Islands Trust Financial Planning Committee regular meeting, November 12, 2025

[0:00:00] Trustee Fast: Wonderful. Okay, well, thank you. And good morning, everybody. This is the meeting of the Financial Planning Committee of the Islands Trust, November 12. And we're joining you from across the territories of many Salish First Nations between Vancouver Island and the mainland, international border, and upwards of between Laskini and Tuxedo.

[0:00:24] Trustee Fast: data. So thank you everybody for joining us. We've got a bunch of elected trustees here and I won't

[0:00:31] Trustee Fast: go through all the names today because we've got a lot of budget to get through and we've got a

[0:00:37] Trustee Fast: number of our professional staff here from the CAO down to record keepers and all kinds of people

[0:00:44] Trustee Fast: supporting our our work today in this uh recorded um zoom webinar so uh trustees if you will um

[0:00:55] Trustee Fast: bear with me i just want to ask us not to use the chat if you can avoid it so that the public

[0:01:01] Trustee Fast: can see uh whatever uh we talk about and write about uh and if you have motions during the

[0:01:09] Trustee Fast: meeting if you could send them to motion at islandstrust.bc.ca uh that will um don't send

[0:01:18] Trustee Fast: them to me it's really hard for me to see them uh and uh i'm afraid that i might miss them because

[0:01:23] Trustee Fast: i can't um i'm trying to keep track of a bunch of things and uh i'm hoping that we um have a well

[0:01:34] Trustee Fast: we've got kind of a big agenda here we're taking our second crack at the draft agenda um i'm hoping

[0:01:39] Trustee Fast: that we have breaks so i'm proposing breaks for 11 15 noon and uh two o'clock uh because then

[0:01:49] Trustee Fast: we're supposed to be finished by three so i'd like to leave at least an hour at the end to

[0:01:53] Trustee Fast: uh catch the um other topics on our agenda down there uh from um 7.3.8 budget budget consultation

[0:02:04] Trustee Fast: plan on down and uh to make sure that we've captured all of the motions from whatever

[0:02:10] Trustee Fast: budget discussions we have is there anybody here who needs to leave early or anything like that

[0:02:16] Trustee Fast: you could let me know special requests okay great well then um i'd like to uh call a meeting to

[0:02:24] Trustee Fast: order um and uh looking at 2.1 which is our agenda can uh anybody got any changes to make

[0:02:33] Trustee Fast: or Director Julia Moms, are there any late items to add to the agenda?

[0:02:41] Voice 15: No way, I'm sure.

[0:02:42] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you.

[0:02:44] Trustee Fast: So by general consent, seeing no electronic hands going up,

[0:02:48] Trustee Fast: I'm going to assume that we're adopting the agenda by consent.

[0:02:54] Trustee Fast: So I'm putting a checkmark there.

[0:02:56] Trustee Fast: All good.

[0:02:57] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[0:02:58] Trustee Fast: And then public comment.

[0:03:00] Trustee Fast: Do we have anybody in the public comment?

[0:03:03] Trustee Fast: Yes.

[0:03:03] Voice 13: Yes, Chair.

[0:03:04] Voice 13: Claire, we have one individual.

[0:03:06] Voice 13: And forgive me if I mispronounce their name, Hope Lompe.

[0:03:11] Voice 13: Would you like

[0:03:12] Voice 13: me to allow them to speak?

[0:03:14] Trustee Fast: Well, first, let's see if they want to speak.

[0:03:17] Trustee Fast: Well, sure.

[0:03:18] Trustee Fast: If they're watching, let's see if they want to speak.

[0:03:20] Trustee Fast: Because I don't know if they can put up their hand.

[0:03:23] Trustee Fast: Hope, would you like to speak to us?

[0:03:25] Trustee Fast: We've got a short period here, maybe three minutes.

[0:03:29] Trustee Fast: Tell us what your thoughts are.

[0:03:30] Trustee Fast: Share your views.

[0:03:32] Trustee Fast: Please go ahead.

[0:03:32] Trustee Fast: Ken?

[0:03:39] Voice 13: The individual just left.

[0:03:42] Voice 13: Okay. So

[0:03:43] Voice 13: I suspect that they do not wish to speak.

[0:03:46] Trustee Fast: I think that's a pretty good indication. Trustee Yates?

[0:03:51] Voice 14: Thank you, Chair Fass. Just for all of our information,

[0:03:55] Voice 14: Hope is a reporter, a freelance reporter

[0:03:59] Voice 14: who works for the Gabriola Sounder. Thank you.

[0:04:03] Voice 14: And for other newspapers.

[0:04:06] Trustee Fast: So I put her on the spot.

[0:04:07] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you very much. And I'll try and remember that for next time. And if you get around to it, send her a note saying come back, you won't be put on the spot again. Okay, thank you. And so moving on now to nothing, nothing draft minutes. Anybody got any suggestions? I looked at them a while ago, they looked okay to me, I sent in a couple of typo things.

[0:04:31] Trustee Fast: things. Seeing no electronic hands going up, I'm going to assume that we're adopting the minutes

[0:04:40] Trustee Fast: by consent. Seeing no reaction, I'm going to put a check mark there. Draft minutes adopted by

[0:04:49] Trustee Fast: consent. Thank you very much. Those are the minutes from our October 22nd meeting. Okay,

[0:04:54] Trustee Fast: moving on. Oh, sorry. Okay. And moving on now to follow-up action list. This is our chance

[0:05:04] Trustee Fast: to ask Director Mobs or anybody else on the list there about questions, about the work that's in

[0:05:13] Trustee Fast: progress. Who's got a question for the director? No? It's all clear? Okay. So, hearing nothing,

[0:05:33] Trustee Fast: we'll move on. We've got lots to do. Thank you. And so, now we're into, oh, yeah, this is just

[0:05:43] Trustee Fast: Just for your information, 7.1, page 18 is the Financial Planning Committee's terms of reference.

[0:05:50] Trustee Fast: So just to, so you've got it handy, and so you can look at it.

[0:05:56] Trustee Fast: What we're supposed to be doing is to facilitate council's, trust council's involvement in the annual budget process.

[0:06:04] Trustee Fast: And there's some things about assessing and monitoring revenue generating and expenditure control practices, things like that.

[0:06:11] Trustee Fast: Okay. So that's just for reference. And we don't have a Q2 financial report because of the

[0:06:17] Trustee Fast: labor action that was underway, a little bit behind. And so that's going to go to executive

[0:06:23] Trustee Fast: committee. Instead, we're down on 7.3. And this is the budget draft one, version two, after our

[0:06:33] Trustee Fast: October 22nd meeting and work that staff have done. So I'd like to invite the director, Julia Mobs,

[0:06:42] Trustee Fast: to take us through the overview, the budget changes and the overview, the first couple of items there.

[0:06:47] Trustee Fast: Please take it away, Julia.

[0:06:50] Voice 15: Happy to. Thanks, Chair, and good morning to the Budget Planning Committee.

[0:06:54] Voice 15: So on page 20, we have a briefing summarizing some of the changes that have taken place in the budget

[0:07:00] Voice 15: since you saw it at your meeting last month.

[0:07:03] Voice 15: There haven't been too many changes, just a number of smaller changes generating some impact.

[0:07:09] Voice 15: tax. So our total planned spending in the draft budget has fallen from $11.94 million to $11.91

[0:07:16] Voice 15: million. And so that reduction of $34,000 is also seen in the revenue section where we have less

[0:07:24] Voice 15: expenses, we need less revenue to pay for those expenses. And so we see the same reduction in our

[0:07:29] Voice 15: revenue sources as well. That has had an impact on taxation to local trust areas and the Bowen

[0:07:34] Voice 15: Island municipality. Local trust area general taxation has shifted from 11.5% to 11.3%,

[0:07:41] Voice 15: so a small reduction there. We see a similar small reduction in the Bowen Island municipal

[0:07:46] Voice 15: tax levy, falling from 33.8% to 31.1%. And there's been no changes in the draft budget

[0:07:53] Voice 15: for amounts pulled from general surplus or reserve funds. I won't go through all of the

[0:08:01] Voice 15: small items that have changed in the budget. They are in the briefing that's before you.

[0:08:04] Voice 15: I'll just mention a couple of the more impactful changes.

[0:08:08] Voice 15: First, we did adjust for the direction of financial planning committee at your last meeting.

[0:08:13] Voice 15: There was recommendation to fund only two trust council meetings in person.

[0:08:16] Voice 15: And so we've reflected that in the draft budget.

[0:08:19] Voice 15: We've also updated the draft budget for the terms and conditions of the new tentative collective agreement.

[0:08:25] Voice 15: And so we're seeing a 3.0% wage increase for union staff.

[0:08:30] Voice 15: The former draft of the budget had 2.5%.

[0:08:34] Voice 15: we also see some changes on the LTC project side of things so again financial planning

[0:08:38] Voice 15: committee directed that no funding be provided for the Galeano LTC OCP project and then we've

[0:08:43] Voice 15: made a correction for the Lestiti OCP review project amount as well so those are the largest

[0:08:50] Voice 15: drivers of the change and then again there's some smaller drivers as well which are all in the

[0:08:53] Voice 15: report so I'll leave it there but I will happily take change or questions on any of those changes

[0:09:01] Trustee Fast: Okay. Trustees, have you got questions for the director about the changes that she's just described? She's going to go on to give us a bit of a briefing, I understand, just to get us all on the same page as we enter the bigger discussion. But questions about the changes for the director? We are a quiet group. Oh, there's one. Trustee Getty.

[0:09:23] Trustee Fast: um

[0:09:24] Voice 9: i guess um just a fair warning um the sticker shark for the bowen amount has been noted both at

[0:09:33] Voice 9: council meeting and in the community and so i'm coming into this um with um i don't know whether

[0:09:40] Voice 9: it's a red pen or a hatchet or or what but um that's uh that's my stance at this point just a

[0:09:48] Voice 9: a heads up thank

[0:09:51] Trustee Fast: you okay any other questions for the um director about the changes okay they're

[0:10:01] Trustee Fast: pretty oh go ahead trustee patrick

[0:10:05] Trustee Patrick: um well i know we're going to get into this deeper i just wanted

[0:10:08] Trustee Patrick: to follow on trustee getty's comment i think um it would be helpful as we move through our choices

[0:10:15] Trustee Patrick: today if there could be an attention paid to if if this was to be trimmed would this have a

[0:10:24] Trustee Patrick: would decrease the tax load on Bowen type of conversation.

[0:10:29] Trustee Patrick: So if we could just have those flagged for us as we have conversations today

[0:10:33] Trustee Patrick: that this would benefit Bowen, that'd be helpful.

[0:10:38] Trustee Fast: Yeah. Thank you, trustee Patrick. And I'll note that in the, in, Oh, okay.

[0:10:42] Trustee Fast: In the budget, I see you trustee mobs,

[0:10:46] Trustee Fast: but I'm just going to mention in the budget,

[0:10:50] Trustee Fast: budget all the pages from 25 and 30 and then 35 through 40 contain what Bowen contributes to

[0:10:59] Trustee Fast: and I'm sure trustee or sorry director mobs can fill us in a little more go ahead director

[0:11:06] Trustee Fast: thanks

[0:11:08] Voice 15: chair that's exactly what I wanted to draw attention to as well so of course there's

[0:11:14] Voice 15: you know not everything in the budget Bowen Island is contributing to there's only select

[0:11:18] Voice 15: budget items so beginning on page 35 of the agenda where we have the actual

[0:11:22] Voice 15: budget numerical form there is a column on the left-hand side of that page with

[0:11:27] Voice 15: little check marks next to each line those little check marks indicate

[0:11:31] Voice 15: whether or not Bowen is contributing to that particular budget line or not so

[0:11:36] Voice 15: that might be helpful for you if that's the goal of yours is specifically bring

[0:11:39] Voice 15: down Bowen's levy.

[0:11:43] Trustee Fast: Thank You director mom so I'm going to I too have been this is a

[0:11:50] Trustee Fast: a result of Bowen had a council meeting Monday and we reported a little bit and received some

[0:11:58] Trustee Fast: input. So, you know, I'm going to be exploring some ideas today. A few of them I've got written

[0:12:04] Trustee Fast: down just so, because I haven't communicated this with Director Mobs, the idea of fewer committees,

[0:12:12] Trustee Fast: resolution only minutes, interested in the operational review that will come from the CAO

[0:12:20] Trustee Fast: at our December Trust Council meeting.

[0:12:22] Trustee Fast: And I'm interested in whether we can be taxing tourism,

[0:12:27] Trustee Fast: whether this is through the MRDT.

[0:12:30] Trustee Fast: I know we're not allowed to currently,

[0:12:32] Trustee Fast: but we could ask for that

[0:12:33] Trustee Fast: since our funding seems to be aligned

[0:12:37] Trustee Fast: with the percentage, the 2% of funding

[0:12:40] Trustee Fast: that regional districts get

[0:12:42] Trustee Fast: and that municipal regional district tax

[0:12:46] Trustee Fast: possibilities might be good.

[0:12:48] Trustee Fast: They might also help with affordable housing.

[0:12:50] Trustee Fast: and other kinds of business taxes so when we get down to those areas oh i'm hearing somebody

[0:12:56] Trustee Fast: actually choking on that i'm um just flagging it that i'll be bringing these up through the

[0:13:02] Trustee Fast: agenda if if if we get to that part okay and um so i'm going to uh um put it back now to

[0:13:14] Trustee Fast: uh director mobs for the budget overview do you want to give us a little sort of

[0:13:19] Trustee Fast: capsule so that we can all work on it?

[0:13:24] Voice 15: Sure. I don't think there's too much I need to say about

[0:13:27] Voice 15: this briefing. So this briefing looks very much like it did at your last meeting. It's simply

[0:13:32] Voice 15: been updated to reflect the changes that have happened to the budget, which were highlighted

[0:13:36] Voice 15: in the previous briefing. So we have updated the table at the beginning of the report talking about

[0:13:43] Voice 15: what the various committees have done. So there were a few committees that had yet to review some

[0:13:46] Voice 15: of their particular business cases the governance committee and executive committee in particular

[0:13:51] Voice 15: those bodies have now reviewed their submissions and so i've updated that table

[0:13:55] Voice 15: to reflect current activity and the remainder of changes to the budget um are reflected as

[0:14:02] Voice 15: noted in the previous report so happy to take questions but i don't think i need to speak too

[0:14:06] Voice 15: much okay

[0:14:08] Trustee Fast: thanks yes it hasn't been that long since our last meeting and um what i thought i'd

[0:14:14] Trustee Fast: this time is uh is ask people as councillor getty and i have i guess have already done is to um ask

[0:14:23] Trustee Fast: for questions and comments now uh to get the ball rolling on possible motions get the discussion

[0:14:31] Trustee Fast: rolling um and uh about which and then we'll go through them section by section uh but you know

[0:14:40] Trustee Fast: Just some preliminary comments, if there's things you're thinking about, that would be great.

[0:14:45] Trustee Fast: And just a reminder, email motions to motion at islandstrust.bc.ca.

[0:14:52] Trustee Fast: Okay, I'm going to go to first, Trustee Getty.

[0:14:56] Voice 9: Thank you.

[0:14:57] Voice 9: With respect to grant revenues, so the first line there, that's page 27,

[0:15:04] Voice 9: total grant revenues in the draft budget amount to $182,001, broken down as follows.

[0:15:10] Voice 9: and there's $180,000 from the annual unrestricted provincial grant.

[0:15:18] Voice 9: So does that mean somewhere or other there's $2,000 is all that we're allocating

[0:15:26] Voice 9: for spending out of that other provincial grant?

[0:15:34] Voice 15: Through the chair.

[0:15:35] Voice 15: Yeah, through the chair, that is correct.

[0:15:38] Voice 15: So that's the amount that's earmarked to be spent next year

[0:15:41] Voice 15: from our First Nations Engagement Grant.

[0:15:45] Voice 9: Okay, doesn't seem like much. Follow up question is that, is there anybody on staff that, I know that we get notices in terms of funding that is available for grants, and I pass that on to various staff in Bowen.

[0:15:58] Voice 9: But is there somebody on staff that is basically tasked with figuring out grants that we should be applying for as the trust?

[0:16:08] Voice 9: And if not, is that something that we can or should be considering?

[0:16:14] Voice 9: And when I compared some of the income with the Bowen Island budget, we get a small community equalization payment in terms of, I believe it's small villages and municipalities.

[0:16:31] Voice 9: And I'm wondering if that is, it certainly feels like it's in addition to this $180,000 and whether or not there's possibly things that we're eligible for, we can argue that we should be eligible for in terms of increasing that amount.

[0:16:51] Voice 9: It just, it always just strikes me as being so very, very low.

[0:16:57] Trustee Fast: Any comments, Director Mobs?

[0:17:00] Voice 15: Sure. So we do have a grants manager on staff at Islands Trust. So Tara Tedesco holds that position currently. It's a part-time position, but that position does have responsibility for keeping an eye out for any new grants that might be a possibility for Islands Trust, determining whether or not we would be eligible.

[0:17:19] Voice 15: eligible. There's also sharing with some staff and trustees that take place. You might have

[0:17:24] Voice 15: seen some of those emails that get sent out with grant opportunities. And I'd look to

[0:17:29] Voice 15: Director Freider, invite her to supplement my comments if she has anything additional

[0:17:34] Voice 15: to add. I'll just briefly touch on your second about the grant, Trustee Getty. So Islands

[0:17:41] Voice 15: Trust, that grant that we receive is under the regional district basic grant function.

[0:17:47] Voice 15: function. It's based in part on population, which is part of why our amount is quite small

[0:17:54] Voice 15: and also why it hasn't changed for many years because our population growth hasn't taken

[0:18:00] Voice 15: us to a point where it would reach the next tier. So I saw Director Freider, I think she

[0:18:06] Voice 15: popped on briefly. She may have some comments to supplement her.

[0:18:11] Voice 3: Director Freider?

[0:18:12] Voice 3: Certainly, yes, we do have a part-time grants manager 14 hours a week that reports

[0:18:16] Voice 3: to me. And with regard to the First Nation Engagement Grant, we're currently looking

[0:18:19] Voice 3: looking at it and hoping to report to executive committee ideally at their next meeting around

[0:18:23] Voice 3: the uses of that fund this year and then any potential changes for amounts for next year

[0:18:27] Voice 3: but currently what we have recommended is the best information we have at this time

[0:18:31] Voice 3: thank you okay

[0:18:35] Trustee Fast: thanks this is great um i'm gonna go on now to trustee elliot hello good morning

[0:18:42] Trustee Fast: can you hear me okay

[0:18:43] Voice 4: yep yeah okay

[0:18:45] Voice 4: um so my question relates to well that's not really a

[0:18:51] Voice 4: question. My proposal is that we look at areas of the greatest potential tax reduction,

[0:19:00] Voice 4: especially if it's going to affect Bowen Municipality. And so the area that I think

[0:19:07] Voice 4: we maybe could start with is the Trust Area Resilience Assessment Initiative, 7.3.5.2.3

[0:19:15] Voice 4: on page 67. So I don't know if you want to jump to that. Would that be more effective than

[0:19:21] Voice 4: sort of going through everything piecemeal? Because I think this one item could be

[0:19:27] Voice 4: a significant reduction to the budget in line with what the director had proposed in

[0:19:33] Voice 4: in potential reductions.

[0:19:38] Trustee Fast: Thanks. Thank you. What I really like what's happening is that these

[0:19:43] Trustee Fast: higher level kind of ideas come out so we can all kind of have it in the back of our mind. And then

[0:19:48] Trustee Fast: we'll go through section by section and I'll ask you to um speak to that one sure yeah I've

[0:19:56] Voice 8: got a motion prepared

[0:19:57] Trustee Fast: good thank you okay uh next I'm going to go then do you have another one

[0:20:04] Trustee Fast: trustee Elliott or shall I go on

[0:20:10] Voice 14: trustee Yates thank you chair fast chiming in here from

[0:20:16] Voice 14: territory gabriela local trust area um I find it really helpful that in uh director

[0:20:24] Voice 14: Dr. Mob's preamble on page 25, she reminds us that local trust committees can influence the

[0:20:32] Voice 14: fee revenues by adjusting application fees. And I hope that is something that we take

[0:20:39] Voice 14: very seriously as we go forward into the next term, and even the last year of this term,

[0:20:47] Voice 14: and helping to helping our budget by getting developers to pay more of that than having the

[0:20:55] Voice 14: burden on the taxpayers thank you thank

[0:20:59] Trustee Fast: you that's right we we have a um it's up to the local trust

[0:21:04] Trustee Fast: committee to uh set the rates for their island by bylaw uh if they choose to do that and uh that's

[0:21:13] Trustee Fast: a good point thank you and um where would that fall in here trustee uh director mobs is there a

[0:21:20] Trustee Fast: what section would that be under or is there a section on page

[0:21:29] Voice 15: 24 there's a preamble to the

[0:21:31] Voice 15: larger budget overview and so

[0:21:34] Voice 15: i just mentioned it briefly there that local trust committees

[0:21:36] Voice 15: influence or set the application fees revenue but of course a primary driver of that revenue

[0:21:43] Voice 15: source is also the application volume so we don't have full control over that revenue source.

[0:21:50] Voice 15: There is some work that's planned coming up to take a look at how we might increase

[0:21:54] Voice 15: application fees and that revenue stream that's on the follow-up action list.

[0:21:58] Voice 15: Now we won't be getting to that this year, it'll be early next year.

[0:22:05] Trustee Fast: Okay that's right that's for the overall trust that project that activity and then

[0:22:11] Trustee Fast: And each local trust committee can also look at it for their island, I believe.

[0:22:17] Trustee Fast: Very good.

[0:22:18] Trustee Fast: Okay, I'm not doing a very good job of capturing all these,

[0:22:21] Trustee Fast: so I hope you're catching them too.

[0:22:26] Trustee Fast: Trustee Elliott, your hand is still up, I'm wondering,

[0:22:28] Trustee Fast: but I'm going to go on to Trustee Getty.

[0:22:30] Voice 9: Thank you.

[0:22:32] Voice 9: So it doesn't make any difference to Bowen,

[0:22:36] Voice 9: but in terms of the fees and the revenue from that.

[0:22:40] Voice 9: But I did do a comparison, and I think that that project, I was hoping for an update in terms of that project, in terms of re-examining the fees, but Bowen Island collects $350,000 for building permits in last year's actuals, and another $42,000 with development permits and variations and things like that.

[0:23:05] Voice 9: So for our small island, and, you know, we've got crazy high house values, but still, it just seems like $198,000 from all of the other islands just seems crazy low.

[0:23:25] Voice 9: So in terms of getting anybody to pay for the time that is used by the staff, just in terms of whether or not that funds programs that Bowen's interested in or just other programs like the ones that we've just talked about.

[0:23:43] Voice 9: I had my eye on the one that Trustee Elliott was talking about, too, on page 66, 67.

[0:23:49] Voice 9: So I just bring that as a point of information in terms of that $198,000 as income.

[0:23:58] Voice 9: It doesn't affect any of the tax levy on Bowen, but it is still remarkably low.

[0:24:03] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Getty.

[0:24:05] Trustee Fast: And I believe Julia Mobs, correct me if I'm wrong, but Islands Trust doesn't collect the building permit revenue.

[0:24:13] Trustee Fast: Is that that's through the regional districts or maybe you can clarify that?

[0:24:19] Voice 15: I'd look to Director Cermak to clarify. I believe that's accurate, but he'll have the best intel.

[0:24:24] Voice 11: That is correct.

[0:24:26] Voice 15: Okay. Thank you. Okay.

[0:24:28] Voice 9: That's a groaner.

[0:24:31] Trustee Fast: well they have to send out the building inspectors and do all of that work as well so that's just how

[0:24:38] Trustee Fast: it happens out there uh trustee patrick i

[0:24:41] Trustee Patrick: just on this line of questioning um you know like the

[0:24:46] Trustee Patrick: biologist position i assume would be advising and helping staff review applications and giving

[0:24:53] Trustee Patrick: feedback yet we don't have an increased value to that in the uh the fees and costs of applications

[0:25:00] Trustee Patrick: So that's increasing, potentially, or improving, I don't know, improving, increasing our costs of reviewing applications, but not capturing those costs. Or am I wrong?

[0:25:15] Trustee Fast: Director Mobs? Or Director Cermak? Go ahead.

[0:25:20] Voice 11: Thank you, Chair. That's correct. That's a fair assessment.

[0:25:23] Voice 11: I

[0:25:25] Trustee Fast: think that could also be said for all of the First Nations and Indigenous communities

[0:25:31] Trustee Fast: referrals and engagement that we do. Maybe I'm wrong. Director Mox?

[0:25:40] Voice 15: I believe you're correct, Chair. There's also a number of other factors that are

[0:25:44] Voice 15: sort of widening that gap between our fees and what we're actually spending.

[0:25:47] Voice 15: I touched on a couple of them at the last council meeting. But of course, CityView software is a

[0:25:53] Voice 15: a new software system that's been implemented since C's were last looked at.

[0:25:57] Voice 15: The application C bylaws that were adopted by local trust committees

[0:26:01] Voice 15: had a 2% up list every year to account for inflation.

[0:26:05] Voice 15: We've had inflation much higher than 2% for a number of years post-COVID.

[0:26:09] Voice 15: And so that widens the gap as well.

[0:26:12] Voice 15: So there's a number of factors that are contributing,

[0:26:14] Voice 15: certainly the ones you've mentioned, Maria, as well in there.

[0:26:19] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:26:20] Trustee Fast: And just as a note, your audio is cutting back a little bit.

[0:26:24] Trustee Fast: It's getting crackly.

[0:26:26] Trustee Fast: Trustee Yates.

[0:26:28] Voice 14: And just to add to the application fee worries,

[0:26:34] Voice 14: Director Mobs points out on page 27

[0:26:37] Voice 14: that the new accounting standards

[0:26:39] Voice 14: only allow for the recognition of fees revenue

[0:26:43] Voice 14: when the work is completed

[0:26:45] Voice 14: rather than when the fees are received.

[0:26:48] Voice 14: So that could be a problem too.

[0:26:50] Voice 14: Well, it is a problem.

[0:26:54] Voice 14: Thank you,

[0:26:54] Trustee Fast: Trustee Yates.

[0:26:55] Trustee Fast: And what we're doing on Bowen is adjusting, or maybe we have, maybe Trustee Getty remembers, but we've had a process underway of adjusting our, I think they're building permit fees, but still the same kind of concept is there in that sometimes a development project gets going.

[0:27:18] Trustee Fast: And then there's a issue that comes up and there's a big gap and the whole project has to be restarted and it can take a long time and staff change and all kinds of changes take place and then it's almost like a new application when they might reapply.

[0:27:39] Trustee Fast: Anyway, so that's something staff might want to look at is what's happening with the Bowen Island building permit changes.

[0:27:52] Trustee Fast: I'm not sure that they would be useful, but they might be.

[0:27:57] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[0:27:58] Trustee Fast: And thank you.

[0:28:01] Trustee Fast: Anybody else got sort of overall things they want to mention at this point before we start going through the sections?

[0:28:13] Trustee Fast: I must admit, I haven't thought enough about where these mine would go, but I'll do that as we go.

[0:28:20] Trustee Fast: I have a question for, on page 26 for Director Mobs, it refers to, about Bowen Island Municipality, it refers to changes in the administration allocation rate.

[0:28:35] Trustee Fast: Can you tell me what that means?

[0:28:38] Trustee Fast: Remind me.

[0:28:39] Trustee Fast: contribute

[0:28:46] Voice 15: to 100% of Trust Council services costs,

[0:28:49] Voice 15: 100% of the Island's Trust Conservancy costs,

[0:28:52] Voice 15: and only a portion of general administration.

[0:28:54] Voice 15: And so that administrative allocation rate

[0:28:58] Voice 15: determines the amount that they're contributing to

[0:29:01] Voice 15: or the rates they're contributing to the administration costs.

[0:29:04] Voice 15: So it's sitting at 34% right now in the current draft budget.

[0:29:11] Trustee Fast: 34% for increase, you mean?

[0:29:14] Trustee Fast: mean no

[0:29:17] Voice 15: so they're they're contributing to 34 percent of the general administration cost oh i

[0:29:21] Voice 8: see

[0:29:21] Voice 15: to a hundred percent and that acknowledges that a lot of the general administration cost

[0:29:26] Voice 15: is actually going to be supporting the planning function which of course bill and uh doesn't

[0:29:31] Voice 15: contribute to and so that's why um they're not contributing to 100 of the general administration

[0:29:36] Trustee Fast: great thank you so i need to and keep that word general in there in order to be able to find it in

[0:29:43] Trustee Fast: the materials. Thank you. Trustee Getty?

[0:29:47] Voice 9: Is that an increase or decrease?

[0:29:51] Voice 15: I believe that is a

[0:29:54] Voice 15: small increase. I will double check that for you.

[0:29:58] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Thanks.

[0:30:01] Trustee Fast: Great. Now, I just, I'll be trying to catch up, I think,

[0:30:11] Voice 16: quickly, staffing.

[0:30:15] Trustee Fast: Regarding this idea of fewer committees, I had this because Bowen has gone through a committee consolidation process where, down from 27 to 10.

[0:30:33] Trustee Fast: And this has freed up a bunch of staff time, which might not really show up in a budget. But where would be the best place to talk about that idea of reducing or consolidating committees?

[0:30:52] Trustee Fast: committees. Maybe it's not the best time because I'm really going to be interested in the CAO's

[0:30:58] Trustee Fast: operational review and recommendations that he might have. I know we've been doing more committees

[0:31:03] Trustee Fast: of the whole. We've had way more meetings, trust council committees of the whole. We've had

[0:31:12] Trustee Fast: many more meetings because of the trust policy statement. And so maybe I'm mixing things up, but

[0:31:19] Trustee Fast: But we did add a committee, I guess, at the end of last term or within the last five years that we added the Governance Committee.

[0:31:30] Trustee Fast: And I'm not sure that that's the one that we should be targeting in any way.

[0:31:35] Trustee Fast: I don't mean that. Maybe it's Trust Programs Committee.

[0:31:38] Trustee Fast: Maybe we could let staff just handle that and ask questions of Trust Council when it's needed.

[0:31:43] Trustee Fast: it um i'm wondering where in these sections would i um refer to things like um fewer committees or

[0:31:54] Trustee Fast: resolution only minutes is that julia or um just go with cao go

[0:32:02] Trustee Fast: ahead yeah

[0:32:04] Voice 15: yeah we'll let the cao

[0:32:07] Voice 15: speak and then i'll supplement if needed okay okay

[0:32:10] Voice 2: thank you thank you chair yeah um this is an issue

[0:32:13] Voice 2: that I speak to a little bit in my ops review report,

[0:32:15] Voice 2: which I'm hoping to send out to trustees

[0:32:17] Voice 2: before the end of this week.

[0:32:20] Voice 2: Wanting to actually capture

[0:32:22] Voice 2: probably some of the discussion today

[0:32:23] Voice 2: and may influence some final edits to that.

[0:32:26] Voice 2: I think, and this is where Director Mobs can confirm

[0:32:29] Voice 2: in your specific question,

[0:32:31] Voice 2: but because most of those committee meetings are virtual

[0:32:35] Voice 2: or all of them, I think, are virtual

[0:32:37] Voice 2: in terms of a budget cost,

[0:32:40] Voice 2: there's minimal budget implication.

[0:32:42] Voice 2: I think, if I remember correctly, it's $7,500 is what's in the budget for this year for committee meetings, council committee meetings.

[0:32:51] Voice 2: So it's not a significant budget item.

[0:32:54] Voice 2: It is a significant piece of work, though, in terms of staff time to prepare for and support those meetings.

[0:32:59] Voice 2: So in terms of staff capacity, yes, it has an impact.

[0:33:02] Voice 2: The more committees and the more meetings, the more time staff have to prepare to do that.

[0:33:08] Voice 2: But in terms of a bottom line dollar impact, it's limited.

[0:33:13] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Director Moffs, anything you want to add?

[0:33:19] Voice 15: No, Sierra Brony is correct. You know, this year is special that there's funding for each committee because, of course, the next year is an election year.

[0:33:27] Voice 15: And so we've got some funding to allow committees to meet the first time in person.

[0:33:31] Voice 15: Normally, when those meetings are held electronic, there is sort of no budgetary impact.

[0:33:36] Voice 15: I would suggest that any revisions to committee structure and work along that vein don't belong at this committee.

[0:33:43] Voice 15: that would be the work of governance committee and trust council directly certainly if there was

[0:33:49] Voice 15: large expenditures directed towards committees because of our existing structure fcc could

[0:33:53] Voice 15: recommend that council re-evaluate some that but actually undertaking that work would not go on

[0:34:00] Voice 15: here and as mentioned there's not a lot of cost thank you

[0:34:05] Trustee Fast: yeah one of my other concerns is also

[0:34:08] Trustee Fast: so hard to capture in numbers and that is looking up you know 101 boardroom problems and some of

[0:34:19] Trustee Fast: these books I've got they talk about large boards like trust council and this is Elimina for those

[0:34:26] Trustee Fast: of you who've been through this a few years that one of the challenges is that many committees can

[0:34:33] Trustee Fast: can dilute the function of trust counsel as the decision-making body

[0:34:41] Trustee Fast: and sort of distract and take away a lot of energy

[0:34:44] Trustee Fast: and work from focusing as a whole trust counsel together.

[0:34:50] Trustee Fast: So I'm just interested in that.

[0:34:54] Trustee Fast: And I wanted to mention the resolution-only minutes

[0:34:58] Trustee Fast: because these are long agendas.

[0:35:01] Trustee Fast: and uh uh and when you're looking for something in minutes i have the advantage of having the

[0:35:07] Trustee Fast: contrast with bowen island municipality that uh years ago went from uh minutes like these that

[0:35:14] Trustee Fast: included key discussion points to resolution only minutes and they're just so much easier to find

[0:35:21] Trustee Fast: things in and and there's anyway they save staff some time and they also save

[0:35:31] Trustee Fast: trustees time and they do this function of helping trustees be able to find

[0:35:39] Trustee Fast: things that we're still hearing people are concerned about so I just wanted to

[0:35:44] Trustee Fast: bring up those two because I couldn't find any place to put them in the budget

[0:35:47] Trustee Fast: discussion but um anybody got thoughts about those or other thoughts i'm going to go to trustee

[0:35:54] Trustee Fast: peterson next chair

[0:35:58] Voice 12: um director mobs covered a little bit of what i was going to say which is

[0:36:02] Voice 12: that um the our committee structure is really a trust council um issue i of course would be

[0:36:10] Voice 12: very interested to hear what the caos operation operational review um has to say around the

[0:36:18] Voice 12: committee structure. But, you know, given that the financial impact, the direct financial cost

[0:36:29] Voice 12: of the committees is perhaps not that large, but more importantly, that it's not really the

[0:36:36] Voice 12: function of this body to really delve into that kind of issue, I don't think. I mean,

[0:36:44] Voice 12: if we were looking at cutting the financial costs by, say, recommending fewer meetings or something,

[0:36:52] Voice 12: but amalgamating or eliminating or otherwise,

[0:36:56] Voice 12: I think that's really the business

[0:36:59] Voice 12: of a different body than today.

[0:37:01] Voice 12: Thank you.

[0:37:03] Trustee Fast: Well, thank you, Trustee Peterson.

[0:37:05] Trustee Fast: And I agree it's not in the numbers,

[0:37:07] Trustee Fast: but it is in the efficiency of the organization

[0:37:09] Trustee Fast: and it does take staff time, which is resources.

[0:37:13] Trustee Fast: And I'm, you know, one of our,

[0:37:16] Trustee Fast: one of the things we're supposed to do

[0:37:18] Trustee Fast: when I'm looking at my terms of reference here

[0:37:20] Trustee Fast: is reviewing base operating needs and all programs, you know, that kind of thing.

[0:37:27] Trustee Fast: There's a bunch of direction development of long-term financial planning.

[0:37:34] Trustee Fast: Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning, and I'll stop now.

[0:37:38] Trustee Fast: Trustee Getty.

[0:37:41] Voice 9: It is one of the things that were mentioned in the governance review,

[0:37:46] Voice 9: and it was not prioritized by Trust Council.

[0:37:48] Voice 9: But I think that in terms of future work that this governance committee or the other ones after the election, those are good ideas and you put them on paper and it's part of the record and that's I think probably the group that gets to look at it.

[0:38:08] Voice 9: But that and the EC make recommendations to council at some point when we get to that. It wasn't listed as one of the priorities in our council discussion though.

[0:38:18] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Getty.

[0:38:20] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[0:38:22] Trustee Fast: I also wanted to check in about this taxing tourism idea.

[0:38:30] Trustee Fast: And I don't know, I know, Director Mobs, correct me if I'm wrong,

[0:38:35] Trustee Fast: but I believe we don't have the ability to implement the municipal regional district tax.

[0:38:43] Trustee Fast: Is that correct?

[0:38:44] Trustee Fast: That is correct.

[0:38:48] Voice 15: correct um we yes we don't have the same ability um to generate some of those tax revenues that

[0:38:56] Voice 15: some other local governments or regional districts would have um so yes that's outside of our reach

[0:39:01] Voice 15: i'm all i have a comment around uh tourism tax but i'll let you finish your call

[0:39:06] Trustee Fast: okay thank you

[0:39:07] Trustee Fast: i just wanted to ask that because on bowen island we can because we're a municipality and um not

[0:39:14] Trustee Fast: Not that we've been able to implement it yet, because it requires a certain amount of buy-in from the businesses and decisions about, I don't think we've been able to implement it yet.

[0:39:24] Trustee Fast: But it's been in the works for years.

[0:39:28] Trustee Fast: Can I call a point of order, Chair?

[0:39:33] Trustee Fast: Certainly. Do you wish me to put myself on the speaker's list?

[0:39:37] Voice 4: No, it's that we're discussing new work that is not on the agenda in terms of looking for new revenue.

[0:39:43] Voice 4: and I thought you said we're going to go through the agenda with the intention of

[0:39:51] Voice 4: finding areas to reduce and I feel like we're off track.

[0:39:56] Trustee Fast: Okay point taken. Director Mobs is there

[0:40:00] Trustee Fast: somewhere in the agenda where we could discuss a tourism tax or shall I put it on to a future

[0:40:08] Trustee Fast: agenda? There

[0:40:14] Voice 15: isn't really anywhere to talk about in this agenda unless I mean you are considering

[0:40:17] Voice 15: a potential new revenue stream right so that could be where we could consider it um i would say that

[0:40:24] Voice 15: i don't i don't believe it's within our jurisdiction to be able to tax for this right we're not um sort

[0:40:29] Voice 15: of leading or in charge of tourism in the same way um so i don't think it's actually a seasonal

[0:40:34] Voice 15: revenue source for us um certainly if you wanted some additional detail um and some facts around

[0:40:38] Voice 15: that we could bring it um to a future meeting that's

[0:40:42] Trustee Fast: what i'll do then i'll be in touch with you

[0:40:43] Trustee Fast: and we'll see whether it's suitable for our foreign agenda.

[0:40:49] Trustee Fast: And leaving that then, let's go on.

[0:40:56] Trustee Fast: We're at 1041.

[0:40:58] Trustee Fast: And so let's move on down through these sections.

[0:41:02] Trustee Fast: I didn't capture all of the things on the list,

[0:41:07] Trustee Fast: but I didn't hear anybody speak to 7.3.5,

[0:41:13] Trustee Fast: Trust Council Programs.

[0:41:14] Trustee Fast: programs. Anybody want to discuss anything in this section? Okay. Moving on. This is the strategic

[0:41:23] Trustee Fast: plan projects. And I know there's a couple of people interested in speaking about the trust

[0:41:28] Trustee Fast: area resilience assessment, which starts on page 67. Was there anything else in this section that

[0:41:34] Trustee Fast: anybody wanted to speak to? Okay, then let's go to page 67. And Trustee Elliott.

[0:41:42] Trustee Fast: Thank

[0:41:46] Voice 4: you, Chair. So in looking for areas that could be cut, and especially that's going to relieve the potential tax levy for Bowen municipality,

[0:42:01] Voice 4: I guess my first question is, if this strategic initiative was deferred and not funded in

[0:42:13] Voice 4: the 2025-26 budget, what would be the implications and would it affect the Bowen Island tax levy?

[0:42:24] Voice 4: Thank you.

[0:42:25] Voice 4: And we could put the motion up on the screen if you feel now is the time for it.

[0:42:31] Trustee Fast: Well, let's let Director Mobs answer those questions while people madly scroll.

[0:42:37] Trustee Fast: Director Mobs, there was a couple of questions there.

[0:42:42] Voice 15: Just to clarify, we're talking about the Trust Area Resilience Assessment in particular?

[0:42:47] Voice 4: Yeah, this project specifically.

[0:42:50] Voice 15: Oh, I'd look to my colleagues to actually speak to the implications of not undertaking this work.

[0:42:57] Voice 15: and then I can provide some details on the taxation impact, if you'd like.

[0:43:04] Voice 3: Director Frieder?

[0:43:06] Voice 3: Certainly.

[0:43:07] Voice 3: The implications of not proceeding is that this work gets delayed by an additional year.

[0:43:12] Voice 3: We are, just for background for the committee,

[0:43:14] Voice 3: we have hired a researcher who starts next week who's going to come in

[0:43:17] Voice 3: and help us prepare information as background for this initiative,

[0:43:22] Voice 3: which is essentially work that is core work of the trust.

[0:43:25] Voice 3: This is what we need.

[0:43:26] Voice 3: This is the information we need to do land use planning and land protection

[0:43:29] Voice 3: and implementation of the policy statement but certainly if you choose to delay it it simply

[0:43:34] Voice 3: means that we won't have that information available to you as you make decisions you know

[0:43:39] Voice 3: there'll be a year delay on achieving that improvement and information to you

[0:43:43] Voice 3: so that's that's the implication of delaying yeah I think I'll leave it there. Thank you

[0:43:53] Trustee Fast: Trustee Getty you were interested in oh sorry Trustee Patrick.

[0:43:58] Trustee Patrick: I'm happy if Trustee Getty was

[0:44:00] Trustee Patrick: was going to have a comment but um i guess my question on there'll be there's several projects

[0:44:05] Trustee Patrick: here that have intimate ties to our capacity building and relationships with first nations

[0:44:13] Trustee Patrick: and i see this work as one of those that we we have to uh work in partnership with first nations

[0:44:21] Trustee Patrick: on identifying what is important and measuring resiliency so i'm just trying to find these

[0:44:29] Trustee Patrick: opportunities of where we need to perhaps build on our relationship and capacity

[0:44:34] Trustee Patrick: building component uh ahead of doing this work how important is that i guess is my question

[0:44:45] Voice 3: i would think go ahead i can say it's beneficial um but there's various ways of approaching this

[0:44:51] Voice 3: could be also be seen as respectful to have done our homework first and then bring in what's like

[0:44:56] Voice 3: have a really good state of what is our mapping where our mapping layer is what's out there in

[0:45:00] Voice 3: the world already, and then be able to share that information. I think whatever we do, we want to

[0:45:04] Voice 3: work in collaboration with the nations. And we'll do so regardless of the approach taken or the

[0:45:09] Voice 3: timing taken, I think. Yeah.

[0:45:14] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Trustee Getty.

[0:45:18] Voice 9: I agree that this is central to the

[0:45:22] Voice 9: mandate of the trust. And I agree that it's really basic and foundational in terms of

[0:45:27] Voice 9: the land use planning and um clearly all the first nations interests and but at the same time

[0:45:36] Voice 9: um i'm thinking that we've got another number of projects that we haven't finished up the policy

[0:45:41] Voice 9: statement and um the elections coming up and you know this is for the fiscal year 20 26 27 is it

[0:45:52] Voice 9: so we're budgeting now for something in the future um um i'm not i'm i was thinking that

[0:46:00] Voice 9: this is maybe a weak link in all of this that it's really really important and it's really

[0:46:06] Voice 9: good information that we can certainly put to good use but in terms of everything else that's

[0:46:12] Voice 9: on the table and that we're working through and the resources that we've already got that this is

[0:46:18] Voice 9: This may be something that we need to look at.

[0:46:21] Voice 9: It is a strategic priority, but it may not be the financial priority.

[0:46:30] Voice 9: Trustee Peterson?

[0:46:34] Chair,

[0:46:34] Voice 12: I may have missed it, but I think there was a question asked on this item and its relation to the Bowen Levy.

[0:46:43] Voice 12: If it was stated, I missed the answer.

[0:46:48] Trustee Fast: This was a Julia Mobs kind of question, I think.

[0:46:52] Trustee Fast: Yep,

[0:46:52] Voice 15: happy to respond.

[0:46:54] Voice 15: So Bowen Island is contributing to this project, so removing this from the budget would help to generate a reduction in Bowen's levy.

[0:47:05] Voice 15: I think the amount, just have a quick look here, it wouldn't be terribly substantial.

[0:47:14] Voice 15: It might get us down to 31%, because local trust areas would also be benefiting from a portion of that reduction as well.

[0:47:26] Voice 15: but certainly bone would benefit also minor

[0:47:30] Trustee Fast: okay thank

[0:47:32] Voice 4: you trustee elliott thank you um and thanks

[0:47:38] Voice 4: for that information director mobs so my concern is not just with the financial implications but

[0:47:45] Voice 4: taking the broader view how many large projects can the islands trust um advance and the second

[0:47:57] Voice 4: Second motion, which I wouldn't put forward, is that in light of all these other significant projects that we're trying to finish, the policy statement project, review the freshwater sustainability strategy, and I think most crucially, the Conservancy's development of its five-year plan,

[0:48:16] Voice 4: which is really going to shape how land is protected, conserved, considered, and negotiated

[0:48:28] Voice 4: in the next few decades. This is really going to be a big focus. And I think that will inform,

[0:48:35] Voice 4: all of those pieces will help develop and inform the resiliency indicators that are needed

[0:48:43] Voice 4: needed for a project of this scope. I think this project is essential. It absolutely is. But can

[0:48:49] Voice 4: we start it next year with a new term of trustees? I think we need to gather the information that we

[0:48:56] Voice 4: have in-house. Director Freighter has indicated that the contractor has been hired to do this,

[0:49:03] Voice 4: I guess, scoping work. But to fund the start of the work, I think, is a bit ambitious.

[0:49:10] Voice 4: So it's thinking about the overall operations and where we're directing our focus and where staff resources are already being taken up with these other significant projects that I think this one just needs to wait a while.

[0:49:27] Voice 4: And we'll have all the information there ready for the next council to decide if it's going to be a strategic focus for the new term. Thanks.

[0:49:38] Voice 4: Thank you. Do we have moms?

[0:49:40] Voice 15: Thanks, Chair. My previous comment was inaccurate, so I'd like to

[0:49:46] Voice 15: correct it. If we were to remove $150,000 from the budget, Bowen would realize a more substantial

[0:49:53] Voice 15: reduction. They'd be looking at around 24.5%, and local trust area taxation would fall to around

[0:50:01] Voice 15: 10%. My formulas weren't auto-updating, but I've corrected that now, so I can give you

[0:50:06] Voice 15: accurate information thank

[0:50:07] Trustee Fast: you and just before i go on did you say local trust area taxes would

[0:50:13] Trustee Fast: fall to two percent is that what you said uh

[0:50:18] Voice 15: they'd fall to just over 10 percent thank you

[0:50:23] Trustee Fast: okay trustee peterson yeah

[0:50:29] Voice 12: so i mean i think this is one of those um cases where we get a bit of

[0:50:35] Voice 12: a sticker shock um on on you know the big number and and of course it's um as we're doing this work

[0:50:45] Voice 12: of trying to reduce um the tax levies you know the big numbers kind of stick out but what i was

[0:50:55] Voice 12: wondering about which is sort of a follow-up i guess to trustee elliott's is um can this work

[0:51:02] Voice 12: be staged over a couple of years and with that I mean with that make it a lot

[0:51:12] Voice 12: more complicated to to sort of do the work in smaller bites I guess because

[0:51:19] Voice 12: it's I I know it's important work but I also know when we not just this

[0:51:26] Voice 12: committee but when Trust Council starts looking at budgets the big numbers are

[0:51:31] Voice 12: are the scary numbers and then and it's it's the type of thing that gets put on the chopping block

[0:51:41] Voice 12: so just and I guess it's sort of a it's a it's a question that perhaps you know I think some

[0:51:49] Voice 12: projects can be staged easier than others and some really need to be sort of just started and

[0:51:56] Voice 12: finished so i won't ramble on any more about it but um just in terms of can we still do the work

[0:52:04] Voice 12: in smaller bites i

[0:52:08] Trustee Fast: guess that's a question for you director freighter

[0:52:10] Voice 3: certainly um so the this

[0:52:11] Voice 3: proposal the funding um that was requested through this 150 was going to be refined before council

[0:52:17] Voice 3: made a decision in march so essentially this is here without being fully scoped what it was

[0:52:21] Voice 3: intended for is to fund a consultant to come in and develop the multi-year strategy because this

[0:52:26] Voice 3: This work is going to take years to accomplish.

[0:52:28] Voice 3: And so really it was going to be for a one-year project

[0:52:31] Voice 3: to have a consultant come in and do the work

[0:52:34] Voice 3: to assess what a multi-year strategy would look like.

[0:52:37] Voice 3: And then it was also going to provide funding

[0:52:39] Voice 3: for capacity funding for First Nations

[0:52:41] Voice 3: so they could participate in the development of the strategy

[0:52:43] Voice 3: and then look at a companion strategy,

[0:52:47] Voice 3: which we would do potentially in-house

[0:52:49] Voice 3: around long-term funding,

[0:52:51] Voice 3: what could be the role of grants

[0:52:53] Voice 3: in terms of big government grants to do this work.

[0:52:56] Voice 3: So that was the work that was to be undertaken.

[0:52:58] Voice 3: So we could stage out the contracting of particular elements of this, but I think it is best to take a holistic look at, I think it's more efficient to take a holistic look.

[0:53:11] Trustee Fast: I'm going to put myself on the speaker's list too after Trustee Graham.

[0:53:16] Voice 1: Thank you, Chair.

[0:53:18] Voice 1: I've been listening to the compelling arguments from previous trustees as to how we will debate this when we're at Trust Council.

[0:53:27] Voice 1: So my feeling is whether financial planning chooses to not recommend putting it forward or leaves it as is, that discussion will take place at Trust Council.

[0:53:38] Voice 1: And the argument that makes most sense to me is that this is primarily work that will be accomplished by the next iteration of Trust Council.

[0:53:49] Voice 1: And I would feel a lot more comfortable giving them the opportunity to spend this money and frame the size of the project and really, you know, dig in.

[0:53:59] Voice 1: We've had the luxury of having the policy statement occupy our four years and previous trustees who were here the last time also had four years to play with policy statement.

[0:54:10] Voice 1: And that's next. The trust council will be looking at something to dig their teeth into.

[0:54:14] Voice 1: too, and this project seems like a fantastic one, but I think it's premature for this trust council

[0:54:20] Voice 1: to, anyway, I think I've said enough. Yeah, thanks.

[0:54:24] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Graham. For myself, I think

[0:54:28] Trustee Fast: I see this as core. To me, this is evaluation. It's a stage that you have to go through.

[0:54:37] Trustee Fast: Are we going in the right direction? Is what we're doing working? Is Islands Trust being

[0:54:44] Trustee Fast: effective? Are we using all the data that's available? But the evaluation stage is how you

[0:54:51] Trustee Fast: improve your organization and you keep current and you then move on. It's vital to do it every

[0:55:02] Trustee Fast: few years. And I'm concerned that if coming in with a new trust counsel term, it takes a while

[0:55:11] Trustee Fast: to get to this point where you realize that you're not sure if you could be doing better things

[0:55:19] Trustee Fast: anyway i suspect this will come up in the operation uh review that uh cao brawny's doing as well and i

[0:55:25] Trustee Fast: won't say more about this except if somebody's got a motion um could you bring it up is there a motion

[0:55:33] Trustee Fast: sure

[0:55:35] Voice 4: chair if you're ready to entertain a motion um i sent a revised one into to motion

[0:55:43] Voice 4: motion, and I can just read it out, that financial planning committee recommends to trust council

[0:55:54] Voice 4: that work on the resilience assessment initiative project not be funded in 2026-27 unless a grant

[0:56:01] Voice 4: is secured.

[0:56:04] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you, and is someone able to bring that up? Okay, unless a grant is secured,

[0:56:16] Trustee Fast: Maybe while he's bringing it up, can you describe the grant part or comment on it?

[0:56:23] Trustee Fast: Well,

[0:56:24] Voice 4: I think this would just be subject to changing conditions.

[0:56:30] Voice 4: We do have a part-time grants coordinator who's always on the lookout for grants.

[0:56:35] Voice 4: And so if there were an appropriate grant found, which would mean the work could be funded without increasing the tax levy.

[0:56:45] Voice 4: that's that's all it's our focus is on balancing the budget and putting forward a budget that we

[0:56:52] Voice 4: can comfortably recommend to trust council we know there's going to be debate about this item

[0:56:56] Voice 4: because it's a significant investment and a large project but if it could be funded through another

[0:57:04] Voice 4: means such as a grant then there wouldn't be a tax impact and there wouldn't be impact on staff

[0:57:11] Voice 4: because it would be funding a consultant to do the work so it's just saying you know that it's

[0:57:17] Voice 4: not going to be funded through grant uh through um tax levies thanks okay

[0:57:21] Trustee Fast: thank you um thank you

[0:57:23] Trustee Fast: and uh robert's got it up there on the screen um are you you've moved the motions that's trustee

[0:57:31] Trustee Fast: elliot and then um any other anybody else want to ask questions about it or suggest changes to it

[0:57:39] Trustee Fast: it before we ask for a seconder. Okay. Then I'm going to ask for a seconder, Trustee Graham.

[0:57:51] Voice 1: Happy to second.

[0:57:53] Trustee Fast: Okay. And discussion, I think we've already had quite a bit. Anybody got

[0:57:58] Trustee Fast: other questions or discussion they want to have? Susan?

[0:58:09] Voice 14: Thank you. Thank you, Chair Fasten. Thank

[0:58:11] Voice 14: you for the motion, Trustee Elliott. I do not want to sound flippant here because I take everything

[0:58:18] Voice 14: we do very seriously. But no matter how I read this program, this resilience assessment,

[0:58:26] Voice 14: backwards, frontwards, sideways, everything, it's a mystery to me. And I do not, and thank you,

[0:58:33] Voice 14: Director Frater, for your explanation. I get that. But what I see as our resilience is the

[0:58:41] Voice 14: the direct work that we do that relates to things like, for example, climate change.

[0:58:48] Voice 14: So on page 51, 55, there's a climate action education plan.

[0:58:56] Voice 14: That, to me, is the work that the public sees and is the work that makes a difference to

[0:59:03] Voice 14: our resilience as an organization.

[0:59:06] Voice 14: So I'm fully in support of this motion.

[0:59:10] Voice 14: Thank you.

[0:59:13] Voice 14: Okay, thank

[0:59:13] Trustee Fast: you. Anybody else? Seeing no hands going up. Oh, Trustee,

[0:59:20] Voice 3: Director Frater, go ahead.

[0:59:21] Voice 3: I was just wondering if you wanted to include the name of the project as it shows in the agenda,

[0:59:26] Voice 3: if that might just lead to clarity when you hit Trust Council. And if you did, it was we had

[0:59:31] Voice 3: Trust Area Resiliency Assessment. Okay, thank

[0:59:34] Trustee Fast: you. Does that that's okay with you? Everybody,

[0:59:38] Trustee Fast: I think this just helps everybody including trustees find it later okay

[0:59:43] Trustee Fast: trust area resilience assessment thank you okay then see no more hands I'm

[0:59:50] Trustee Fast: gonna call the question please raise your hand if you are in favor of this

[0:59:56] Trustee Fast: motion

[1:00:00] Trustee Fast: Okay, got the counts. Please. I'm not hearing anybody counting. So I'm going to ask you to

[1:00:08] Trustee Fast: lower your hands. And those opposed. There we go. The motion carries. Thank you. And with one

[1:00:23] Trustee Fast: opposed, and that was me, but it doesn't matter.

[1:00:26] Trustee Fast: I'm going. I mean, I don't want to be recorded,

[1:00:29] Trustee Fast: especially or anything i'm um going to go on now to uh any other questions in strategic plan

[1:00:39] Trustee Fast: projects don't think so okay then we're going on to uh page 77 is where the islands trust

[1:00:47] Trustee Fast: conservancy board projects begin and uh anybody got anything in this section that they would

[1:00:53] Trustee Fast: like to talk about no okay then we're going to go on to um local trust committee projects

[1:01:03] Trustee Fast: projects. Julie Mobs. Thanks,

[1:01:09] Voice 15: Chair. There is an update from Director Cermak related to a couple

[1:01:13] Voice 15: of the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee projects. I think now might be a good time for

[1:01:19] Voice 15: him to provide that update.

[1:01:21] Trustee Fast: That would be fantastic. Please go ahead, Director Cermak.

[1:01:25] Voice 11: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Julia. Yeah, so you'll see on page, if I can get there,

[1:01:33] Voice 11: Here, starting on page 121, staff have edited the business cases.

[1:01:41] Voice 11: You can see our changes in blue font to make it clear.

[1:01:45] Voice 11: And we have reviewed these business cases for, you know,

[1:01:49] Voice 11: ensuring that the projects that are proposed to be funded via unspent

[1:01:55] Voice 11: special property tax requisitions are done so according to Bylaw 154

[1:02:01] Voice 11: and Trust Council's policy regarding how to spend these funds.

[1:02:05] Voice 11: And so within that, you'll see that the first business case,

[1:02:09] Voice 11: which is, again, starting at page 121,

[1:02:12] Voice 11: no recommendation to the funding amount coming from unspent special property taxes.

[1:02:19] Voice 11: But you'll see on page 123 of the agenda,

[1:02:24] Voice 11: some staff edits to the business case.

[1:02:26] Voice 11: And with that, we sort of deleted the proposal to use, to give the funding or to do the work on behalf of the CRD to develop a terms of reference for a service that they may provide that is clearly outside the scope of our abilities.

[1:02:45] Voice 11: And before I go any further, I should point out that staff made these amendments are presenting the financial planning committee, and we have not presented them to the Salt Spring LTC for their feedback and consideration.

[1:02:55] Voice 11: creation. So with that you can see that we've made those proposed changes and again in the

[1:03:01] Voice 11: recommended options on page 124 just changed the language to reflect the purpose of the spending

[1:03:08] Voice 11: is as per bylaw 154. So just the language was just tweaked. So those staff's assessment are

[1:03:15] Voice 11: pretty minor but very focused. Perhaps the more significant one is starts page 126 is the proposed

[1:03:21] Voice 11: funding for the well monitoring, which is the Salt Spring Island Groundwater Sustainability

[1:03:27] Voice 11: Project well monitoring. And staff's assessment is that this actually falls outside of the unspent

[1:03:33] Voice 11: special property tax requisition. For the purpose, it was the funds were taken versus the purpose

[1:03:40] Voice 11: for which to be being proposed to be used. And so staff have made that recommended changes. This

[1:03:45] Voice 11: This would change, and this is, I think, getting to Director Mobb's precision,

[1:03:49] Voice 11: is that this would have to come from taxation, not from unspent special property tax.

[1:03:55] Voice 11: Therefore, it would raise the overall tax request, but of course not for Bowen Island.

[1:04:00] Voice 11: And then noticed a few holes in the actual business case in terms of tying it to the relevant reports and issue statements.

[1:04:06] Voice 11: So staff included that in there.

[1:04:08] Voice 11: And actually, in doing that assessment, you can see that despite it not fitting the unspent special property tax requisition,

[1:04:15] Voice 11: bylaw 154 you can see that this work is really well grounded within salt springs work program

[1:04:22] Voice 11: within its uh watershed protection plan within the trust council's uh trust council's freshwater

[1:04:30] Voice 11: uh strategic plan and trust council strategic plan so the the work is very valuable and it's

[1:04:37] Voice 11: in contributing a lot it's just a matter of the source of funding and i hope that was clear if

[1:04:42] Voice 11: If not, I'm here to answer more questions.

[1:04:43] Voice 11: And of course, I also had the assistance of Director Marler in interpreting bylaw 154

[1:04:49] Voice 11: and various legislation and policies.

[1:04:52] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much, Director Cermak.

[1:04:54] Trustee Fast: Are there questions for the director?

[1:04:59] Trustee Fast: No.

[1:05:00] Trustee Fast: Laura Patrick.

[1:05:04] Trustee Patrick: Mine's more a comment and probably more a lesson learned of this committee and future

[1:05:08] Trustee Patrick: reviews.

[1:05:09] Trustee Patrick: When the groundwater monitoring program on Salt Spring was established through a grant

[1:05:14] Trustee Patrick: from the Real Estate Foundation.

[1:05:15] Trustee Patrick: And when we establish programs and buy assets, it's equipment that was used and put into the ground, that our projects should be complete, including the removal of that equipment or the maintenance of that equipment or the future use of that equipment.

[1:05:34] Trustee Patrick: Because this is a case where the project was done under a grant, but now the liability exists on our books to remove or update the equipment or carry on this project. So it's just more of a warning as we enjoy these grant funds and create these programs that we must have a life cycle associated with it.

[1:05:58] Trustee Patrick: Thank you.

[1:06:02] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you. And it looks to me like, did the dollar amount change or was it just where the money would come from then? Just coming from taxation? Go ahead, Director Cermet.

[1:06:16] Trustee Fast: Okay,

[1:06:17] Voice 11: I'll answer that.

[1:06:17] Trustee Fast: Sorry, Director Mobs.

[1:06:19] Voice 11: I'll turn to the expert.

[1:06:20] Voice 11: board

[1:06:22] Voice 15: director so no changes to the dollars that I can see from the assessments but because it

[1:06:28] Voice 15: doesn't fall within the jurisdiction of bylaw 154 which delegates coordination authority to the

[1:06:34] Voice 15: local trust committee special property tax reserve funds can't be used to pay for this work so that

[1:06:39] Voice 15: means if this project were to be undertaken it would need to be funded from surplus or from

[1:06:46] Voice 15: taxation of course we're not we don't have any additional surplus or reserve so it would increase

[1:06:50] Voice 15: taxation for local trust areas by about 0.2 percent okay

[1:06:55] Trustee Fast: so I wonder if there's

[1:06:58] Trustee Fast: a motion coming about that if there is please send it to motion at islands

[1:07:12] Trustee Fast: trust BC don't see a funny situation okay we can come back to that if people

[1:07:20] Trustee Fast: people want to digest that update. And anything else in local trust committee projects that

[1:07:30] Trustee Fast: directors wish to highlight? No? Okay. Trustees, anything about local trust committee

[1:07:40] Trustee Fast: projects that you wish to speak about? Okay, then we're moving on over the page here.

[1:07:52] Trustee Fast: operational projects okay so now we're on page 135 starting at 135 and this is the

[1:08:00] Trustee Fast: trust council onboarding training laptops accessibility plan development electronic

[1:08:06] Trustee Fast: document management solutions anybody want to speak to something here nope okay um i noticed

[1:08:15] Trustee Fast: we're almost at 11 15 when i was going to call for a break um we'll go down i think we might have a

[1:08:22] Trustee Fast: conversation at staffing requests but i didn't hear one how about staffing requests we're happy

[1:08:29] Trustee Fast: to forward these to trust council trustee elliott yeah

[1:08:36] Voice 4: chair you're going just a bit quick um

[1:08:39] Voice 4: so back in operational projects i wanted to look at 5.3554 the edm uh electronic document

[1:08:49] Voice 4: management solution okay

[1:08:51] Trustee Fast: thank you that's on page 148 for everybody so you

[1:08:55] Trustee Fast: can scroll like I'm doing here please go ahead trustee Elliott yeah

[1:09:03] Voice 4: so there was

[1:09:05] Voice 4: an initial draft of this business case that executive committee oh no sorry we

[1:09:12] Voice 4: did look at on October 29th and sent it on I have concerns about not advancing

[1:09:19] Voice 4: it because it really does seem we're falling behind in sort of our legislative responsibilities

[1:09:28] Voice 4: for holding records and keeping them available and the security of those records. But I wanted

[1:09:35] Voice 4: to ask what were the implications, I guess, Director Marler, if this were delayed for another

[1:09:40] Voice 4: year and would this impact the Bowen Island fee levy? Because I think it's another area that will

[1:09:48] Voice 4: be debated council and we might want to be ready for um whether recommendation to remove reduce or

[1:09:56] Voice 4: defer it thanks thank

[1:09:59] Trustee Fast: you um who would like to take this question i'm not seeing director marler

[1:10:08] Trustee Fast: marler uh respond um i'm oh

[1:10:11] Voice 8: there you are okay thank

[1:10:13] Trustee Fast: you i know you're probably doing eight

[1:10:14] Trustee Fast: other things so i'm not trying to put you on the spot but the question is about the electronic

[1:10:20] Trustee Fast: document management solution and can it be deferred for a year what would be the impact

[1:10:25] Trustee Fast: go ahead yeah

[1:10:27] Voice 7: thank you i think knowing that council would like to um to do this project at

[1:10:34] Voice 7: some point is just helpful uh there's some preparatory work that needs to be done uh on

[1:10:39] Voice 7: our record system and i'm working with staff on that and we've got a plan forward i think the

[1:10:47] Voice 7: The earliest we'd be ready to actually implement a system would probably be in January.

[1:10:51] Voice 7: So a delay to April, I don't think, is a big issue.

[1:10:55] Voice 7: So it just obviously leaves it unknown whether the incoming council would agree to that.

[1:11:00] Voice 7: But that's a different issue.

[1:11:02] Voice 7: So, yeah, from a practical point of view, I have no concerns with a delay to the next fiscal year.

[1:11:11] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[1:11:11] Trustee Fast: So that means it would be delayed until April 2028?

[1:11:15] Trustee Fast: Is that what I'm understanding?

[1:11:19] Voice 2: Correct.

[1:11:19] Voice 2: 2027.

[1:11:21] Voice 2: 27.

[1:11:22] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you. All right. Great. I'm personally also think we need to have electronic document management system. We did it on Bowen here. And I think that it saves staff time. I'm not sure, but I agree that it's needed. However, go ahead, Trustee Peterson.

[1:11:47] Trustee Fast: Yeah,

[1:11:49] Voice 12: thank you, Chair. And I really do appreciate it when the Chair puts themselves on the speaker's list rather than sort of commenting on other speakers.

[1:11:59] Voice 12: There was, I think there was also a question asked about whether this item impacts Bowen's levy, and I didn't hear an answer that I caught anyway.

[1:12:13] Voice 16: I can respond to that. Yes, it does.

[1:12:16] Voice 16: Yes.

[1:12:20] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you.

[1:12:22] Trustee Fast: then um trustee graham thank

[1:12:27] Voice 1: you chair am i the only one that's not looking at the agenda

[1:12:30] Voice 1: i have all your lovely faces but i don't see an agenda and i may have pushed something so

[1:12:36] Voice 1: i'm just curious if it's my problem or everybody's problem no

[1:12:41] Trustee Fast: you're right trustee graham we're not

[1:12:42] Trustee Fast: seeing the here we go thank

[1:12:45] Voice 8: you i

[1:12:46] Trustee Fast: think we're looking page 148 yeah that's it good 151

[1:12:52] Trustee Fast: I beg your pardon?

[1:12:56] Trustee Fast: Apologies. Sorry, I misspoke.

[1:12:59] Trustee Fast: Okay. And over to you, Trustee Getty.

[1:13:03] Voice 9: Just in response to Trustee Peterson's comment,

[1:13:07] Voice 9: I'm finding it helpful to switch back and forth to the chart that was in page 35, 36, 37,

[1:13:15] Voice 9: in terms of which ones are touching Bowen Island, the checkmark on the far left.

[1:13:22] Voice 9: and i'm really glad that that whole column is still with us after adding it last year it's

[1:13:28] Voice 9: very helpful but i don't know if anybody's got their their own agenda up to toggle back and

[1:13:34] Voice 9: forth but um yeah this one i'm keeping track of all the bone ones too okay

[1:13:40] Trustee Fast: thank you i think we

[1:13:42] Trustee Fast: might be ready for a motion there look at that a blank piece of paper uh a screen in front of us

[1:13:48] Trustee Fast: um if somebody has a motion can you send it to or read it out oh i see there it is um we can

[1:13:58] Trustee Fast: go ahead trustee elliot i

[1:14:03] Voice 4: did not send it into motion but i would just put forward the same as

[1:14:07] Voice 4: before that financial planning committee recommends to trust council that work on the electronic

[1:14:14] Voice 4: document management solution project be deferred or not be funded in 2026-27.

[1:14:25] Trustee Fast: Thank you. That's clear. I imagine there is mad typing going on in the background and

[1:14:32] Trustee Fast: we'll soon have that up on the screen. Did you want to speak a little more to your motion while

[1:14:37] Trustee Fast: that's happening?

[1:14:40] Voice 4: Well, I'd like to put it forward for debate. I'm actually not sure if I support

[1:14:45] Voice 4: I think it is critical. We've had a problem accessing documents and, you know, the point's been made many times. What is a local government except a large archivist of documents of key decision and having access to previous decisions, legal opinions, and the security of knowing who can access those is really important.

[1:15:12] Voice 4: This is part of the operational work that I think Islands Trust needs to grow up into. I think it actually fits nicely with the work that we've been doing on governance and accessibility and streamlining our operations. So I don't necessarily think it should be deferred. I think it's very important, but I think it's a soft area that, as Director Marler said, could be deferred without harming our operations.

[1:15:38] Voice 4: So I think it's something we need to look at things.

[1:15:43] Trustee Fast: Okay. I think I'm seeing people in the chat, and I can't follow that.

[1:15:49] Trustee Fast: Trustee Maude, are you? Is that you?

[1:15:54] Voice 9: No, it was just myself and Tim Peterson talking about refraining from repeating questions.

[1:16:03] Trustee Fast: Oh, okay. Thank you.

[1:16:06] Trustee Fast: I

[1:16:07] Voice 9: like the repetition.

[1:16:08] Voice 9: Tiff?

[1:16:09] Trustee Fast: We've got a motion that I think Trustee Elliott has moved. And anybody want more clarity

[1:16:21] Trustee Fast: in it? Shall we look at the wording before we ask for a seconder? Seems pretty clear.

[1:16:33] Trustee Fast: Electronic. Yeah, the words are all the same. Not hearing any suggestions for changing the

[1:16:39] Trustee Fast: wording i'm going to ask for a seconder is there a seconder i see trustee getty is seconding the

[1:16:47] Trustee Fast: motion um with the two-finger gesture that has become a feature of trust council and islands

[1:16:56] Trustee Fast: trust um and uh anybody have more comments or discussion they want to make on this project

[1:17:03] Trustee Fast: i'm assuming we'll probably hear something about this maybe in the operational review so council

[1:17:11] Trustee Fast: will have uh you know our recommendations and as well as other things to think about

[1:17:17] Trustee Fast: as they always do not seeing any hands go up so i'm going to call the question

[1:17:23] Trustee Fast: all those in favor seven

[1:17:33] Voice 7: in favor thank

[1:17:34] Trustee Fast: you and uh lower your hands please and any oppose

[1:17:42] Trustee Fast: thank you trustee peterson uh but that motion carries very good okay thank you and with that

[1:17:51] Trustee Fast: it's 1118. I'm going to suggest we take a break until what 1130. And is that enough time? Or would

[1:18:02] Trustee Fast: people like a little more? Good.

[1:18:06] Trustee Fast: 1130. Okay, let's resume at 1130 with the staffing request section.

[1:18:11] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you.

[1:30:52] Voice 12: sure you're muted that'll

[1:30:57] Trustee Fast: do it thank you if we're all uh ready to begin i just want to make

[1:31:04] Trustee Fast: sure robert you're ready okay thank you and uh

[1:31:09] Trustee Fast: okay now we're beginning again after break and

[1:31:15] Trustee Fast: we're heading into um staffing requests part of the budget so i'm starting on page 153 these are

[1:31:23] Trustee Fast: uh positions and changes that affect the budget um anybody want to ring up anything in this section

[1:31:30] Trustee Fast: i didn't see any requests before hands going up no okay and then down to um oh there's one trustee

[1:31:41] Trustee Fast: graham thank

[1:31:44] Voice 1: you chair i couldn't find my my mouse um i'm going to suggest and this is not

[1:31:52] Voice 1: not going to be a popular suggestion, but that financial planning requests to trust council that

[1:31:58] Voice 1: we don't hire anybody, extra staff, because of the large increase in taxes that we're asking

[1:32:09] Voice 1: our constituents to pay for. I'm going to throw it out there.

[1:32:13] Trustee Fast: Any of these positions,

[1:32:15] Trustee Fast: you're saying none of them? Correct.

[1:32:17] Trustee Fast: Okay. Just for clarity. Thank you. I've made a note,

[1:32:21] Trustee Fast: by the way everybody to uh don't sweat dead air so that i can let people catch up and please let

[1:32:27] Trustee Fast: me know if you if i'm moving too fast um and i'll try to put myself on the speaking list and that

[1:32:35] Trustee Fast: kind of thing anybody interested in responding to this idea of trustee graham's trustee peterson

[1:32:50] Trustee Fast: I

[1:32:53] Voice 12: appreciate Trustee Graham's thoughts here, and I've definitely been thinking a lot about the staffing issues.

[1:33:06] Voice 12: I guess where I'm at at this point is I am inclined to defer adding more permanent positions.

[1:33:23] Voice 12: There are pieces of this that I think are, in terms of the staffing requests, that I think are important and really will help serve the business of council.

[1:33:40] Voice 12: So not really prepared to support a blanket recommendation to avoid all of the hires.

[1:33:50] Voice 12: And I'll leave it there.

[1:33:53] Voice 16: Thank you.

[1:33:54] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Patrick?

[1:33:55] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, I appreciate Trustee Graham's sentiment there. But my concerns are we're a little out of sequence with hearing the results of the operational review. And I would hope that we would be looking at leaving the next trust council with as strong a position as possible to achieve what they need to achieve too.

[1:34:18] Trustee Patrick: So I think if we just say zero positions, we need to hear the information from the CAO first.

[1:34:26] Trustee Patrick: So the timing, we're out of timing.

[1:34:28] Trustee Patrick: And I see his hand raised, so maybe he'll give us some hints.

[1:34:32] Trustee Patrick: CAO Bruni.

[1:34:33] Voice 2: Thank you, Chair.

[1:34:34] Voice 2: Yeah, I think a couple of points.

[1:34:36] Voice 2: One is you could certainly make such a recommendation to Trust Council, right?

[1:34:40] Voice 2: Ultimately, it's for deliberation at Trust Council, and Trust Council will know that what business cases were put forward,

[1:34:46] Voice 2: that if FPC recommended that they not be funded,

[1:34:49] Voice 2: then Trust Council can consider

[1:34:51] Voice 2: whether or not they support that decision.

[1:34:54] Voice 2: You know, I do think there are significant capacity challenges

[1:34:59] Voice 2: around supporting particularly some of the strategic priorities

[1:35:02] Voice 2: that Trust Council has identified.

[1:35:06] Voice 2: And not having the additional staff

[1:35:09] Voice 2: that's been put on the table for these positions

[1:35:11] Voice 2: to support some of that work

[1:35:12] Voice 2: does obviously impact our ability to deliver on some of that work um but that's an assessment that

[1:35:19] Voice 2: if the additional staffing isn't approved that staff would go back and make that

[1:35:23] Voice 2: operational impact assessment and bring that back for final consideration um uh for the march final

[1:35:30] Voice 2: approval of and consideration of the budget in march um so you know i think i know i

[1:35:35] Voice 2: i i'm

[1:35:36] Voice 2: confident that trustee graham fully recognizes in putting that that notion forward that of course

[1:35:41] Voice 2: there's an impact to not filling those positions um but that's the challenge before council will

[1:35:46] Voice 2: always be um setting the priorities um and then whether or not you know when we when we give you

[1:35:51] Voice 2: our honest assessment of what the resourcing requirements are to advance those whether or not

[1:35:55] Voice 2: those should advance at the time and the other the other piece and i do speak to this in my report as

[1:36:01] Voice 2: well and i know we're a bit out of sync it would have been great if i'd been able to get you that

[1:36:04] Voice 2: report in advance of this meeting that probably would have been helpful but um but i do think

[1:36:09] Voice 2: I think, you know, if we do not have the requested additional staffing requests approved, then we have to look with the staffing we have and what can we do with the staffing that we have and we have options before us, you know, in the case of if we have a vacant position, then there's a priority piece of work that council has directed we do and, you know, we should be assessing as a regular course of business before we fill any vacancy, whether or not that is being filled, used to the sort of highest value.

[1:36:38] Voice 2: you. I wouldn't reallocate vacancies lightly because I don't think there's any area where

[1:36:44] Voice 2: we're by any means overstaffed, but those kinds of options are available to us. But all that said,

[1:36:50] Voice 2: I think we are, it's not news to any of you. I know I think we are really stretched from a

[1:36:56] Voice 2: capacity standpoint. And so it does require us to look at if we feel there's an investment to

[1:37:02] Voice 2: advance work, then if there's a willingness to make that investment, that's helpful. And if

[1:37:06] Voice 2: If there's not, then we have to reassess what the work is and what the impact is to be able

[1:37:11] Voice 2: to deliver on that work.

[1:37:12] Voice 2: Thanks.

[1:37:14] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[1:37:15] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[1:37:16] Trustee Fast: And then I'm going to go to Trustee Elliott.

[1:37:20] Voice 4: Thank you, Chair.

[1:37:23] Voice 4: I guess my reflection on your idea, Trustee Graham, is that not all these positions are

[1:37:30] Voice 4: equal or going to supply the same kinds of resourcing. And so I think Trust Council needs

[1:37:41] Voice 4: to make that prioritization exercise. And I think Chair Patrick is right that we need to sort of

[1:37:49] Voice 4: hear from CAO's perspective, what is impacting operations? Where do we need to staff up in core

[1:37:58] Voice 4: or areas if we're going to get priority A, B, and C done, and what can be left for future hiring.

[1:38:06] Voice 4: I would propose instead that maybe this committee could consider a recommendation like

[1:38:14] Voice 4: no permanent full-time positions be advanced, but instead they be that we support either

[1:38:24] Voice 4: either one-year extensions or temporary positions that are filling a necessary gap.

[1:38:33] Voice 4: I think the exception is the GIS analyst position.

[1:38:38] Voice 4: This is really a critical capacity issue and has been supported by multiple committees

[1:38:45] Voice 4: that are experiencing some pretty big challenges in getting work done,

[1:38:53] Voice 4: You know, and the core work, whether it's conservancy or planning services, really does rely on mapping. And this isn't advanced. This is sort of basic understanding of where geography is, land and water, and that's what we do.

[1:39:10] Voice 4: um so you know i think we should we should do some yeah have some good discussion on this do we want

[1:39:17] Voice 4: to advance some um a recommendation around what types of positions are funded or for how long

[1:39:28] Voice 4: um and then finally my last point is back to the permanent biologist i think my feedback during

[1:39:38] Voice 4: executive committee, I had asked if we could do an extension of the current full-time biologist

[1:39:49] Voice 4: without making it permanent. And I don't see that as an alternative. So I wondered if that

[1:39:55] Voice 4: could be an alternative of extending the biologist position by one year without making it permanent,

[1:40:01] Voice 4: um simply because we haven't seen what efficiencies cost savings what are the results of this um one

[1:40:09] Voice 4: year position our pc has not reviewed it at all um and i can't give any feedback to constituencies

[1:40:17] Voice 4: as to whether this is um creating any efficiencies or better applications we just haven't seen the

[1:40:24] Voice 4: results yet so i would be most hesitant about supporting this as a permanent full-time position

[1:40:31] Voice 4: until we see we get some analysis on what difference it's making thanks thank you trustee

[1:40:38] Trustee Fast: um back to trustee getty i

[1:40:44] Voice 9: have difficulty with a lot of our discussions here because

[1:40:48] Voice 9: i don't think that we've advanced um the work on the corporate planning and what the priorities are

[1:40:53] Voice 9: So, at some point, it would be helpful, I think, for us to, and possibly CAO Brony, that may be a lens that we can use for the operational, but, you know, all of these are good projects and all of them advance certain parts of the work of the trust.

[1:41:16] Voice 9: and whether it's, you know, keeping the thing, keeping the organization going and effectively

[1:41:21] Voice 9: and working on projects that are important for the work that we do.

[1:41:27] Voice 9: It seems to me that we don't have that clarity in terms of, you know, we dig down in each

[1:41:34] Voice 9: individual project without really seeing whether or not, you know, where the pieces

[1:41:41] Voice 9: has come in some sort of, along a continuum or some sort of timeline.

[1:41:49] Voice 9: So I have a problem in terms of, I understand Trustee Graham's idea in terms of, you know,

[1:41:58] Voice 9: this is a permanent staffing.

[1:42:01] Voice 9: We get the same arguments on Bowen in terms of we're staff heavy.

[1:42:05] Voice 9: And, you know, is it really worth all of the money that's being spent?

[1:42:08] Voice 9: um but yeah a lot of it is in terms of you know um making sure that the wheels keep turning so

[1:42:18] Voice 9: um i would i would hesitate or i think at some point it would help trust council if we had

[1:42:26] Voice 9: some sort of basic agreement in terms of the lenses that we're looking at this not individually

[1:42:32] Voice 9: but necessarily overall the the corporate planning aspect that we haven't had a chance to work on but

[1:42:38] Voice 9: we should thank

[1:42:41] Trustee Fast: you and i see the cao's hand is up go ahead uh

[1:42:45] Voice 2: thank you chair i think on that

[1:42:47] Voice 2: latter point yeah i would say the staffing requests that are put forward for this year are

[1:42:53] Voice 2: all linked to the strategic plan that council approved in march and so there is a linkage

[1:42:58] Voice 2: there for the most part to those priorities and work that you had flagged to be initiated this

[1:43:02] Voice 2: fiscal um you know you can and you've already put forward some recommendations around deferring

[1:43:08] Voice 2: potentially some of that work um but i think you know and or you know there's some exceptions to

[1:43:14] Voice 2: that for example the the itc um indigenous relations role is not a strategic plan item

[1:43:20] Voice 2: but is a necessary piece of work that the itc is is seeking to advance particularly given the

[1:43:25] Voice 2: the minister's direction on that project so i think there is a linkage for all of these two

[1:43:33] Voice 2: strategic plan priorities or in the case of conservancy to the priorities that conservancy

[1:43:37] Voice 2: board has set. On the point of, but of course, you as council, the broader council, set those

[1:43:48] Voice 2: priorities, and so you can amend as you see fit. On the question of making some of them temporary,

[1:43:56] Voice 2: yeah, any of them can be made temporary. That doesn't solve the budget question. That doesn't

[1:44:02] Voice 2: remove them from this budget consideration, though, of course. Making them permanent or

[1:44:06] Voice 2: temporary still has the same cost for next fiscal as as they're if they're accepted as proposed just

[1:44:14] Voice 2: made temporary it does make it challenging often to recruit for a temporary position versus a

[1:44:19] Voice 2: permanent position and that's certainly one of our challenges depending on the role on the biologist

[1:44:23] Voice 2: position that's an example of yes it could be another year I would think and I may have to

[1:44:29] Voice 2: defer to director Cermak or director Mobs because the recruitment into that position and how that

[1:44:36] Voice 2: That was structured, predates my time, I think.

[1:44:38] Voice 2: But it is likely it couldn't simply be extended for another year.

[1:44:42] Voice 2: If the position funding was approved just for one more year, we would probably still

[1:44:46] Voice 2: have to go through another recruitment process, though, to fill the position because it was

[1:44:51] Voice 2: likely, I'm guessing, recruited initially as a one-year assignment.

[1:44:55] Voice 2: And so we may need to, rather than double the timeline, we would probably need to still

[1:44:59] Voice 2: run a hiring process.

[1:45:00] Voice 2: But it could, again, be approved just as a temporary one.

[1:45:04] Voice 2: Thanks.

[1:45:06] Trustee Fast: Thank you, CAO. Director Cermak, did you? No, he's gone. So it must have been no more to say. Okay, thank you. All right, then I'm going to go back to, thank you for that. I'm going to go back to our speakers list and Susan Yates.

[1:45:23] Trustee Fast: hey thank

[1:45:25] Voice 14: you chair fast and thank you um trustee graham for your your radical move there i

[1:45:33] Voice 14: certainly understand it because those are yeah staffing is our our most expensive the thing that

[1:45:40] Voice 14: we do but it's also how we get all our work done and we seem to also hire pretty some pretty

[1:45:47] Voice 14: pretty amazing stuff. And I really feel terrible when I see that they are stretched far too thin

[1:45:54] Voice 14: in some cases. And I have concerns about temporary staffing positions because I know how much work it

[1:46:02] Voice 14: is for other staff to either extend those or to, you know, or to do without. And when someone is

[1:46:12] Voice 14: in a permanent position then uh then there's just less work for the organization to try to keep

[1:46:19] Voice 14: filling in that position um and i really do not want to see anytime we have the opportunity to

[1:46:28] Voice 14: hire a co-op student we get more than our money's worth more than our money's worth out of those

[1:46:34] Voice 14: co-op students so those are the ones that i sure don't want to see go but we'll leave that for

[1:46:41] Voice 14: later thank you thank you

[1:46:44] Trustee Fast: trustee yates and over to you trustee patrick yeah

[1:46:49] Trustee Patrick: i'm going to poke a

[1:46:49] Trustee Patrick: little more at the biologist position i absolutely support not being a biologist but i'm confused as

[1:46:56] Trustee Patrick: to what the main purpose is when we looked at on page 154 it's sort of the projected results i mean

[1:47:02] Trustee Patrick: one of the projected results is it's going to cost less for the applicants because they don't need to

[1:47:07] Trustee Patrick: hire their own consultants to do the work and it's going to clarify you know there's there

[1:47:12] Trustee Patrick: we talk about you know clarifying the understanding of what needs to be done for biology i mean most

[1:47:19] Trustee Patrick: of many of our islands i hope have development information bylaws are our development information

[1:47:25] Trustee Patrick: bylaws not adequate we're not being able to describe the the data that we need to have

[1:47:30] Trustee Patrick: have collected. So I'm curious if we've really pinpointed the challenge that we're facing and

[1:47:37] Trustee Patrick: are we intending to make it easier for applicants and cheaper for applicants, but yet we're

[1:47:44] Trustee Patrick: increasing our costs and we haven't included this cost into the cost recovery for applications. So

[1:47:50] Trustee Patrick: I just don't think we, I'd like to have seen that presented, I think, better and understand that

[1:47:56] Trustee Patrick: that if it is a direct cost to applicants, can't we recover it?

[1:48:06] Trustee Fast: Director Cermak, do you have some answers or comments?

[1:48:14] Voice 11: Thank you, Chair.

[1:48:15] Voice 11: There's a bunch of different sort of tangents in there.

[1:48:18] Voice 11: I think the first question has been briefly touched on in terms of can we recover the cost that having a new staff position would be.

[1:48:28] Voice 11: I think that's just part of a broader review of fees and that process.

[1:48:34] Voice 11: So I think we could answer that question there.

[1:48:36] Voice 11: It was not done in this assessment.

[1:48:38] Voice 11: That's correct.

[1:48:38] Voice 11: I think we already mentioned that earlier today.

[1:48:41] Voice 11: In terms of the assessment, what this is and what it is not and how it helps, there's a

[1:48:47] Voice 11: whole bunch of little small things in there that were, you know, the purpose of having

[1:48:53] Voice 11: a biologist, and it's proved already with the current staff member filling that role,

[1:48:58] Voice 11: is that they provide an expertise that we don't have access to, and we have found ourselves much

[1:49:04] Voice 11: more effective and efficient in providing feedback to applicants in terms of when they provide us

[1:49:10] Voice 11: with information. And a simple example is that when a biologist is submitting a report according

[1:49:17] Voice 11: to our various LTC bylaws, you know, when staff assess that, we, you know, of course do our best,

[1:49:25] Voice 11: we ask questions, and we try to get a good assessment. And the biologist is already showing

[1:49:30] Voice 11: a depth of understanding that our expertise just doesn't have as certain planners are generalists

[1:49:36] Voice 11: and they're specialists. We don't have a lot of development approval information bylaws out there

[1:49:42] Voice 11: that I'm aware of. I can think of three off the top of my head, but we certainly don't have everybody

[1:49:46] Voice 11: with development approval information bylaws. However, even those who do have development

[1:49:52] Voice 11: approval information bylaws the biologist is reviewing all those administrative bylaws all

[1:49:57] Voice 11: the lts all the regulatory bylaws and the ocps from a biological perspective from her professional

[1:50:03] Voice 11: perspective and finding um sort of um it could be better and so she's actually currently drafting

[1:50:11] Voice 11: up terms of reference to be consistently applied so that all the reports that are coming in really

[1:50:17] Voice 11: meet a higher level of standard and things like that.

[1:50:21] Voice 11: So she's systematically going through all the administrative, regulatory, and policy

[1:50:25] Voice 11: documents to make sure that there's a higher level of standard, considering it's the mandate

[1:50:31] Voice 11: of the trust.

[1:50:31] Voice 11: So that's where the work is.

[1:50:34] Voice 11: In terms of an applicant, I think, and circling back to that one, the point is to give the

[1:50:40] Voice 11: applicant clear, better information to accomplish going through the process.

[1:50:46] Voice 11: us. And so we do provide that service. And it's, I think, a necessary service that we can do.

[1:50:50] Voice 11: It reduces the applicant's cost of, you know, reduces the uncertainty. So that's kind of more

[1:50:57] Voice 11: the argument there, as opposed to we're not doing the work on behalf of them. We're just vetting,

[1:51:02] Voice 11: reviewing. And of course, with most staff, we're trying to provide that certainty

[1:51:07] Voice 11: up front, so an applicant knows exactly what they need to do without having to,

[1:51:11] Voice 11: you know go back and forth so much but anyways there's lots to unpack there and I'm not sure I

[1:51:16] Voice 11: answered any one particular question precisely the way Trustee Patrick was asking but I'm happy

[1:51:21] Voice 11: to give more information maybe one question at a time.

[1:51:25] Trustee Fast: Thank you Director Cermak. I'm going to go

[1:51:28] Trustee Fast: on to Trustee Graham.

[1:51:32] Voice 1: Thank you staff and thank you trustees for taking the time to address my

[1:51:40] Voice 1: my radical suggestion um and i and i i absolutely understand that with fewer staff we get less

[1:51:48] Voice 1: accomplished i understand that but i also understand if we ask staff to do less then

[1:51:54] Voice 1: they're not uh stressed and we we are a very um ambitious trust council every trust council is

[1:52:01] Voice 1: ambitious they will always want to do more than what we're capable of doing and over the decades

[1:52:06] Voice 1: the trust staff has responded to the, we want more, we want more. And so we have a rather large

[1:52:13] Voice 1: staff contingent and we've been criticized for it. And I'm not saying it's too big at this point,

[1:52:19] Voice 1: but considering the current economic climate, considering that I think it's important for

[1:52:27] Voice 1: local governments to address the pressures on constituents, the monetary pressures of living

[1:52:34] Voice 1: during this economic climate, and the fact that this is one of the few things that we can look at,

[1:52:42] Voice 1: it doesn't leave us unable to do the work. Because obviously, we've been doing the work

[1:52:50] Voice 1: for 50 years. Every day, we get the work done. We get lots of work done. And I understand,

[1:52:57] Voice 1: Director Cermak, that if you had the best person on staff, you'd get the best product.

[1:53:04] Voice 1: But, you know, there's a cost to getting platinum work as opposed to gold, silver or even bronze.

[1:53:10] Voice 1: And we all have development permit areas and land is, for the most part, already zoned.

[1:53:18] Voice 1: And we have every island has bylaws that obviously are protecting sensitive areas right now.

[1:53:26] Voice 1: And putting the onus and the responsibility and the cost to the applicant to get that work satisfying the local trust committee for their decision making is definitely a deterrent for development.

[1:53:42] Voice 1: But I actually think we should be looking at degrowth, not growth.

[1:53:46] Voice 1: We should be taking steps at certainly the local trust area level and at trust council level to become less ambitious, to do the work that we ask of our staff and give them enough time to do the work properly.

[1:54:06] Voice 1: But we can't always keep growing and getting bigger.

[1:54:09] Voice 1: And governments are famous for that because, you know, in the private sector, you don't get to grow until you've got profit.

[1:54:15] Voice 1: But governments never have to worry about that. They can just ask their constituents for more money and more money and more money and more money. Wouldn't it be fun one year to actually ask our constituents for less money? And I know we talk about a provincial grant, and that would be fabulous if the province would step up and pay their fair share, considering the work that we do at the trust is for the benefit of British Columbia residents, etc., etc.

[1:54:39] Voice 1: So that's my two cents worth. I do agree with Trustee Yates that the co-op students, we get tremendous work from them. And I think that's a responsibility of local governments to make those employment opportunities for those recent graduates. But I maintain that we can do the work of the trust, we can be effective, and we can also not necessarily keep growing.

[1:55:07] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Graham.

[1:55:10] Voice 14: Trustee Yates.

[1:55:13] Voice 14: Thank you for listening to me again. I just wanted to make a point about the biologist position. So I've been listening to this for seven years now, where, you know, council has debated whether the Islands Trust needs a biologist.

[1:55:29] Voice 14: biologist well in my mind that's the work we do we really really need a biologist on staff

[1:55:36] Voice 14: and I'm not just saying that because I have a biologist degree and I'm kind of leaning in that

[1:55:41] Voice 14: direction it's also because Gabriola for example does not have a good development application

[1:55:47] Voice 14: information bylaw it's terrible it's may as well be useless and so what happens is the the developer

[1:55:54] Voice 14: comes to us with their own environmental reports which you know obviously they've commissioned them

[1:56:01] Voice 14: for and they're paying them and yeah well we know what those results look like and wouldn't it be

[1:56:06] Voice 14: nice if we actually had a biologist to do a really good assessment that relates directly to the work

[1:56:14] Voice 14: that we do in our preserve and protect mandate thank you thank

[1:56:22] Trustee Fast: you trustee yates and seeing no

[1:56:25] Trustee Fast: no more speakers. I'll just put myself on the list here and say, I also think biology is central

[1:56:33] Trustee Fast: and core to the work of the trust. And my experience as a vice chair going to other

[1:56:40] Trustee Fast: local trust committees, I eventually saw myself as facilitating development. And it's without

[1:56:51] Trustee Fast: without reports that I thought should be there.

[1:56:56] Trustee Fast: Like, what about all these big trees in this area of the watershed?

[1:57:02] Trustee Fast: Anyway, I'm thinking again that that's kind of a core thing,

[1:57:10] Trustee Fast: but I won't say more.

[1:57:11] Trustee Fast: Any more discussion, or is there a motion coming forward?

[1:57:14] Trustee Fast: Or several?

[1:57:19] Trustee Fast: Seeing no more hands, I'll invite motions.

[1:57:22] Trustee Fast: And then it's 11.57.

[1:57:25] Trustee Fast: so maybe um people can draft up their motions while we take a break for lunch and uh i wonder

[1:57:33] Trustee Fast: if we could break until what do you think 12 45 i'm seeing some nodding or do you want to have

[1:57:49] Trustee Fast: a full hour i

[1:57:51] Voice 12: don't think we need a full hour i'm personally i'm fine with half hour i don't need

[1:57:54] Voice 12: anymore yeah

[1:57:56] Trustee Fast: half hour okay how about

[1:57:59] Trustee Fast: staff what about staff staff i think they need at least a

[1:58:04] Trustee Fast: half an hour they probably have other work to do so let's do the 45 minutes and we'll come back at

[1:58:10] Trustee Fast: 12 45 uh maybe with some motions drafted up okay and and perhaps even emailed in to motion

[1:58:20] Trustee Fast: at honesttrust.bc.ca anybody want to uh any comments before we break director mobs

[1:58:29] Trustee Fast: all good okay good well then uh we'll see you all at 12 45

[2:42:19] Voice 16: Thank you very much.

[2:43:27] Voice 9: Sue Ellen?

[2:43:28] Voice 9: Yeah.

[2:43:29] Voice 9: Do you remember how big a document the strategic plan is?

[2:43:36] Trustee Fast: It's, well, I don't know.

[2:43:41] Trustee Fast: I've just printed off the first few pages and I keep them handy.

[2:43:45] Trustee Fast: There's a link.

[2:43:47] Voice 9: All right.

[2:43:48] Voice 9: How many

[2:43:49] Voice 9: pages have you printed off?

[2:43:51] Trustee Fast: One, two, three, four.

[2:43:53] Voice 9: Okay.

[2:43:55] Voice 2: That's it.

[2:43:56] Voice 2: It's the four pages of the table.

[2:43:58] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[2:43:58] Trustee Fast: Okay, I'm seeing people showing up. If you're back and you haven't turned on your camera, that's great. Thank you.

[2:44:19] Voice 16: I am present.

[2:44:20] Trustee Fast: Very good. Hello over there, David Maude. Okay, I think we're mostly back. I just want to make sure that Robert's back. There's Trustee Elliott. Hello, Robert, when you're with us, or Nancy.

[2:45:02] Voice 10: I'm here, but it doesn't look like Robert is.

[2:45:05] Voice 10: Okay.

[2:45:06] Voice 16: And

[2:45:07] Voice 10: I can't share screen until he stops sharing.

[2:45:11] Trustee Fast: Now he's there. Very good. All good timing. Right on time. And I'll just wait till we're back in action here. Okay, I'll call the meeting back to order. And Trustee Getty.

[2:45:26] Trustee Fast: Thank

[2:45:27] Voice 9: you. I would like to start by apologizing to staff in terms of my comments about not being up to speed on the strategic plan documents.

[2:45:38] Voice 9: And I noticed on that business case that they had been the very first section after the headings that they had been referenced.

[2:45:44] Voice 9: So there they were staring me in the face and I missed them.

[2:45:49] Voice 9: I would like to suggest, if it's at all possible when we're presenting this to Trust Council, that we may have, in addition to any of the terms of reference for the committee, that we have something in terms of referencing the strategic plan so that that's part of the preface, that people can keep that in mind.

[2:46:11] Voice 9: That might be helpful.

[2:46:12] Voice 9: Just a suggestion.

[2:46:14] Voice 9: But first off, apologies.

[2:46:16] Voice 9: Thanks.

[2:46:17] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Getty.

[2:46:18] Trustee Fast: yeah and looking at the top thing on our terms of reference to facilitate council's trust council's

[2:46:24] Trustee Fast: involvement in the annual budget process so if that would facilitate it that's a good comment

[2:46:28] Trustee Fast: we'll leave that up up to staff okay we left off with um uh at section uh three seven point three

[2:46:41] Trustee Fast: point five point six staffing requests and we'd had some good discussion i think maybe we were

[2:46:46] Trustee Fast: ready for some motions. Robert, did you have some motions emailed in?

[2:46:55] Voice 13: Chair, I do not have access to motions email address.

[2:47:00] Trustee Fast: Thank you. It must be David Marler or who has access to motions? While we're waiting for that.

[2:47:15] Trustee Fast: And anybody got more comments they want to make after having thought about it over lunch?

[2:47:22] Trustee Fast: while we're waiting for that to come up i'll just make a quick comment and i am trustee graham i

[2:47:43] Trustee Fast: appreciate your the comment that was made about degrowth i thought you were going to talk about

[2:47:49] Trustee Fast: society and uh islands trust communities but you were talking about islands trust anyway i just

[2:47:57] Trustee Fast: it's hard for us to be less ambitious when the world keeps growing and changing faster and faster

[2:48:02] Trustee Fast: and get it more complex but little my little take on it I appreciate the word

[2:48:10] Trustee Fast: being brought up this is where I get into trouble I want to fill the dead air

[2:48:23] Trustee Fast: with comments but I'm waiting for staff to bring up the motions that people have

[2:48:29] Trustee Fast: been sending in maybe there are several of them back there I

[2:48:36] Voice 7: just have the one

[2:48:37] Voice 7: thing you know came up

[2:48:39] Voice 7: on the screen playing and Robert I can share the

[2:48:42] Voice 7: screen that'd be good and

[2:48:43] Trustee Fast: while that's coming up i'll uh hear from trustee graham yeah thank you

[2:48:49] Voice 1: chair um i did bring up the topic and had there been perhaps a stronger sentiment in considering

[2:48:55] Voice 1: it i would have put a motion forward i will save my arguments for trust counsel then so i did not

[2:49:01] Voice 1: provide a motion at this time

[2:49:03] Trustee Fast: okay thank you very much

[2:49:19] Trustee Fast: no it's fine i'm just finding

[2:49:22] Voice 7: as it as it there

[2:49:23] Trustee Fast: yeah

[2:49:25] Voice 7: okay

[2:49:26] Trustee Fast: take your time uh it's hard to bite

[2:49:30] Trustee Fast: my tongue and not want to keep the conversation flowing trustee elliott i guess

[2:49:36] Voice 4: i could uh fill

[2:49:37] Voice 4: in with a bit of a question um if trustees were planning to bring forward some resolutions to

[2:49:45] Voice 4: Trust Council, for example, along the lines of what Trustee Graham suggested, how could

[2:49:53] Voice 4: they ask staff to prepare for that, like prepare an alternative budget scenario so that we're

[2:50:00] Voice 4: not sort of, you know, making these motions on the fly and then trying to juggle the numbers

[2:50:08] Voice 4: and calculate where the fee levy would land, like what would be a best practice way of

[2:50:16] Voice 4: going about that director

[2:50:21] Trustee Fast: mobs can't hear me sorry

[2:50:30] Voice 15: folks um i would be hesitant to prepare

[2:50:34] Voice 15: multiple versions of the budget prior to trust council it could end up being a redundant and

[2:50:41] Voice 15: unnecessary exercise which i'm not a fan of um it is you know at every trust council when there's

[2:50:48] Voice 15: motions that are made um and that pass um we we do an adjustment sort of on the fly i usually have

[2:50:55] Voice 15: the budget document open and i'm amending things on the fly so i can provide an update to trustees

[2:51:00] Voice 15: around um where things are landing um it would be preferable if trustees have a motion to amend the

[2:51:08] Voice 15: budget that they bring it forward to this committee that is the job of financial planning committee is

[2:51:12] Voice 15: to discuss potential changes to the budget of course if something's not supported here then

[2:51:17] Voice 15: a trustee can certainly bring it up at committee of the whole or trust council to make a second

[2:51:23] Voice 15: an attempt there that's perfectly acceptable um but i would suggest not holding on to all of your

[2:51:28] Voice 15: motions until trust council um rather get them forwarded this committee just

[2:51:35] Voice 9: to get it what is

[2:51:37] Voice 9: the difference financially in terms of um an extension as opposed to a full-time position

[2:51:45] Voice 9: assuming that it's the same person we don't have to go through the um i suppose we automatically

[2:51:51] Voice 9: automatically have to go through the hiring situation right um

[2:51:58] Voice 15: so I saw the video pop on

[2:52:00] Voice 15: screen but I'll I'll respond to that um there's no financial implication to um hiring a staff

[2:52:07] Voice 15: person temporarily or hiring them permanently next year it would have the same cost to us in

[2:52:11] Voice 15: the budget um the the difference is that if a staff person is made permanent we would continue

[2:52:17] Voice 15: to budget for them into future years as opposed to bringing a request forward for consideration

[2:52:23] Voice 15: duration again. In terms of running a hiring competition, it depends a little bit. Our CAO

[2:52:29] Voice 15: alluded to that earlier. It sort of depends on whether or not we ran a competition formerly to

[2:52:33] Voice 15: fill a position, and if we did run a competition, sort of what were the parameters around it.

[2:52:38] Voice 15: So it's not always a given, but sometimes it's something we need to do.

[2:52:42] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[2:52:44] Voice 15: Trustee Peterson?

[2:52:46] Voice 12: Yeah, just to comment that early in this term,

[2:52:49] Voice 12: um there was a lot of discussion about budgeting and how we could bring down uh proposed um tax

[2:52:56] Voice 12: levies and one of the items that was um talked about a lot was was staffing positions and how

[2:53:04] Voice 12: once we have made a position permanent it uh it makes it a lot harder to um create a reduction

[2:53:14] Voice 12: um then this sort of like i understand there's lots of difficulties with ongoing

[2:53:22] Voice 12: um one year temporary situations but that that that some trustees felt that their hands have

[2:53:30] Voice 12: been tied in terms of the difficulty of reducing staff expenditures once permanent position has

[2:53:38] Voice 12: been made permanent so i just wanted to raise that as something i've definitely heard um from

[2:53:43] Voice 12: this trust council okay

[2:53:47] Trustee Fast: thank you trustee getty your hand is still up or did you want to put it

[2:53:53] Trustee Fast: up again gone okay thank you then we've got uh trustee patrick

[2:53:59] Trustee Patrick: just wanted to keep the

[2:54:02] Trustee Patrick: conversation going a little bit i guess have do we could we phrase the question with bowen or do

[2:54:10] Trustee Patrick: do we need to phrase the question with Bowen? Are there other, are there clear budget items that

[2:54:19] Trustee Patrick: would affect their increase downwards? Or is so much baked into the, the formula that we're fixed

[2:54:34] Trustee Patrick: to in setting that? So I guess that's, I don't know if that's a broad, too broad a question,

[2:54:43] Trustee Patrick: in but is there is there any particular items that could be identified that would make a big

[2:54:49] Trustee Patrick: difference um or

[2:54:51] Trustee Patrick: is it just the formula trustee mobs i mean

[2:54:55] Trustee Fast: director mobs oh can't hear you

[2:55:03] Voice 15: a double mute situation going on uh no offense if you call me trustee nice to be promoted um

[2:55:10] Voice 15: the bowen island municipal tax levy is calculated based on specific formula um but financial

[2:55:18] Voice 15: Planning Committee recommends and Trust Council decides what it

[2:55:21] Voice 15: wants to pay for that then is

[2:55:24] Voice 15: included in the formula. So the work of Trust Council, if there's new initiatives happening

[2:55:29] Voice 15: under Trust Council services, that's something Bowen Island pays for. And so anything listed

[2:55:33] Voice 15: as a Trust Council project, if that were to be removed, Bowen would realize the benefit from that.

[2:55:39] Voice 15: The same is true for the Conservancy and to a lesser extent for operational projects.

[2:55:44] Voice 15: and so on page 39 of the agenda package and page 40 that's where there's a funding summary request

[2:55:53] Voice 15: or the list of distinct funding summaries and there's a little check mark next to each of the

[2:55:59] Voice 15: ones that Bowen is contributing to so any projects that are removed off of that list that have a

[2:56:03] Voice 15: check mark on them Bowen would benefit from that reduction on the operating side of things you

[2:56:10] Voice 15: you would need to be looking at the total detailed budget

[2:56:14] Voice 15: to understand which budget lines, if you reduce them,

[2:56:16] Voice 15: that Bowen would impact from.

[2:56:18] Voice 15: There's no opportunity to change the formula.

[2:56:21] Voice 15: It's rooted in policy, and the policy is driven by legislation.

[2:56:24] Voice 15: So there's no opportunity to revise that.

[2:56:35] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Trustee Getty.

[2:56:37] Trustee Fast: I'm putting myself on the list.

[2:56:39] Voice 9: Interestingly enough, the registered professional biologist

[2:56:42] Voice 9: on page 40 does not have a checkmark for Bowen.

[2:56:47] Trustee Fast: That's right.

[2:56:47] Trustee Fast: Right. That's right, because we have Carla.

[2:56:54] Trustee Fast: Yeah,

[2:56:54] Voice 9: it's mostly planning, I think.

[2:56:56] Trustee Fast: Yeah. And what I was going to say is, in my 10 years or so, what I've gathered is that when Bowen tries to keep the requisition down, it tends to starve the trust conservancy, especially.

[2:57:17] Trustee Fast: And that seems to be part of what Bowen Islanders appreciate most about the trust, although right now they're still appreciating the trust policy statement and the actions of executive committee and warding off camping on Bowen, the big campground.

[2:57:41] Trustee Fast: Yeah. And so some of that umbrella of environmental protection. CAO Brunny.

[2:57:50] Voice 2: Thank you, Chair. If I can, I'll maybe just go back to Trustee Peterson's comment about how it can be difficult to reduce staffing costs over time when positions are permanent.

[2:57:58] Voice 2: And I think that's absolutely true. Obviously, it's challenging when someone is a permanent position that there are costs and limits to how we would manage that.

[2:58:08] Voice 2: that. Typically, how you see governments manage that if there is a desire to reduce staffing

[2:58:15] Voice 2: costs is that they set a target and it's managed through what is usually called managing through

[2:58:20] Voice 2: attrition, which is you just don't fill vacancies. My personal perspective is I'm not a fan of that

[2:58:26] Voice 2: because that means you're finding the savings, but through it's fairly random, right? It's

[2:58:31] Voice 2: wherever a vacancy comes up, you either don't fill or you defer filling to generate savings

[2:58:35] Voice 2: savings rather than a targeted approach that looks at where might you actually have the greatest

[2:58:41] Voice 2: flexibility in terms of winding down work. And so it can be done, but it's more challenging.

[2:58:49] Voice 2: To Trustee Peterson's point, I think where you might consider if whether or not a position

[2:58:56] Voice 2: should be filled permanently, if it's an ongoing program, I think there's definitely greater value

[2:59:03] Voice 2: you in in filling it permanently um where it's around a defined project that is maybe only a

[2:59:08] Voice 2: project that's anticipated to say maybe take two or three years even then you might want to look

[2:59:14] Voice 2: at filling it on a year-by-year basis because you're anticipating that at some point the work

[2:59:18] Voice 2: will be concluded um the challenges remain still around um how you would have the limitations and

[2:59:26] Voice 2: impact that has on recruitment and our ability to recruit and retain folks but where it's a

[2:59:31] Voice 2: defined timeline project those are your better opportunities if you wanted to look at temporary

[2:59:35] Voice 2: positions to take that approach thanks thank

[2:59:40] Trustee Fast: you cao okay any more discussion are we ready to look

[2:59:47] Trustee Fast: at the motion uh that we saw there briefly and now we're at page 46 here to see those check marks

[2:59:59] Trustee Fast: Absolutely.

[3:00:00] Trustee Fast: tell us that Bowen contributed. So if the motion could be brought up again and the speaker or the

[3:00:10] Trustee Fast: mover wishes to put up their hand, the secret mover.

[3:00:21] Voice 2: If I may, Chair, was this not already

[3:00:23] Voice 2: the one that was

[3:00:24] Voice 2: addressed? Robert Barlow?

[3:00:28] Voice 13: I have the same question. I'm not certain the purpose of

[3:00:32] Voice 13: this is a motion that was moved and seconded and carried before the break.

[3:00:38] Voice 13: Right.

[3:00:39] Voice 8: I assume

[3:00:40] Voice 13: this was just something for the committee to review and think about.

[3:00:51] Voice 7: That was no other motion, so I'll ask anyone that was in motion.

[3:00:55] Trustee Fast: Oh, okay. Thank you. I had understood that there was a motion about staffing positions, but I'm hearing none. Then we'll move on. Or maybe one will come in.

[3:01:07] Trustee Fast: I don't want to limit that, but we're on to now, starting page 208.

[3:01:14] Trustee Fast: This is Islands Trust Conservancy Board request.

[3:01:18] Trustee Fast: There's a briefing there and the executive committee budget requests.

[3:01:25] Trustee Fast: So anybody got any questions or want to discuss this at these points?

[3:01:34] Trustee Fast: As I madly scroll down, not seeing any hands.

[3:01:38] Trustee Fast: okay those are uh trustee elliot i

[3:01:45] Voice 4: guess i'll just make a brief comment here um sitting on

[3:01:49] Voice 4: you know having the honor to sit on the board of the conservancy for the past

[3:01:52] Voice 4: three years and learning um particularly how much the staff and management have sort of scrimped and

[3:02:04] Voice 4: and saved, and gotten by, and really maximized absolutely every ounce of resources and capacity

[3:02:12] Voice 4: that we did have. I will be strongly supporting all the requests from the Conservancy at Trust

[3:02:21] Voice 4: Council, including the ones for GIS Coordinator, because they are, it's time to invest. And this is

[3:02:31] Voice 4: is the this is the moment where the conservancy can actually reshape how it undertakes protection

[3:02:39] Voice 4: and preservation of the trust area properties that it holds in a good way working with first

[3:02:46] Voice 4: nations and landowners and everyone else so um this is particularly an area of the budget that

[3:02:53] Voice 4: i'll be strongly supporting as well as the indigenous relations advisor and policy advisor

[3:02:59] Voice 4: position. So be forewarned, you'll get some good arguments from me at Trust Council. If you

[3:03:05] Voice 4: want to come after this, I will give you some very good reasons why

[3:03:09] Trustee Fast: they should be supported.

[3:03:10] Trustee Fast: Thanks. Thank you, Trustee Elliott. And I believe there's a, the minister has required

[3:03:22] Trustee Fast: Honest Trust Conservancy to do more consultation and create the five-year plan and

[3:03:27] Trustee Fast: deeper consultation with First Nations. And if I'm wrong about that, somebody please put up their

[3:03:33] Trustee Fast: hand. But to me, that's a signal that it's needed. Trustee Getty?

[3:03:41] Voice 9: I have gone back to page 37. And

[3:03:45] Voice 9: this is the actual budget, approved budget, and draft budget. So this one under ITCB projects,

[3:03:55] Voice 9: The five-year plan, it's gone from $20,000 in this year's budget to $110,000, a 450% increase.

[3:04:05] Voice 9: And the next one, the data management software for protected area management, it looks like it's a completely new item at $30,000.

[3:04:15] Voice 9: So, can someone explain why the $90,000 increase in terms of the five-year plan? And I guess the other one in terms of the software. That's more than the other software suggestions that we've had.

[3:04:40] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Getty. We've got Director Frater on deck. Go ahead. Oh, can't hear you, Claire.

[3:04:52] Voice 16: I see,

[3:04:54] Voice 3: Trustee. I just want to note, Chair, Trustee Elliott's hands up, and I think she may wish to speak as the board member for the board that advanced it. Otherwise, I am here prepared to speak to it.

[3:05:03] Trustee Fast: All right. Would you like to go ahead, Trustee Elliott, or is your hand still up?

[3:05:07] Trustee Fast: Yeah,

[3:05:07] Voice 4: thank you, Chair. So if we go to page 208, summarize the proposed budget requests, and there are multiple explanations for the rationale. The five-year plan development budget includes $100,000 in capacity funding for First Nations and $10,000 for costs associated with engagement.

[3:05:31] Voice 4: engagement um this was approved at our last conservancy board meeting there was a more

[3:05:37] Voice 4: modest figure put forward and it was felt that wasn't realistic uh the 20 000 is actually

[3:05:45] Voice 4: originally from the um the grant for reconciliation and capacity uh to engage with nations from the

[3:05:54] Voice 4: ministry. So the Conservancy has not been able to, it's been carried forward each year as we've

[3:06:01] Voice 4: not started on engagement on the five-year plan. So that's still from the 20,000. So the work

[3:06:07] Voice 4: that is before us, this is realistically what it's going to cost. So the board had a lot of

[3:06:14] Voice 4: discussion about this and to do, this is what we felt was necessary to do the work. And then there's

[3:06:23] Voice 4: a pretty substantial rationale for the um sorry the what was the other one the gis or the software

[3:06:35] Voice 4: um yeah i mean director frader can explain better than i but staff are literally working off of

[3:06:42] Voice 4: spreadsheets um that are it's just an incredibly laborious and outdated way uh and they've yeah

[3:06:50] Voice 4: There's a long explanation in one of these briefings about why it's necessary to update to the ESRI platform, which is what's going to be used across the trust area so that we're not just working in a little silo off of spreadsheets to detail exactly what's going on in the land and waters. Thanks.

[3:07:13] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Elliott. And anything you wanted to add, Director Frater?

[3:07:18] Voice 3: No, I can answer more specific questions around the data management piece, if you wish.

[3:07:23] Voice 3: Okay. Thank you.

[3:07:30] Voice 16: Would you like

[3:07:34] Voice 3: me to proceed with more detail?

[3:07:37] Voice 3: Sorry.

[3:07:37] Trustee Fast: Did you want more detail, Trustee Getty?

[3:07:40] Trustee Fast: Well,

[3:07:42] Voice 9: I guess I believe there's something has gone back to the Trust Conservancy Board in terms of what, if anything, can be used from the gifts that they've been given recently.

[3:07:58] Voice 9: And I thought one of them was management and whether or not there was any room for them adjusting their, I don't know what you call it, internal budget, as opposed to the general tax levy on all of the islands.

[3:08:18] Voice 9: Is that being explored?

[3:08:22] Voice 3: Their agenda is going out later this week and they meet on the 19th.

[3:08:27] Voice 3: So that's when they would consider that.

[3:08:28] Voice 3: so we are certainly conveying that resolution to them for their next meeting so you would you would

[3:08:33] Voice 3: have that that outcome um for at trust council in december okay

[3:08:39] Voice 9: thank you thank

[3:08:40] Trustee Fast: you thank you

[3:08:43] Trustee Fast: that's great any uh motions coming out just send them in email them in that would be great thank

[3:08:50] Trustee Fast: you and then um uh also for executive committee

[3:08:55] Voice 14: briefing trustee yates oh i was just gonna comment

[3:08:59] Voice 14: briefly on the request for um 0.5 uh indigenous relations advisor and that is the position that

[3:09:08] Voice 14: seems really important to me as we go into the five-year plan and whatever comes after that

[3:09:15] Voice 14: um i think that position if it's filled will make a really big difference um to how staff are able

[3:09:24] Voice 14: to get their work done for the Conservancy.

[3:09:27] Voice 14: I'm actually more supportive of that one from council budget

[3:09:31] Voice 14: than I am of the $100,000,

[3:09:35] Voice 14: which I just get this feeling that

[3:09:37] Voice 14: that could perhaps be spread out a little bit more.

[3:09:41] Voice 14: I don't know, though.

[3:09:42] Voice 14: But generally, anything that the Conservancy is asking for,

[3:09:47] Voice 14: I am fully supportive of,

[3:09:49] Voice 14: because it means that we've already talked about this at ITC meetings.

[3:09:53] Voice 14: And as I always say, it's the Conservancy's work that people see in action.

[3:10:06] Trustee Fast: And the webinars and things, if we get the word out.

[3:10:11] Trustee Fast: But I take your point, Susan.

[3:10:14] Trustee Fast: Sorry, Trustee Yates.

[3:10:16] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:10:18] Trustee Fast: I'm also in support.

[3:10:20] Trustee Fast: I was on the Islands Trust Conservancy Board, and I support their request.

[3:10:25] Trustee Fast: And we'll see what they come up with.

[3:10:28] Trustee Fast: in their in their meeting. I'm not seeing any motions coming

[3:10:34] Trustee Fast: through. I'm going to go now to executive committee. Questions,

[3:10:40] Trustee Fast: questions. Not seeing anything there. There's this list on the

[3:10:44] Trustee Fast: screen. Page 212. I think Yep. And I don't think it's any

[3:11:01] Trustee Fast: comments. No hands flying up. Okay, we'll go on to operating

[3:11:03] Trustee Fast: budgets increased justifications here this starts on page 219 and goes on down

[3:11:13] Trustee Fast: to that's where you see the islands trust protected area management

[3:11:17] Trustee Fast: operations and planning increase justification 247 so between those two

[3:11:24] Trustee Fast: pages anybody want to speak to anything in this potential for adjusting the

[3:11:30] Trustee Fast: budget. I'm trying to give more time if people have ideas. All right, then we're going to move

[3:11:43] Trustee Fast: on. The unfunded projects. So first up is Galliano 258, the targeted OCP review project. Trustee

[3:11:52] Trustee Fast: Getty. Sorry.

[3:11:57] Voice 9: Page 220. And I believe it's talking about Trust Council. There was something in terms

[3:12:07] Voice 9: of professional consultant fees for 27 as a thousand and um back in those other um page 40

[3:12:17] Voice 9: there was something else that was much larger um i can't remember what the number was now but um

[3:12:27] Voice 9: are those numbers correlated do i have that wrong looking

[3:12:36] Trustee Fast: at page 40 i see that i see the thousand

[3:12:39] Trustee Fast: under...

[3:12:40] Voice 9: Sorry, I may not have the page number correctly, but there was

[3:12:43] Voice 9: a

[3:12:43] Trustee Fast: professional

[3:12:44] Voice 9: consultant was

[3:12:46] Voice 9: quite a bit higher.

[3:12:55] Trustee Fast: Director Moffs?

[3:12:56] Voice 9: Yes. You know this like the back of your hand. Help me.

[3:13:01] Voice 15: I think you're looking at, so page

[3:13:04] Voice 15: 219 of the agenda package is just councils

[3:13:08] Voice 15: operating budget increased

[3:13:10] Voice 15: justification form, and there's

[3:13:12] Voice 15: a thousand dollars there in section three it's listed as professional consultant fees that's an

[3:13:18] Voice 15: error so this one thousand dollars is actually a new budget uh to support the chair of trust

[3:13:24] Voice 15: council um traveling to the victoria office um so that's that's an error the the actual

[3:13:33] Voice 15: professional consultant fee amount is the amount that you see in former budget um just a point of

[3:13:38] Voice 15: of clarity though, which might help as you're looking at some of these operating justification

[3:13:42] Voice 15: forms, they will not agree to the total budget because it's the total budget broken out by

[3:13:50] Voice 15: department. So for example, you might have in the total budget, you might see $20,000 in professional

[3:13:57] Voice 15: consultant fees, 5,000 of that might belong to trust counsel and other five might belong to the

[3:14:03] Voice 15: conservancy and so you'll see smaller amounts in these um justification forms okay

[3:14:07] Voice 9: good question

[3:14:10] Trustee Fast: trustee getty seeing and asking good questions um any other operational uh questions okay so

[3:14:26] Trustee Fast: down to uh starting on page 258 we're into the unfunded request galliano targeted ocp

[3:14:36] Trustee Fast: review project anybody want to speak to this or the ones that follow the one that's it okay

[3:14:50] Trustee Fast: is that right yeah no so do we have any other motions that have been made to reduce the budget

[3:14:59] Trustee Fast: good work everybody I mean I'm not looking for more I just don't want to miss any

[3:15:03] Trustee Fast: okay very good then let's move on uh and uh back to the main motion at the top there which is on

[3:15:14] Trustee Fast: page two um and i see your hand up director mobs uh

[3:15:24] Voice 15: thanks chair so i just wanted to provide the

[3:15:26] Voice 15: committee a brief snapshot of where things are at now so um we've had an approved motion to reduce

[3:15:31] Voice 15: the $150,000 for the Trust Area Resilience Program, motion to remove $55,000 for the EDM

[3:15:39] Voice 15: records management upgrade. We're also going to need to fund the Salt Spring Island Ground

[3:15:45] Voice 15: Well Monitoring Project from taxation, and so we're looking at about a 23.7% increase for Bowen

[3:15:53] Voice 16: Island

[3:15:53] Voice 15: and about a 9.5% increase for local trust areas. You know, there might be some slight changes

[3:15:59] Voice 15: just for those figures once um everything is balanced but that's

[3:16:03] Trustee Fast: where things are looking at

[3:16:04] Trustee Fast: okay you're frozen i think we may have just lost our direct oh no it just froze i think what you

[3:16:12] Trustee Fast: said was 22 percent 22.7 percent increase for bim now with these changes uh assuming that they

[3:16:21] Trustee Fast: if they were to be um in the proposal that will forward to trust council and nine and a half

[3:16:28] Trustee Fast: increase for local trust committees is that correct uh

[3:16:33] Voice 15: 23.7 for bowen island and these are

[3:16:36] Voice 15: the general tax increases so exclusive of non-market change increases just to be clear

[3:16:41] Voice 15: about that 23.7 percent for bowen and around

[3:16:44] Voice 15: 9.5 for local trust areas okay

[3:16:49] Trustee Fast: thank you that's great

[3:16:51] Trustee Fast: that you can do that um on the fly so we've made uh through the motions that we've uh carried today

[3:16:58] Trustee Fast: we decreased the increase. I'm going over to Trustee Getty.

[3:17:06] Voice 9: Thank you. Again, going back to

[3:17:09] Voice 9: page 35, the legal bylaw enforcement litigation and legal litigation defense. The projected budget

[3:17:17] Voice 9: budget is down quite a bit, 42% and 55% from last year's. Oh, no, sorry. We're projecting

[3:17:30] Voice 9: the budget to be the same, but we've overspent this year or something. Now, somewhere in the

[3:17:35] Voice 9: body of the material, there's an indication that we need to have an increase. So I find these

[3:17:43] Voice 9: numbers in this table on page 35 a little bit confusing. Are we increasing the budget for

[3:17:49] Voice 9: legal or to fit with the, let's see, what does the top of this table say, actuals or

[3:18:00] Voice 9: hoping to keep it down?

[3:18:04] Trustee Fast: And this is right at the very bottom of page 35, I think the last few rows

[3:18:08] Trustee Fast: goes there. Director Mobs. Yes.

[3:18:12] Voice 15: So your observations are correct, Trustee Getty.

[3:18:16] Voice 15: So on that page 35 of the agenda, we show the actual spending for last fiscal year.

[3:18:24] Voice 15: We show the budget for this fiscal year, and then we show the draft budget for next fiscal year.

[3:18:30] Voice 15: So last year's actuals for legal spending were quite a bit higher, $276,000 for enforcement

[3:18:38] Voice 15: enforcement litigation and $240,000 in defense. In the current year's budget, we had brought things

[3:18:44] Voice 15: down, and we are experiencing quite a significant overspending in the current year. That, of course,

[3:18:49] Voice 15: is not reflected on this document. We do reflect forecasted figures in this document when we have

[3:18:53] Voice 15: them, but we skipped the forecast for quarter two, given the strike. The next year's budget

[3:19:00] Voice 15: legal amounts do reflect the current year's budget, which we are overspending against this

[3:19:06] Voice 15: year. So the Director of Planning Services has responsibility for looking at the legal budgets

[3:19:11] Voice 15: and providing an estimate as to what might be needed next fiscal year based on claims that we

[3:19:17] Voice 15: know are already in play, a buffer for potential claims that might come forward, etc. So he did

[3:19:22] Voice 15: undertake this review. I'll let him speak to his review. And the small changes that were made from

[3:19:28] Voice 15: that review are reflected in the current draft budget. But I'll let Director Cermak speak to

[3:19:32] Voice 15: that directly director

[3:19:34] Voice 9: so dr marner sorry before um director sermac comes in so if we've got 161

[3:19:43] Voice 9: in this year's budget and we've spent 276 and change in factuals then any money that would

[3:19:50] Voice 9: come out of savings in another area and go into surplus are going to be absorbed and sucked up by

[3:19:56] Voice 9: this overspending. Is that right? That's how it's working?

[3:20:01] Voice 15: That's right. And that is correct. And

[3:20:04] Voice 15: that's part of why we don't see a drop from surplus in next year's draft budget is because

[3:20:09] Voice 15: our surplus is being used to pay for overspend.

[3:20:13] Voice 9: Okay. So these are considerably higher than

[3:20:17] Voice 9: the actual spending is considerably higher than the budget in both of those. So do we not need

[3:20:24] Voice 9: I think we need to be more closer to the actual spending in terms of, you know, I don't want to suck up all the surpluses all the time because we need a little bit of wiggle room. I know that Bowen pays for both of these, but, oh, no, we don't have a checkmark. Looking on the behalf of all the other taxpayers, I guess that's Director Cermak's intuition.

[3:20:52] Voice 9: tuition. Director Sermon?

[3:20:55] Voice 11: Sure, through the chair. Thank you. So we did have a deep dive into what

[3:21:01] Voice 11: the current, you know, litigate or what the past current and projected litigation numbers are. And

[3:21:07] Voice 11: of course, it's more of an art than a science. We're finding with one or two cases, they're

[3:21:13] Voice 11: really skewing that budget. So for example, we have one Gabriola court case that has taken a lot

[3:21:21] Voice 11: lot of funds. And so that one particular, are we okay?

[3:21:29] Trustee Fast: If you could just start from the words

[3:21:31] Trustee Fast: Gabriela court case, there was a little freeze.

[3:21:34] Voice 11: So Gabriela court case, I'm trying to make sure

[3:21:38] Voice 11: I can say what I can say. It has been a very expensive court case. I'll keep it that simple.

[3:21:44] Voice 11: And so it's really skewing the data here. And it's really hard to predict which court cases,

[3:21:50] Voice 11: we can see which ones we've you know are projecting to go to court and we can get a

[3:21:55] Voice 11: really rough estimate of timelines it's really hard to get a good estimate of the cost

[3:22:00] Voice 11: and one of the largest things that project costs are how much um the other side i suppose um

[3:22:08] Voice 11: i'll just use blunt language lawyer up and then the the counter weight that we have to argue all

[3:22:14] Voice 11: their arguments. In other words, going to court is very expensive. So we did that exercise. We

[3:22:21] Voice 11: took that assessment as much as possible. And these are the numbers that reflect what we believe

[3:22:25] Voice 11: is the expected price. So yes, the current actuals are high. We didn't quite anticipate

[3:22:32] Voice 11: how long we'd be in court for this one particular case. But we did take the exercise to try to

[3:22:38] Voice 11: anticipate the future. And that's what these numbers reflect.

[3:22:41] Voice 9: Okay. Thank you.

[3:22:42] Voice 9: thank

[3:22:43] Trustee Fast: you very much

[3:22:44] Trustee Fast: I

[3:22:45] Voice 9: like the deep dive part

[3:22:46] Voice 9: yeah

[3:22:51] Trustee Fast: okay seeing no more

[3:22:53] Trustee Fast: hands going up

[3:22:56] Trustee Fast: are we ready to

[3:22:58] Trustee Fast: and still nothing about

[3:23:03] Trustee Fast: Gabriola I'm wondering if

[3:23:05] Trustee Fast: we've passed these motions

[3:23:07] Trustee Fast: about the

[3:23:08] Trustee Fast: 150,000 and the

[3:23:11] Trustee Fast: 55,000 and

[3:23:12] Trustee Fast: well water

[3:23:15] Trustee Fast: records director Marler

[3:23:18] Voice 7: Yeah, sorry, I just wanted to make sure you hadn't missed 738, which is on the next page, on page 261, before you

[3:23:32] Voice 7: pass resolution to forward that. Thanks.

[3:23:35] Trustee Fast: Budget consultation briefing?

[3:23:39] Trustee Fast: Yeah,

[3:23:39] Voice 7: did you? Sorry, I'm not sure.

[3:23:41] Trustee Fast: no i haven't got it because it was uh it was just sort of a briefing reiterating discussions we'd

[3:23:47] Trustee Fast: had it didn't seem to relate to the um the big motion up there at seven seven point three on

[3:23:55] Trustee Fast: page two which would be something like that fpc forward the draft budget materials to trust council

[3:24:01] Trustee Fast: for review as amended something like that um maybe i've got that wrong please advise

[3:24:06] Trustee Fast: I

[3:24:07] Voice 7: think that's meant

[3:24:13] Voice 15: to be a film agenda item so 7.4 it's not part of the overall budget materials

[3:24:18] Voice 15: so apologize for my wonder in the agenda we'll address it separately okay

[3:24:24] Trustee Fast: thank you and thank

[3:24:26] Trustee Fast: you for the careful keeping track everybody and so I'm wondering if there we've got the motion

[3:24:36] Trustee Fast: highlighted on the screen thank you and do we need to say as amended because we

[3:24:44] Trustee Fast: passed the motions today just to make it clear that we're not just sort of

[3:24:52] Trustee Fast: obviously not okay yes

[3:24:57] Voice 7: okay

[3:25:01] Trustee Fast: so if we could add the words as amended at the

[3:25:05] Trustee Fast: the end um of the motion and uh and this will be dated and everything so we don't have to put in

[3:25:21] Trustee Fast: for the december trust council meeting or anything like that uh otherwise staff will let us know

[3:25:27] Trustee Fast: and um who would like to move the motion or a motion i see trustee peterson would you like to

[3:25:36] Trustee Fast: move the motion i

[3:25:39] Voice 12: move that financial planning committee for the draft 2026-27 budget materials

[3:25:44] Voice 12: as amended to Trust Council for review.

[3:25:47] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:25:48] Trustee Fast: And do I have a seconder?

[3:25:49] Trustee Fast: I see Judy Getty's hand up.

[3:25:51] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:25:52] Trustee Fast: Making it clear that she's seconding.

[3:25:55] Trustee Fast: So we've got a motion moved and seconded.

[3:25:57] Trustee Fast: Any more discussion?

[3:25:59] Trustee Fast: Trustees?

[3:26:01] Trustee Fast: Seeing no hands up.

[3:26:03] Trustee Fast: Oh, there's one.

[3:26:03] Trustee Fast: Trustee Elliott.

[3:26:07] Trustee Fast: Yep, I'll second.

[3:26:17] Trustee Fast: I think we may have lost you, Trustee Elliott.

[3:26:22] Trustee Fast: Any more discussion on this motion?

[3:26:26] Trustee Fast: Hoping Trustee Elliott is with us.

[3:26:28] Trustee Fast: And I'm going to call the question then.

[3:26:31] Trustee Fast: All those in favor, please raise your electronic hand.

[3:26:37] Trustee Fast: Very good.

[3:26:38] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:26:40] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:26:41] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:26:41] Trustee Fast: Lower your hands, please.

[3:26:45] Trustee Fast: And all hands are down.

[3:26:47] Trustee Fast: And any opposed?

[3:26:51] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:26:52] Trustee Fast: That carries unanimously.

[3:26:53] Trustee Fast: Great work, everybody.

[3:26:58] Trustee Fast: Thanks for the good discussion.

[3:26:59] Trustee Fast: And we're on to over the top of page four.

[3:27:03] Trustee Fast: Trustee Patrick.

[3:27:04] Trustee Patrick: Patrick, my only I don't we don't need to make a resolution, but I think we've acknowledged that the timing of we don't have the operational review and the financial planning committee is, you know, I guess we can't really say anything via resolution.

[3:27:17] Trustee Patrick: But I think we need to acknowledge that there is some uncertainty or unknown elements yet of applying the operational review results to the budget for this year that we'll discuss at Trust Council.

[3:27:29] Trustee Patrick: I'd

[3:27:29] Trustee Fast: be happy to say a note. I'd be happy to say something about that when I say a few words about the work program at the beginning of the Trust Council. Okay, good. I'll make a note of that with it. Okay, thank you. And with that, then let's go to what's labeled as 7.3.8, the budget consultation plan briefing.

[3:27:59] Trustee Fast: briefing and um when was yeah and we'll try and take another break in half an hour unless people

[3:28:07] Trustee Fast: would like one now seeing not um we might be able to move through this fairly quickly um i'm just

[3:28:15] Trustee Fast: going to uh ask uh a director to give us a brief outline here and it looks like that might be

[3:28:23] Trustee Fast: director freighter

[3:28:24] Voice 3: yes thank you um so this is being brought to you as is tradition at this time

[3:28:29] Voice 3: of year but it's missing some of the information that the committee often gets with it which is

[3:28:33] Voice 3: the advertising plan and a draft survey to review so a little light on detail but essentially this

[3:28:38] Voice 3: is just letting you know that we're working towards delivering the project charter as was

[3:28:42] Voice 3: approved at your last meeting and providing the opportunity for any questions we will be using

[3:28:48] Voice 3: the same advertising plan this has been done in prior years so just not bringing it here this time

[3:28:53] Voice 3: just due to the strike there wasn't enough time to produce it for this agenda but essentially here

[3:28:58] Voice 3: I'm happy to ask answer questions essentially we will put out information about the draft budget

[3:29:03] Voice 3: approved by trust council after the FPC meeting in January once there's been an opportunity to

[3:29:09] Voice 3: incorporate the new property or the new property tax valuations that might shift the numbers

[3:29:15] Voice 3: between Bowen and local trust areas for about two and a half to three weeks and we'll get that into

[3:29:20] Voice 3: you for February to forward to trust council and simply we'll be inviting input by email as per

[3:29:26] Voice 3: for your direction at the last meeting okay

[3:29:29] Trustee Fast: thank you yes and there was a mention of a

[3:29:31] Trustee Fast: frequently asked questions page if questions are frequently asked okay thank you and that

[3:29:37] Trustee Fast: so this is just um reminding us what we discussed in in august and uh and requested from staff

[3:29:44] Trustee Fast: so it's got our approved charter in there and um some examples of the kinds of budget

[3:29:51] Trustee Fast: budget consultation materials that went out last time, which I'm going to find useful, I think,

[3:29:58] Trustee Fast: keeping the bone council up.

[3:30:00] Trustee Fast: on um how things work so thank you very much anybody got questions trustee getty um somewhere

[3:30:07] Voice 9: in the material uh last year in the year before there was a um a little a diagram uh had a little

[3:30:15] Voice 9: house on it in terms of comparing bits and pieces of the the bowen island budget that was helpful

[3:30:21] Voice 9: in terms of it's hard to explain um and i got a little bit of pushback at the last council meeting

[3:30:28] Voice 9: in terms of um because i i don't really know how to explain it very well and you know um

[3:30:35] Voice 9: note to me so um all the help that we can get in terms of you know why there's 11 for the islands

[3:30:43] Voice 9: that's the one and um you know why it's 20 or 30 or whatever for bowen that that's very helpful

[3:30:53] Voice 9: Yes.

[3:30:54] Trustee Fast: And if you just scroll up a tiny bit, this is what I thought would be useful for Bowen Council, because it explains property tax levy from Bowen is up there, top right, on the right. Okay, thank you. If you don't mind, a few comments between Bowen trustees. Apologies, everybody.

[3:31:13] Trustee Fast: everybody so

[3:31:13] Voice 9: if people are clicking that little um whatever what do you call those things the

[3:31:20] Voice 9: little squiggly logo thing they get this information right yeah

[3:31:25] Voice 3: certainly if i might

[3:31:27] Voice 3: share yes please go ahead i would just say if we look at the bottom of page 272 you can see for

[3:31:32] Voice 3: bowen that the tax increase on an average property was 2661 last year compared with the local trust

[3:31:40] Voice 3: area of 32. So despite the higher percentage numbers, the real, you know, the actual numbers

[3:31:46] Voice 3: were lower. And if Bowen Council has any particular information requests, feel free to bring those

[3:31:51] Voice 3: into staff when we can prepare a briefing or something for Bowen Council. If there's questions

[3:31:56] Voice 3: such of that nature, it would be useful to have Islands Trust staff provide information on do let

[3:31:59] Voice 3: us know.

[3:32:01] Trustee Fast: Thank you, we will. This was just kind of introducing them to the fact that the budget was

[3:32:06] Trustee Fast: going to be an eye-opener and that it was already going down since our October meeting, but

[3:32:15] Trustee Fast: we didn't have these materials yet, obviously. I just told them that we were both going to be

[3:32:20] Trustee Fast: part of this meeting and asking questions, so thank you very much, and we will ask staff to

[3:32:26] Trustee Fast: be in contact with you guys over there. Okay, thank you. So there's no request for decision

[3:32:34] Trustee Fast: here. This is just a briefing. Anybody else got questions for the director? It's a good example

[3:32:41] Trustee Fast: to look at. I'm going to be printing off those pages 271 and 272. And let's move on then to

[3:32:52] Trustee Fast: 8.1. This is a request for decision, page 266. This is taking up part of our next FPC meeting

[3:33:02] Trustee Fast: to have a digital committee of the whole of Trust Council.

[3:33:07] Trustee Fast: And perhaps you could speak to this, Director Mobs.

[3:33:13] Voice 15: Happy to, Chair.

[3:33:14] Voice 15: So this did come up at a prior financial planning committee.

[3:33:18] Voice 15: Staff have suggested, and it seems as if there were a few trustees

[3:33:22] Voice 15: who supported the idea of repurposing the February FPC meeting

[3:33:27] Voice 15: into a committee of the whole,

[3:33:29] Voice 15: particularly to talk about the draft budget.

[3:33:32] Voice 15: We're hoping that this approach, you know,

[3:33:34] Voice 15: would seek a broader input from all trustees prior to the budget approval in March,

[3:33:40] Voice 15: particularly in a year where we see draft projected tax increases that are higher than

[3:33:45] Voice 15: historical. I think having that early input from a broader range of trustees will be quite useful.

[3:33:51] Voice 15: So we are suggesting the date of February 18th from 1 to 5 p.m. This allows financial planning

[3:33:58] Voice 15: committee to still meet in the morning to tackle some other pieces of business that normally take

[3:34:03] Voice 15: place that time of year so particularly looking at audit planning for the audit committee as well as

[3:34:08] Voice 15: quarter three financial reporting and then we did choose one o'clock as the suggested starting time

[3:34:14] Voice 15: for committee of the whole to give FPC members a bit of a break because of course it will end

[3:34:19] Voice 15: up being quite a long day for members of this committee to go from an FPC meeting into a

[3:34:23] Voice 15: committee of the whole page 267 of the agenda talks about the various items that will be looked

[3:34:29] Voice 15: at at audit committee financial planning committee and then at the suggested committee of the whole

[3:34:33] Voice 15: under committee of the whole the draft revenue anticipation bylaw is there i would suggest that

[3:34:38] Voice 15: could still be looked at by financial planning committee um it's not actually tied to the budget

[3:34:42] Voice 15: and so i would look to move that back into fpc just a minor adjustment um just for your information

[3:34:48] Voice 15: happy to take questions if there are any i

[3:34:53] Trustee Fast: have one could you just repeat that last line i was

[3:34:55] Trustee Fast: scrolling between pages what would you like to remove out and treat separately uh the draft

[3:35:02] Voice 15: revenue anticipation bylaw. So we normally draft that bylaw, bring it to FPC, FPC forwards it to

[3:35:08] Voice 15: Trust Council. I would suggest that FPC still maintain that piece of work. That piece does

[3:35:13] Voice 15: not need to go to Committee of the Whole. It's not tied to the budget.

[3:35:17] Trustee Fast: Okay, that sounds good

[3:35:18] Trustee Fast: to me. So I'm assuming you'll just create the FPC budget with that in it, the revenue anticipation

[3:35:25] Trustee Fast: participation bylaw? The agenda, yes. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. Thank you. Okay, anybody got

[3:35:33] Trustee Fast: questions for the director or want to comment on this idea? I think it's a good idea to get

[3:35:42] Trustee Fast: this happening. Trustee Peterson? I'm

[3:35:46] Voice 12: happy to make the motion, and I'm thinking this is a very,

[3:35:50] Voice 12: this is a great idea, good innovation, glad to see this proposal.

[3:35:55] Trustee Fast: Okay, go ahead and make it.

[3:35:57] Trustee Fast: all

[3:35:58] Voice 12: right i move that

[3:36:00] Trustee Fast: sorry unless trustee patrick had a no okay please go ahead sorry

[3:36:04] Trustee Fast: trustee tim peterson i

[3:36:08] Voice 12: move that financial planning committee recommend that trust council

[3:36:12] Voice 12: schedule an electronic committee of the whole meeting on february 18th 2026 from 1 p.m to 5

[3:36:17] Voice 12: p.m to review the final draft of the 2026-27 budget prior to trust council's budget approval

[3:36:24] Voice 12: in March, 2026.

[3:36:27] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:36:28] Trustee Fast: And do I have a seconder?

[3:36:29] Trustee Fast: I see Trustee Getty.

[3:36:31] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:36:33] Trustee Fast: And any more discussion?

[3:36:35] Trustee Fast: Trustee Patrick?

[3:36:38] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, I think this is the purpose

[3:36:40] Trustee Patrick: of the Committee of the Whole

[3:36:41] Trustee Patrick: and this is a good time for trustees

[3:36:43] Trustee Patrick: to just have that devoted time

[3:36:46] Trustee Patrick: to getting into the budget.

[3:36:50] Trustee Fast: Yeah.

[3:36:51] Trustee Fast: I think it's a good idea.

[3:36:56] Trustee Fast: So we will meet in the morning

[3:36:57] Trustee Fast: as audit committee,

[3:36:59] Trustee Fast: those of us that are part of that and and then we'll have a FPC meeting we'll

[3:37:03] Trustee Fast: have a break and we'll go into this committee the whole it sounds like to me

[3:37:08] Trustee Fast: okay any more questions or comments all right I'll call the question all those

[3:37:15] Trustee Fast: in favor please raise your hand

[3:37:21] Voice 7: thank you

[3:37:23] Trustee Fast: and lower your hands please any

[3:37:26] Trustee Fast: trustee opposed that opposed that carries thank you very much and we'll go

[3:37:36] Trustee Fast: go on to um uh property assessment notice 268 if we've got time or do you want to uh yeah we've got

[3:37:47] Trustee Fast: time before doing this so page 268 these were some of the pages i was just referring to i think

[3:37:59] Trustee Fast: um how it the property assessment notice was done last time and i think we're over to director

[3:38:06] Trustee Fast: to freighter again hi

[3:38:08] Voice 3: thank you this is being provided um just as we launch into the next

[3:38:12] Voice 3: cycle again just to seek input from the committee on any changes you might like to have um or any

[3:38:17] Voice 3: feedback you have for us as we look at you know undertaking the drafting next year um the final

[3:38:21] Voice 3: versions will go through executive committee prior to being sent out and the project is intended to

[3:38:26] Voice 3: be done by the end of march thank you i

[3:38:31] Trustee Fast: didn't hear a thing about it i'm not sure if bone islanders

[3:38:34] Trustee Fast: even noticed it in the undercurrent,

[3:38:37] Trustee Fast: but that might be because I'm not holding open houses

[3:38:39] Trustee Fast: and the people who I meet on the trails

[3:38:45] Trustee Fast: aren't necessarily following it.

[3:38:48] Trustee Fast: But I liked it because it's something I can point to

[3:38:50] Trustee Fast: and point people to.

[3:38:52] Trustee Fast: And it was succinct in the little diagram on the bottom,

[3:38:56] Trustee Fast: I think was a good idea.

[3:38:59] Trustee Fast: And I'll take it to Bowen Council.

[3:39:03] Trustee Fast: Anybody got any comments or changes?

[3:39:05] Trustee Fast: or input, feedback on how it went over in your community?

[3:39:14] Voice 9: I have a question.

[3:39:16] Voice 9: If I may, I can't find my reactions to raise my hand,

[3:39:21] Voice 9: but are we going to be amending some of those numbers?

[3:39:29] Voice 9: I'm scrolling through and I can't find it now.

[3:39:32] Voice 9: There's one about the surpluses that are applied that no longer works.

[3:39:37] Trustee Fast: It would be pages 271 and 272 again, I think.

[3:39:40] Trustee Fast: And over to you, Trustee Frater, or Director Frater.

[3:39:45] Voice 3: Yes, these are being provided as samples from last year.

[3:39:48] Voice 3: All numbers and information would be reviewed to be current before it goes out.

[3:39:52] Voice 9: Perfect. Thanks.

[3:39:54] Voice 3: Yeah.

[3:39:55] Trustee Fast: Updated. Whatever.

[3:39:57] Trustee Fast: Okay, well, if you have feedback in the meantime,

[3:39:59] Trustee Fast: I'm sure you can send it in to Director Frater if you find your notes later or whatever.

[3:40:04] Trustee Fast: But otherwise, thank you very much.

[3:40:06] Trustee Fast: and we're going to move on now to the work program here we are page 273 the

[3:40:13] Trustee Fast: very end of the agenda we're going to see where we're at with the budget cycle

[3:40:22] Trustee Fast: and anything people have questions about who would like to walk us through this

[3:40:29] Trustee Fast: Director Moffs?

[3:40:33] Voice 15: Sure. So we do have the proposed work program on page 278 of the agenda. So it contains the

[3:40:41] Voice 15: usual cyclical pieces of work that financial planning committee would undertake next quarter,

[3:40:47] Voice 15: as well as a couple of projects that are on the future project list on page 280, particularly

[3:40:53] Voice 15: related to some policy reviews. There are supposed to be a maximum of three items on our program for

[3:41:02] Voice 15: each committee. However, just given the nature of financial planning committee that are work

[3:41:06] Voice 15: with cyclical and largely mandatory, there's four items on the current project list.

[3:41:12] Trustee Fast: Thank you. I did have a question. I'll put myself on the list. And that was just,

[3:41:18] Trustee Fast: uh you mentioned it before but the business about um application fees and uh uh possibly

[3:41:27] Trustee Fast: raising them that'll be coming in the next year is that right so

[3:41:33] Voice 15: the work or the project that i'm

[3:41:35] Voice 15: looking at application fees is actually on the follow-up action list it's not on the work program

[3:41:39] Voice 15: um we did have a conversation around whether or not that was appropriate to me it feels like it

[3:41:43] Voice 15: should be on the work program as opposed to the follow-up action list it does seem like a project

[3:41:47] Voice 15: that may take some time to undertake.

[3:41:51] Voice 15: We decided to go with the path of least resistance

[3:41:53] Voice 15: in the moment that we were creating the agenda

[3:41:55] Voice 15: and not make the last minute change.

[3:41:57] Voice 15: So that's where you see it right now

[3:41:58] Voice 15: is on the follow-up action list.

[3:41:59] Voice 15: We might change that in future.

[3:42:01] Trustee Fast: Okay, so that's just where to find it.

[3:42:04] Trustee Fast: That's great.

[3:42:04] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:42:05] Trustee Fast: As long as it's written down somewhere

[3:42:06] Trustee Fast: and we can refer to it later.

[3:42:08] Trustee Fast: And anybody else got questions for the director?

[3:42:14] Trustee Fast: Okay, because basically this is what

[3:42:15] Trustee Fast: we'll be asking Trust Council to approve in December.

[3:42:21] Trustee Fast: um is what we're up to and they will know because we will have just had the committee the whole

[3:42:29] Trustee Fast: okay hearing no seeing no hands going up i think we're at the uh unless i've missed something i

[3:42:35] Trustee Fast: think we're at the next meeting time part of the agenda where we're not going to see each other

[3:42:40] Trustee Fast: until after trust council in and that would be january 21st is that correct

[3:42:50] Voice 16: yes

[3:42:50] Trustee Fast: thank you thank you right why don't i i always skip i always don't see this okay we

[3:42:57] Trustee Fast: need a motion for the um please go ahead tim peterson thank you

[3:43:01] Voice 12: chair i move that financial

[3:43:05] Voice 12: planning committee approved the proposed work program report as presented and forwarded to

[3:43:11] Voice 12: trust council for approval thank

[3:43:14] Trustee Fast: you and do i have a seconder trustee yates this time okay thank you

[3:43:18] Trustee Fast: uh and um any questions or discussion that we didn't already have okay then i'll call the

[3:43:29] Trustee Fast: question all those in favor please raise your electronic hand and thank

[3:43:38] Voice 7: you

[3:43:39] Trustee Fast: and lower your

[3:43:40] Trustee Fast: hands please anybody opposed seeing none the motion carries big check mark and our next meeting

[3:43:52] Trustee Fast: is of the Financial Planning Committee will be Wednesday, January 21st, starting at 10 in the

[3:43:59] Trustee Fast: morning. And otherwise, we'll see you at Trust Council or in other emails and meetings between

[3:44:06] Trustee Fast: then, or in ferry terminals, as sometimes happens. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for a good meeting.

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
November 12, 2025 ADOPTED Page 1 of 8 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
 
Date of Meeting:  
Location:  
November 12, 2025 
Electronic Meeting 
 
Members Present:  
 
Sue Ellen Fast, Bowen Island Municipality, (FPC Chair) 
Tobi Elliott, Gabriola Island Local Trust Area, Executive Committee 
Judith Gedye, Bowen Island Municipality, Governance Committee  
 Representative 
David Graham, Denman Island Local Trust Area 
David Maude, Mayne Island Local Trust Area, Executive Committee 
Laura Patrick, Salt Spring Island Local Trust Area, Executive Committee 
Tim Peterson, Lasqueti Island Local Trust Area, Executive Committee  
 and Trust Programs Committee Representative 
Susan Yates, Gabriola Island Local Trust Area, and Islands Trust  
 Conservancy Board Representative 
 
Member Regrets Mairead Boland, Saturna Island Local Trust Area and Regional Planning  
 Committee Representative, (FPC Vice Chair) 
  
Staff Present: Rueben Bronee, Chief Administrative Officer 
Julia Mobbs, Director, Financial and Employee Services 
Stefan Cermak, Director, Planning Services 
Clare Frater, Director, Trust Area Services 
David Marlor, Director, Legislative and Information Services 
Nancy Roggers, Finance Officer 
Robert Barlow, Legislative Services Clerk/Recorder 
  
Others Present: One member of the public was present. 
 
1. CALL TO ORDER 
 
Chair Fast called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. and acknowledged that participants in the 
meeting were on many Coast Salish territories.  
 
2. AGENDA 
 
2.1 Review of the Agenda 
 
No changes were presented for consideration.  
 
2.2 Approval of the Agenda 
 
By general consent the Committee approved the agenda as presented. 
 
3. PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
November 12, 2025 ADOPTED Page 2 of 8 
 
The one member of the public present did not express a desire to address the Committee. 
 
4. DELEGATIONS 
 
None. 
 
5. CORRESPONDENCE 
 
None. 
 
6. ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATION 
 
6.1 Minutes of Previous Meetings 
 
6.1.1 Financial Planning Committee Minutes of October 22, 2025  
 
By general consent the Committee approved the minutes as presented. 
 
6.2 Resolutions Without Meeting 
 
None. 
 
6.3 Follow up Action List 
 
Received for information. 
 
7. BUSINESS - WORK PROGRAM ITEMS 
 
7.1 Financial Planning Committee Terms of Reference 
 
Extracted from Trust Council Policy 2.3.1 (Council Committee System) and provided 
for information at the request of the Chair. 
 
7.2 Q2 Financial Report 
 
The report is delayed due to the recent British Columbia Government Employees Union 
strike action. This report will advance to Executive Committee on November 19, 2025, 
for their review and forwarding to Trust Council.  
 
7.3 Budget Draft 1, Version 2 
 
7.3.1 Budget Changes Since Last Review – Briefing 
 
Director Mobbs introduced the briefing, highlighting key changes made to the 
budget since the previous Financial Planning Committee meeting. 
 
Committee discussion included: 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
November 12, 2025 ADOPTED Page 3 of 8 
• a review of application fees may provide a relief to tax increases 
• the work of the Planning Biologist needs to be incorporated into the costs of 
processing planning applications 
• inflation has been greater than the standard annual 2% increase in 
application fees 
• the potential impact to the budget by reducing the number of Islands Trust 
Council Committees is minimal as those committee meetings are 
conducted almost exclusively electronically 
• adopting a standard of committee meetings minutes that only capture 
resolutions can save staff time and can make review of minutes simpler 
 
7.3.2 Budget Overview - Briefing 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.3 2026/27 Budget Guidelines Assessment 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.4 Funding Request Summary List 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.5 Funding Requests 
 
7.3.5.1 Trust Council Programs 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.5.2 Strategic Plan Projects 
 
7.3.5.2.1 Policy Statement Amendment Project 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.5.2.2 Policy Review - Continuation from FY26 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.5.2.3 Trust Area Resilience Assessment 
 
Committee discussion included: 
• the project could be deferred, but it is central to the 
mandate of Islands Trust 
• not including this item would lessen the Bowen 
Island Municipality contribution by approximately 
10% 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
November 12, 2025 ADOPTED Page 4 of 8 
• a contractor has been hired to create a scope of the 
required work 
• the possibility of staging the work over a few years 
 
FPC-2025-052 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee recommend to Trust Council that 
work on the Trust Area Resilience Assessment Initiative project not be 
funded in 2026/27, unless a grant is secured.  
CARRIED 
 
7.3.5.2.4 Freshwater Sustainability Strategy Review and 
Implementation 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.5.3 ITC Board Projects 
 
No comments 
 
7.3.5.4 Local Trust Committee Projects 
 
Director Cermak noted that some of the business cases have been 
amended since the Committee reviewed them at the previous meeting 
of October 22, 2025. 
 
Committee discussion included the need to be aware that grants can 
result in programs that need to be maintained after the grant funding is 
completed. 
 
7.3.5.5 Operational Projects 
 
7.3.5.5.1 TC Onboarding Training - Business Case 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.5.5.2 Trustee Laptops - Business Case 
       
No comments. 
 
7.3.5.5.3 Accessibility Plan Development - Business Case 
       
No comments. 
 
7.3.5.5.4 Electronic Document Management Solution - Business 
Case 
 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
November 12, 2025 ADOPTED Page 5 of 8 
Director Marlor indicated no concerns about delaying 
this project for one year. 
 
FPC-2025-053 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee recommend to Trust 
Council that work on the Electronic Document 
Management project not be funded for the 2026/27 
budget.  
CARRIED 
 
Committee recessed at 11:18 a.m. and resumed at 11:30 a.m. 
 
7.3.5.6 Staffing Requests 
 
Committee discussion included: 
• possibility of not supporting any staffing requests 
• possibility of making extensions of positions rather than making 
them permanent, noting that an extension would not change the 
budget 
• a finalized corporate planning process would be helpful in 
supporting discussions of the value of positions 
• the biologist position provides applicants specific and helpful 
information they need to submit their applications 
• Trust Council ambitions to conduct more work requires more staff 
and tools to accomplish that work 
 
Committee recessed at 12:00 p.m. and resumed at 12:45 p.m. 
 
Committee discussion continued: 
• possibility of staff preparing budget scenario alternatives 
• permanent positions don’t allow flexibility in changing staff 
positions but are more attractive to potential applicants than 
temporary positions 
 
7.3.5.7 Other Funding Request Reports 
 
7.3.5.7.1 ITC Board Budget Request – Briefing 
 
Committee discussion included: 
• the Islands Trust Conservancy 5-year plan costs 
include $100,000 in capacity funding for First 
Nations 
• it is expected that the Islands Trust Conservancy 
Board will be considering the suggestion to spend 
their grant funds on operational costs later in the 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
November 12, 2025 ADOPTED Page 6 of 8 
week and results of that discussion will be provided 
at the December Trust Council meeting 
 
7.3.5.7.2 EC Budget Request – Briefing 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.6 Operating Budgets Increase Justifications 
 
No comments. 
 
7.3.7 Unfunded Requests 
 
7.3.7.1 Galiano: Targeted OCP Review Project 
 
Funding for this project is not included in the draft budget, as per the 
decision made at the Financial Planning Committee meeting of October 
22, 2025.  
 
Committee discussion included: 
• as a result of the changes to the budget at the meeting, the resulting projected tax 
increase to Bowen Island Municipality is approximately 23.7% and to Local Trust 
Areas is approximately 9.5% 
• the actual expenditures in the current fiscal year in regards to legal expenses are 
much more than what was budgeted for, mostly because of lengthy court cases 
• projecting exact legal costs cannot be easily estimated because of a variety of 
unknowns 
 
FPC-2025-054 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee forward the Draft 2026/27 Budget materials 
as amended to Trust Council for review.  
CARRIED 
 
7.3.8 Budget Consultation Plan - Briefing 
 
It was noted that this agenda item should actually be 7.4, as it’s not part of the 
budget. Director Frater introduced the briefing, indicating that some 
information was not available as a result of the strike action. 
 
8. BUSINESS - OTHER 
 
8.1 Committee of the Whole Meeting Re: Draft 2026/27 Budget - Request for Decision 
 
Committee discussion included that the annual draft Revenue Anticipation Borrowing 
bylaw does not need to go to the Committee of the Whole meeting so it will remain part 
of the scheduled Financial Planning Committee agenda. 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
November 12, 2025 ADOPTED Page 7 of 8 
 
FPC-2025-055 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee recommend that Trust Council schedule an 
electronic Committee of the Whole meeting on February 18, 2026, from 1 p.m. 
to 5 p.m. to review the final draft of the 2026/27 budget prior to Trust Council’s 
budget approval in March, 2026.  
CARRIED 
 
8.2 Property Assessment Notice - Briefing 
 
Director Frater spoke to the Briefing, indicating that the samples in the agenda are from 
last year, and that all numbers and information would be reviewed to ensure currency 
before it is finalized. It was suggested that Committee members can send their 
feedback in regards to the notice directly to Director Frater. 
 
9. BUSINESS – NEW 
 
None. 
 
10. WORK PROGRAM 
  
10.1 Financial Planning Committee Work Program Update – Request For Decision 
 
Director Mobbs noted that two items on the Follow Up Action List likely should be on 
the projects list as they will require substantial work. Those two items are: 
• a report analyzing the value of creating new specific reserve funds 
• recommendations to Trust Council on how to increase application fees. 
 
FPC-2025-056 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee approve the proposed Work Program report as 
presented, and forward it to Trust Council for approval. 
CARRIED 
 
11. NEXT MEETING 
 
Wednesday, January 21, 2026, from 10:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. 
 
12. CLOSED MEETING 
 
None. 
 
13. RISE AND REPORT 
 
None. 
 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
November 12, 2025 ADOPTED Page 8 of 8 
14. ADJOURNMENT 
 
By general consent the Committee adjourned the meeting at 1:44 p.m. 
 
 
 
_________________________ 
Sue Ellen Fast, Chair 
 
Certified Correct: 
 
 
_________________________ 
Robert Barlow, Legislative Services Clerk/Recorder