29:00] Voice 16: So as I mentioned before, there's an error in that number, which means we actually have an additional amount that we can draw from surplus.

[4:29:08] Voice 16: So it would be good for FPC to give direction to staff to make that additional draw from surplus.

[4:29:14] Voice 16: I'm currently crafting a motion if there is interest in having staff assistance with making such a motion and making such a decision.

[4:29:22] Voice 16: That

[4:29:23] Trustee Fast: would be great, because if I'm recalling correctly, that's the 35,000, which is significant in the kind of numbers we've been dealing with here today.

[4:29:32] Trustee Fast: So maybe cast your eyes over the rest of the report of the agenda, everybody.

[4:29:39] Trustee Fast: The next things coming up while Julia works madly on that and I distract her by talking is 7.6.1, 7.6.2, 8.1.2, which we may decide to delay.

[4:30:00] Trustee Fast: I don't know about the urgency there, but poor Claire is probably standing by.

[4:30:05] Trustee Fast: And 10.1 is the work programs.

[4:30:10] Trustee Fast: While we're waiting, David Graham, did you want to speak?

[4:30:16] Voice 12: I want to make a motion.

[4:30:17] Trustee Fast: I

[4:30:17] Voice 12: move that the Financial Planning Committee direct staff to draw an additional amount from surplus into the draft 2025-26 budget

[4:30:27] Voice 12: it equal to the correction in the third quarter financial forecast for salaries and benefits

[4:30:32] Voice 12: expense and that this additional draw be allocated to work benefiting Bowen Island municipality.

[4:30:39] Trustee Fast: Wonderful, thank you. I see you're reading that from the chat. Thank you Julia

[4:30:43] Trustee Fast: and Trustee Graham and Trustee Peterson. Are you seconding the motion?

[4:30:48] Trustee Fast: I see him nodding. Yes, so we've got a motion that's moved and seconded. It's down there in

[4:30:53] Trustee Fast: the chat before it comes up to us on the screen and this is about the um i appreciate you putting

[4:31:00] Trustee Fast: in the words about the bowen island municipality too that's great and uh anybody want to speak to

[4:31:05] Trustee Fast: this or questions we spoke to it earlier okay then i'm going to call the question all those in favor

[4:31:12] Trustee Fast: raise your hands please that's great we're up to eight nine very good and uh lower your hands

[4:31:20] Trustee Fast: and those opposed nobody's opposed okay i saw your hand there trustee boland that must have

[4:31:30] Trustee Fast: been in favor so that passed unanimously thank you very much everybody and now are we ready to

[4:31:36] Trustee Fast: make the big motion at the top there trustee peterson i

[4:31:45] Voice 10: am ready i move that financial

[4:31:48] Voice 10: planning committee forward the budget materials contain an agenda item 7.4 to trust council

[4:31:54] Voice 10: as amended as it's recommended 20-25-26 budget to Trust Council.

[4:32:03] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Do I have a seconder?

[4:32:05] Trustee Fast: I think Trustee Yates got her hand up in front of you.

[4:32:08] Trustee Fast: Is that true, Trustee Yates?

[4:32:11] Trustee Fast: I think it is.

[4:32:12] Trustee Fast: Okay, good. I wanted to make sure that you were included.

[4:32:15] Trustee Fast: And any discussion beyond what we've already had?

[4:32:21] Trustee Fast: Then I'm going to call the question.

[4:32:22] Trustee Fast: All those in favor, raise your hand, please.

[4:32:27] Trustee Fast: that's up to eight thank you and lower your hands and anybody opposed nope thank you that passes

[4:32:40] Trustee Fast: unanimously and uh we're moving on on the oh trustee patrick it

[4:32:45] Trustee Patrick: would just be nice to have

[4:32:46] Trustee Patrick: a summary of where we landed and what percentage we were at just so that we can close out that with

[4:32:51] Trustee Patrick: that information if

[4:32:53] Trustee Fast: the excel sheet can come back up again that would be great if it's ready

[4:32:56] Trustee Fast: otherwise a verbal is fine i can

[4:33:00] Voice 16: go ahead um so if we are looking at the adjustments that staff

[4:33:07] Voice 16: will make proactively for um amounts related to city view plus all of the changes that ftc has

[4:33:13] Voice 16: directed we are seeing a reduction in spending of 172 600 um that is resulting in a local tax

[4:33:21] Voice 16: area increase of about 5.4 percent and Bowen at about 18.7 percent. Now there is likely to be

[4:33:31] Voice 16: some very minor shifts in those numbers as we actually input them into the budget. We've got

[4:33:34] Voice 16: some areas surrounding etc but that is the estimate at this point.

[4:33:40] Trustee Fast: I missed that. Okay okay that's

[4:33:43] Trustee Fast: great. Thank you and perhaps the director can send out an email if there's any errors but otherwise

[4:33:51] Trustee Fast: Otherwise, that's great. Let's move on. Thank you very much, Director Bobbs. And now we're going to

[4:33:57] Trustee Fast: move on to financial plan bylaw. So 7.6.1. This is an RFD, page 221. Please. It's a bylaw. So

[4:34:16] Trustee Fast: do you want to provide a few comments, Julia, as we shake the amendments out of our head?

[4:34:24] Voice 16: Sure, I can be brief in the interest of time.

[4:34:26] Voice 16: So these are bylaws that are headed to Trust Council for their approval, traditionally planned for the Thursday of our March Trust Council meeting.

[4:34:34] Voice 16: A five-year financial plan is not actually a legislated requirement under the Islands Trust Act.

[4:34:40] Voice 16: We are only required to submit to the minister our annual budget.

[4:34:43] Voice 16: However, many years ago, there was a desire to implement a five-year plan.

[4:34:48] Voice 16: it does help us understand what our spending might look like across time and help us estimate tax

[4:34:53] Voice 16: increases and so that's why we've been putting that together for a number of years now.

[4:34:58] Voice 16: The RFD includes a table which discusses some of the assumptions and estimates that are used

[4:35:03] Voice 16: in putting together the five-year financial plan. In the interest of time I won't speak to those,

[4:35:08] Voice 16: of course they're all there for trustees to read and digest. There's not significant changes from

[4:35:13] Voice 16: from the assumptions that we've used in prior years.

[4:35:16] Voice 16: The main ones being, we assume cost rise with inflation.

[4:35:19] Voice 16: We assume there's going to be costs for elections.

[4:35:21] Voice 16: We assume in election years,

[4:35:22] Voice 16: spending on programming will decrease

[4:35:24] Voice 16: because trustees have a period of orientation

[4:35:27] Voice 16: into their new roles.

[4:35:28] Voice 16: And we've also tried to make some estimates

[4:35:30] Voice 16: related to grant funding that we know will be ending

[4:35:33] Voice 16: at a certain time period.

[4:35:34] Voice 16: The one in particular that is most significant

[4:35:36] Voice 16: is the ITC Species at Risk Grant.

[4:35:40] Voice 16: This five-year financial plan changes

[4:35:42] Voice 16: changes as the budget changes because the annual budget is year one of the five-year plan so the

[4:35:49] Voice 16: attachment to that bylaw is no longer accurate because we've made changes we

[4:35:55] Voice 8: just changed the

[4:35:56] Voice 16: year one that's right and so I'll be amending that before it travels to trust council and then

[4:36:01] Voice 16: any changes trust council makes at their meeting I'll be amending overnight so that it's ready for

[4:36:05] Voice 16: Thursday's approval so happy to take questions on the assumptions made otherwise we'd simply

[4:36:09] Voice 16: we'll be looking for this to be forwarded to council as amended as of course year one has

[4:36:13] Voice 16: changed

[4:36:13] Trustee Fast: okay um for bylaw 2001 that sounds as amended we just put as amended at the end

[4:36:26] Trustee Fast: and um trustee patrick i'm happy to make that motion i'm the financial

[4:36:32] Trustee Patrick: planning committee

[4:36:33] Trustee Patrick: committee forward bylaw 201 to trust council for approval as amended thank you and uh

[4:36:44] Trustee Fast: thank you

[4:36:45] Trustee Fast: very good and um any more discussion hearing none um get your hands ready all those in favor

[4:36:55] Trustee Fast: raise your hand thank you that's seven or eight very good thank you lower your hands

[4:37:05] Trustee Fast: and any opposed seeing none that motion carries unanimously that's great thank

[4:37:15] Trustee Fast: you very much moving on to the next one page 228 thank you for your help with

[4:37:23] Trustee Fast: these Julia looked at these a few days ago and they seem like a weeks ago now

[4:37:27] Trustee Fast: please go ahead and describe this one and whether we've ever had to use it

[4:37:32] Trustee Fast: excuse

[4:37:33] Voice 12: me chair could we have our screen to show the page please I'm just looking

[4:37:40] Voice 12: looking at your beautiful faces, but I thank you.

[4:37:43] Trustee Fast: There we go.

[4:37:46] Voice 16: Okay, so the Revenue Anticipation

[4:37:48] Voice 16: By-law is another by-law that travels to Trust Council every year with the Financial Plan By-law.

[4:37:52] Voice 16: It gives the authority for borrowing in the year in case that situation arises.

[4:37:59] Voice 16: It's an administrative by-law that essentially looks to save time in the case of a need for

[4:38:06] Voice 16: borrowing. It gives a sort of a pre-approval to borrow up to a certain limit and up to a certain

[4:38:12] Voice 16: rate. So the limit that's in the bylaw that's proposed is $2.5 million, which is about three

[4:38:17] Voice 16: months worth of operating expenditures at a rate of prime plus 2% at maximum. So that prime plus

[4:38:26] Voice 16: 2% is actually higher than the rates that Islands Trust Council would incur at this moment, which is

[4:38:31] Voice 16: about prime plus 0.75%. This takes a conservative approach, which allows for potential changes in

[4:38:38] Voice 16: in trust rates. Thank you very much. And to your question, Chair Fast, about whether or not we've

[4:38:44] Voice 16: used this in the past, one time in Island's trust history, there was a need to borrow. That was

[4:38:50] Voice 16: before there was a policy in place that required a minimum amount to be held in surplus. Now that

[4:38:56] Voice 16: we have that policy, we have surplus funds to draw on, so the need to borrow is very, very low risk.

[4:39:03] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. Okay, trustees, do I have a mover? Trustee Peterson?

[4:39:07] Trustee Fast: I

[4:39:09] Voice 10: move that Financial Planning Committee Forward By-law 202, Islands Trust Council Revenue Anticipation Borrowing By-law 2025-26 to Trust Council for approval.

[4:39:20] Trustee Fast: Thank you. And I see Trustee Patrick is seconding. And thank you, those that seconded. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor, raise your hands.

[4:39:31] Trustee Fast: seven eight uh trustee boland is raising her hand as well okay thank you that's nine and or ten and

[4:39:43] Trustee Fast: then please lower your hands and whoops mine won't go down there it is and uh any opposed

[4:39:52] Trustee Fast: none opposed that motion carries unanimously thank you very much trustees and moving on um

[4:40:00] Trustee Fast: It's 3.10. Do we have time to do 8.1?

[4:40:09] Trustee Fast: Or, what's more important, I think this is a question for Director Mobs,

[4:40:14] Trustee Fast: we need to do 8.2, we've already really dealt with, 10.1, the work program.

[4:40:27] Trustee Fast: What do you think, Director Mobs, do we have time to talk about this?

[4:40:33] Voice 16: Uh so that's at the will of the committee and how long you'd like to stay here today.

[4:40:37] Voice 16: The meeting was scheduled to end at three o'clock um so it might be the case that you know folks

[4:40:42] Voice 16: have places to be for members of the public who are watching may have places to be um there the

[4:40:47] Voice 16: other item from this agenda that is going to trust council which does need to be addressed today is

[4:40:52] Voice 16: 10.1, which is the work program. And the other items, I know there's timelines at play,

[4:41:04] Voice 16: particularly around the survey. FPC's next meeting, should you choose to delay this,

[4:41:10] Voice 16: is not until May, which is after the timing that this survey would be released. And so there would

[4:41:15] Voice 16: need to be a special meeting convened of FPC if you don't wish to review it today, or you would

[4:41:19] Voice 16: need to amend those timelines okay

[4:41:22] Trustee Fast: that's right thank you we did discuss this and i was i'm

[4:41:25] Trustee Fast: getting foggy here late in the meeting so um if we don't deal with 8.1 now we'll need to hold a

[4:41:34] Trustee Fast: special meeting before may and uh however um seeing as how we're already more than 10 after

[4:41:42] Trustee Fast: three. I'm afraid of losing quorum and I want to advance the work program. Can trustees oblige me

[4:41:54] Trustee Fast: by deferring 8.1? I'm not seeing any wildly flailing hands. Okay, we're going to have a

[4:42:04] Trustee Fast: special meeting for 8.1 at some point. And let's move on to 8.2. Whoops, whoops, sorry.

[4:42:14] Voice 16: 10.1.

[4:42:15] Trustee Fast: chair

[4:42:15] Voice 16: if I may yeah um there is the option for the committee to continue to review those items

[4:42:21] Voice 16: if the committee wishes to do so um and you can maintain quorum um the item that's mandatory for

[4:42:30] Voice 16: today for sure is the work program um but if the committee wishes to stay to complete the survey

[4:42:35] Voice 16: item that's at your discretion

[4:42:37] Trustee Fast: okay I'm not seeing anybody leaving trustee Getty can

[4:42:43] Voice 13: I suggest that

[4:42:44] Voice 13: that we work on item number 10 if that's one that has to get through and then we'll see how long

[4:42:50] Voice 13: that takes and how much time we've got and energy after that okay

[4:42:54] Trustee Fast: thank you let's do that that we're

[4:42:56] Trustee Fast: starting at page 254 and this is the work program update for trust council so we need to

[4:43:08] Trustee Fast: as presented or amended, do we want to make any changes to this?

[4:43:15] Trustee Fast: I'm not as familiar with the Financial Planning Committee as I would like to be

[4:43:20] Trustee Fast: in order to lead any discussion on this.

[4:43:22] Trustee Fast: So I'm hoping trustees have had a look at it.

[4:43:25] Trustee Fast: Or do we want to hear from Director Mobs?

[4:43:31] Trustee Fast: Go

[4:43:32] Voice 16: ahead, Director Mobs.

[4:43:34] Voice 16: Yes.

[4:43:35] Voice 16: So the work program for Financial Planning Committee is actually quite a bit easier

[4:43:39] Voice 16: than it is for some other committees

[4:43:40] Voice 16: is of course our work is very cyclical.

[4:43:42] Voice 16: We do the same work each year

[4:43:44] Voice 16: and just take on extra here and there.

[4:43:45] Voice 16: So the updated work program

[4:43:48] Voice 16: does reflect cyclical work,

[4:43:50] Voice 16: finalizing the budget and the financial plan

[4:43:51] Voice 16: and getting that to the minister,

[4:43:53] Voice 16: taking care of the audits of the Conservancy

[4:43:55] Voice 16: and the Islands Trust,

[4:43:56] Voice 16: and then continuing with the financial policy review

[4:43:58] Voice 16: that's been deferred in favor of other work.

[4:44:00] Voice 16: So pretty standard stuff.

[4:44:02] Voice 16: We would need a resolution to forward this to council.

[4:44:05] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[4:44:06] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[4:44:07] Trustee Fast: I see Trustee Boland's hand.

[4:44:09] Voice 19: Yeah, just a very quick question. So the whole survey on the budget, which is to be run at the

[4:44:19] Voice 19: beginning of the next budget cycle, is that on our work program? And to some degree, maybe we

[4:44:27] Voice 19: could discuss this at Trust Council, it's not exactly constrained to the budget in my view

[4:44:34] Voice 19: anymore it's more a it's a bit broader but just I'm just wondering where that fits here

[4:44:40] Voice 19: maybe I'm completely off target but thanks for that.

[4:44:45] Voice 16: No I think you're right on target I think

[4:44:47] Voice 16: if that is a focus and a priority for this group which it would be actually for next quarter if the

[4:44:52] Voice 16: timeline proceeds as planned then that probably should be added so we can make that amendment

[4:44:57] Voice 16: before this goes to council if the committee wishes.

[4:45:01] Trustee Fast: Good can I have a motion then to add

[4:45:03] Trustee Fast: that to the work program trustee bolden sure

[4:45:07] Voice 19: i move that consideration of the

[4:45:13] Voice 19: poll on trust activities and impact on budget uh be added to the work program for financial

[4:45:22] Voice 19: planning committee thank

[4:45:26] Trustee Fast: you and is that the same as the 2026-27 budget public engagement process

[4:45:36] Trustee Fast: yes thank you okay because that's what we're uh that's 8.1.3 i just want to if we can get the

[4:45:45] Trustee Fast: wording right then people can track it sure no

[4:45:47] Voice 19: it's a good point that's fine

[4:45:49] Trustee Fast: okay yeah yeah all

[4:45:50] Trustee Fast: right thank you so i have a motion to add uh 8.1.2 to the um work program do i have a seconder

[4:46:02] Trustee Fast: I'm seeing exhausted hands slowly raising.

[4:46:06] Trustee Fast: Yeah, Judy Getty wins, and she's seconded the motion.

[4:46:09] Trustee Fast: Any more discussion?

[4:46:13] Trustee Fast: Okay, I'll call the question.

[4:46:14] Trustee Fast: All those in favor, raise your hand, please.

[4:46:19] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[4:46:20] Trustee Fast: We've got as high as nine.

[4:46:22] Trustee Fast: Very good.

[4:46:23] Trustee Fast: And lower your hands, please.

[4:46:26] Trustee Fast: Any opposed?

[4:46:30] Trustee Fast: That's good.

[4:46:32] Trustee Fast: And that's wonderful.

[4:46:34] Trustee Fast: That passes unanimously.

[4:46:35] Trustee Fast: So we've amended it, as amended.

[4:46:39] Trustee Fast: And then how about the motion that's there on page four of the cover sheet?

[4:46:44] Trustee Fast: Trustee Graham?

[4:46:47] Voice 12: Yes, I'm happy to make that motion.

[4:46:48] Voice 12: I move that the Financial Planning Committee approve the amended proposed work program report and forward to Trust Council for approval.

[4:47:00] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[4:47:00] Trustee Fast: And seconded...

[4:47:01] Voice 13: Can

[4:47:02] Trustee Fast: I ask a

[4:47:02] Voice 13: question before there's a second?

[4:47:03] Voice 13: Yep.

[4:47:04] Voice 13: Please do.

[4:47:04] Voice 13: So, before I came on to the Financial Planning Committee, there was a subcommittee, a special committee that was looking at corporate planning.

[4:47:12] Voice 13: And I know that that has hit a roadblock or stalled or done something.

[4:47:18] Voice 13: And I'm just wondering if that is going to be picked up at all.

[4:47:23] Voice 13: And if that should be part of the work plan.

[4:47:27] Trustee Fast: Was that a project? Oh, CAO, please go ahead.

[4:47:31] Voice 1: Thanks for the question, Trustee Getty.

[4:47:33] Voice 1: um subject to the discussion at march trust council around approving the draft strategic plan

[4:47:39] Voice 1: um once we get that piece squared away which hopefully we do at march um then we'll go back

[4:47:46] Voice 1: and i will probably reconvene that that working group around the corporate plan at least one more

[4:47:51] Voice 1: meeting just to refresh where we're at and map out the next steps on that um so i don't know that

[4:47:58] Voice 1: it needs to be included on the work plan here but um but that's the that's the intention probably

[4:48:02] Voice 1: for next steps once we land the strategic plan so

[4:48:05] Trustee Fast: depending on the outcome of the strategic plan we

[4:48:08] Trustee Fast: might be adding it okay thank you does that answer your question trustee

[4:48:12] Voice 8: getty okay

[4:48:13] Trustee Fast: great all right

[4:48:15] Trustee Fast: seeing no more hands going up then um i'm going to call the question on the motion i

[4:48:23] Voice 13: interjected

[4:48:24] Voice 13: before you had a seconder and i'll second the motion oh

[4:48:27] Trustee Fast: thank you you're seeing i'm getting

[4:48:29] Trustee Fast: tired too. Okay. Or maybe I'm getting way more tired than everybody else here. All right. Thank

[4:48:35] Trustee Fast: you. The motion's been moved and

[4:48:36] Trustee Fast: seconded. And call the question. All those in favor,

[4:48:44] Trustee Fast: raise your hand, please. Seven, eight, nine. Very good. And lower your hands. And those opposed,

[4:48:53] Trustee Fast: anybody opposed? Not opposed. Very good. So we've amended our work program and forwarding that to

[4:49:01] Trustee Fast: to trust council. Thanks very much, everybody. I think we should finish before I make some

[4:49:08] Trustee Fast: tremendous problem or error, because this has been a challenge. And thanks, everybody, for all your

[4:49:15] Trustee Fast: good work. But I think we should talk about the next meeting. Are we going to have a special

[4:49:18] Trustee Fast: meeting before that? And Tim Peterson, go ahead.

[4:49:22] Voice 10: That was exactly my question. We talked about a

[4:49:25] Voice 10: special meeting, but I believe we need to, I'll just go ahead and throw it out there. I moved that

[4:49:32] Voice 10: financial planning committee request staff to schedule a special meeting

[4:49:39] Voice 10: regarding the draft public survey and public engagement process budget yeah the draft public

[4:49:53] Voice 10: survey and budget engagement process for 2026-27 thank

[4:50:01] Trustee Fast: you hello claire freighter please director

[4:50:04] Trustee Fast: Director Frater, let me know what you think.

[4:50:07] Trustee Fast: We've got a motion.

[4:50:08] Trustee Fast: Is it effective?

[4:50:10] Voice 20: Thank you, Chair.

[4:50:10] Voice 20: Happy to support a special meeting.

[4:50:13] Voice 20: It would save administrative time

[4:50:14] Voice 20: if you're able to land on a date and time today.

[4:50:17] Voice 20: It would avoid the need to run an RWM.

[4:50:20] Voice 20: As staff, we've looked at calendars.

[4:50:22] Voice 20: We wonder if you might be available

[4:50:23] Voice 20: the morning of March 5th.

[4:50:29] Trustee Patrick: I am.

[4:50:30] Trustee Patrick: All those who can,

[4:50:31] Trustee Patrick: the Rural Island Economic Partnerships

[4:50:33] Trustee Patrick: two-day forum is on the 5th and 6th.

[4:50:35] Trustee Patrick: So any of

[4:50:36] Trustee Patrick: you that are attending that, you should be.

[4:50:39] Trustee Patrick: Housing's on the agenda.

[4:50:41] Trustee Patrick: Okay.

[4:50:44] Trustee Fast: I'm going to still ask the question, because staff have looked it up.

[4:50:49] Trustee Fast: Who is available?

[4:50:51] Trustee Fast: Raise your hand if you're available on March the 5th for a special meeting.

[4:50:56] Voice 13: Sorry, what time was that?

[4:50:58] Trustee Fast: Morning.

[4:51:01] Voice 13: I can make myself available.

[4:51:04] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[4:51:05] Trustee Fast: We've got four.

[4:51:06] Trustee Fast: Did you have another date?

[4:51:08] Trustee Fast: Lower your hands, please.

[4:51:09] Trustee Fast: thank you everybody the alternate date was march 7th

[4:51:12] Voice 9: okay

[4:51:13] Trustee Fast: so i have to look at march 7th oh yes

[4:51:16] Trustee Fast: okay whoops um all those who can make it on the morning of morning of march 7th raise your hand

[4:51:24] Trustee Fast: please yeah it's

[4:51:26] Trustee Fast: a friday um yes

[4:51:31] Trustee Elliott: trustee patrick i just checked the dates riep is march 6th and

[4:51:37] Trustee Elliott: and 7th.

[4:51:38] Trustee Patrick: Oh, sorry. Thanks. Okay, you got it right. Then I guess the 5th is better. Although

[4:51:42] Trustee Patrick: I was hoping to have a visit with someone, but we can work around.

[4:51:46] Trustee Elliott: So that changes my vote. Sorry,

[4:51:48] Trustee Elliott: everyone. Okay, let's go back to March the 5th.

[4:51:52] Trustee Fast: And if Trustee Boland, you're available on March

[4:51:56] Trustee Fast: the 5th. Okay, in the morning. Very good. All those available March 5th in the morning,

[4:52:02] Trustee Fast: raise your hand, please. That looks good. We don't know about the other people, but we've got,

[4:52:09] Trustee Fast: we would have quorum and uh so that's terrific so if everybody could pencil that in to your

[4:52:15] Trustee Fast: calendars right away um and i need a seconder for uh trustee peterson's motion if we insert the

[4:52:23] Trustee Fast: words march 5th he moved for a special meeting and i've seen trustee getty um move seconding

[4:52:32] Trustee Fast: the motion for a special meeting morning of the march 5th uh any more discussion oh that's me

[4:52:41] Trustee Fast: let me lower my hand any more discussion okay so all in favor raise your hand uh

[4:52:49] Voice 10: director

[4:52:50] Voice 10: had a comment there oh sorry

[4:52:53] Voice 20: go ahead i was thinking of asking robert barlow's opinion

[4:52:57] Voice 20: of whether that motion is sufficient without a time like a date uh a time of day um such that

[4:53:04] Voice 20: So we don't have to come back to you to set the time or whether that's

[4:53:06] Voice 20: sufficient and staff can just select a time in the morning.

[4:53:11] Voice 10: My only constraint would be the EC telecom.

[4:53:14] Voice 10: So about 10 30.

[4:53:18] Trustee Fast: Yeah.

[4:53:18] Trustee Fast: So, so can we amend the motion by adding the words after 10 30?

[4:53:25] Trustee Fast: So

[4:53:25] Voice 20: if we could just say 10 30, perhaps, and then

[4:53:28] Voice 20: until noon,

[4:53:29] Voice 20: we are hosting a webinar at one o'clock.

[4:53:31] Voice 20: So we would encourage everyone to try and get through the discussion in an

[4:53:33] Voice 20: hour and a half, which should be achievable.

[4:53:36] Trustee Fast: okay so the motion is amended to read march 5th 10 30 in the morning until noon

[4:53:44] Trustee Fast: i'm doing this very uh oh there we go thank you there's the motion highlighted on the screen

[4:53:55] Trustee Fast: uh i guess we better move and second that can i have a mover uh okay judy and and marid so it's

[4:54:07] Trustee Fast: It's moved and seconded.

[4:54:08] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[4:54:09] Trustee Fast: And all those in favor of the amendment, adding 1030 until noon.

[4:54:15] Trustee Fast: That's got up to eight.

[4:54:17] Trustee Fast: Very good.

[4:54:17] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[4:54:18] Trustee Fast: Lower your hands.

[4:54:19] Trustee Fast: And then the whole motion then, which would be request staff schedule a special meeting

[4:54:25] Trustee Fast: regarding the draft public survey and budget engagement process to 2026-27, March 5th,

[4:54:32] Trustee Fast: 1030 to noon at the end.

[4:54:35] Trustee Fast: All in favor?

[4:54:38] Trustee Fast: Please raise your hand.

[4:54:41] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[4:54:41] Trustee Fast: that's terrific we've got eight of us and uh hopefully more will come so please lower your

[4:54:48] Trustee Fast: hands thank you and then the next regular meeting is scheduled already for may 28th and um that's

[4:54:58] Trustee Fast: in the calendar and i've nothing to rise and report thank you everybody and i'm going to go to

[4:55:03] Trustee Fast: uh trust uh director mobs first and then trustee yates um

[4:55:10] Voice 16: thanks chair so i'm thinking of robert

[4:55:12] Voice 16: right now and his uh minute taking uh because we've skipped over uh agenda item 8.2 it then

[4:55:20] Voice 16: becomes challenging to put something in the minute if the committee wishes to receive this report by

[4:55:25] Voice 16: general consent that would be nothing

[4:55:27] Voice 16: for us to add into the minutes thank

[4:55:32] Trustee Fast: you i um i appreciate

[4:55:33] Trustee Fast: that i did refer to it when i was um speaking in the big section 7.1 or whatever it was this is

[4:55:40] Trustee Fast: the 8.2 is the reconsideration of trust council decisions briefing from david marler about whether

[4:55:46] Trustee Fast: it was okay to reconsider this idea of online trust council meetings can i have a motion to

[4:55:51] Trustee Fast: uh receive this briefing trustee yates are you moving that oh trustee getty is very good thank

[4:55:59] Trustee Fast: you and uh david graham has seconded the motion thank you uh all those in favor i'm looking at

[4:56:09] Trustee Fast: the hands and i've got eight of them up that's very good that carries thank you very much

[4:56:15] Trustee Fast: Thank you for that, Director Mobs and Robert.

[4:56:20] Trustee Fast: And I'm going to take my hand down.

[4:56:23] Trustee Fast: A few more comments before we adjourn the meeting.

[4:56:27] Trustee Fast: I see Trustee Yates.

[4:56:29] Voice 21: Just a very quick question to Director Mobs.

[4:56:33] Voice 21: Approximately what number did we end up with as far as an increase

[4:56:37] Voice 21: at the end of all of our spreadsheet machinations?

[4:56:41] Voice 21: nations?

[4:56:43] Voice 16: So we are estimating 5.4% general tax levy increase for local trust areas and about

[4:56:49] Voice 16: 18.7% for Bowen Island, subject to change as we actually work the numbers. Thank you.

[4:56:58] Trustee Fast: Thank you. And Trustee Patrick, your hand is up. No. Okay. Well, thank you, everybody. That was a

[4:57:07] Trustee Fast: tough meeting. And I really appreciate everybody bearing with me. That's the

[4:57:10] Trustee Fast: first big FPC meeting I've chaired. And I'll see you all at Trust Council.

[4:57:16] Trustee Fast: if not before you

[4:57:17] Voice 13: want a motion to

[4:57:17] Trustee Fast: adjourn oh yes judy she's the classic motion to adjourn okay

[4:57:24] Trustee Fast: thank you everybody and thank you nancy and robert and reuben and all the staff back

[4:57:31] Trustee Fast: back there especially director mobs good meeting bye bye y'all thank you thank

[4:57:37] Trustee Fast: you thanks everybody