Islands Trust Financial Planning Committee regular meeting, January 21, 2026

[0:00:00] Voice 15: recording.

[0:00:01] Trustee Fast: Okay, good morning everybody. I'm Sue Ellen Fast. I'm chair of the Financial Planning

[0:00:06] Trustee Fast: Committee for the Islands Trust and we're going to have a meeting today in our wonderful Canadian

[0:00:14] Trustee Fast: participatory democracy that we have here and are lucky to have. So we're a group of elected

[0:00:24] Trustee Fast: trustees from various islands and uh trustees will be um speaking and participating in the

[0:00:31] Trustee Fast: meeting today and uh i'm calling in from nuklelequem which is uh bowen island in the

[0:00:38] Trustee Fast: mouth of howe sound out katsum howe sound in squamish nation territory and uh we um also

[0:00:45] Trustee Fast: as this municipality anyway extends 30 meters out into the water so i'd like to also acknowledge

[0:00:52] Trustee Fast: the stewardship of Tsleil-Waututh Nation over the years.

[0:00:58] Trustee Fast: All islands throughout the territory,

[0:01:01] Trustee Fast: we've got 30 First Nations who are hosting us,

[0:01:06] Trustee Fast: settler types throughout the Islands Trust.

[0:01:09] Trustee Fast: So I'd like to acknowledge the stewardship

[0:01:12] Trustee Fast: from time immemorial.

[0:01:16] Trustee Fast: I'm going to just skip a lot of the introductions.

[0:01:22] Trustee Fast: introductions. We've been working together for a long time. This meeting, and thank you staff for

[0:01:29] Trustee Fast: joining us, all kinds of staff. I see Chair Patrick has joined us. That's great. And I'm going to

[0:01:38] Trustee Fast: suggest that this meeting is a little different. Our last financial planning committee meeting,

[0:01:42] Trustee Fast: we hadn't yet received the operational review that we received from the CAO at Trust Council.

[0:01:51] Trustee Fast: And so the Trust Council meeting followed our last Financial Planning Committee meeting.

[0:01:58] Trustee Fast: And now we're having another Financial Committee meeting considering that new information from the operational review.

[0:02:05] Trustee Fast: And so we have a slightly different agenda in front of us.

[0:02:10] Trustee Fast: The agenda today has that new information.

[0:02:16] Trustee Fast: information and it has at least one late item that I'm hoping we can add and that's the information

[0:02:24] Trustee Fast: from the Islands Trust Conservancy that came in, Conservancy Board that came in last night

[0:02:29] Trustee Fast: and if everybody's okay with that I'd like to put it just at the beginning of number seven

[0:02:35] Trustee Fast: above 7.1 so I guess it would be 7.0 please and that's I'll speak to that when we get there

[0:02:48] Trustee Fast: and then we'll have some uh breaks today at 11 15 at noon and at 2 p.m and i'm going to recognize

[0:02:57] Trustee Fast: uh uh julia mobs who's the chief financial officer over to you julia um

[0:03:05] Voice 3: thanks chair i just wanted to

[0:03:06] Voice 3: let you and the committee know that there is an agenda item that was omitted to attach to the

[0:03:11] Voice 3: agenda that you've been looking at over the last few days it's uh the changes since or budget

[0:03:17] Voice 3: changes since last review briefing uh you'll probably be familiar with that briefing from

[0:03:22] Voice 3: other agendas it didn't attach itself to this one we do have it prepared um i would propose that uh

[0:03:27] Voice 3: you give me an opportunity to speak to that um we'll pull it up on screen i'll also make sure

[0:03:33] Voice 3: i email it out to everybody in the next couple of minutes here um i would suggest that we take

[0:03:38] Voice 3: that item on after the item from the conservancy and it's up

[0:03:43] Voice 3: to the committee if you'd like to

[0:03:44] Voice 3: receive that as a late item as of course it is very late i

[0:03:49] Trustee Fast: thought this agenda looked very similar

[0:03:52] Trustee Fast: okay uh any opposed to julia enter oh yeah please go ahead

[0:03:59] Trustee Fast: trustee getty um

[0:04:00] Trustee Gedye: director mobs is that

[0:04:02] Trustee Gedye: an addition or changed from the brief that we've got on this agenda it

[0:04:10] Voice 3: would be an addition so the

[0:04:12] Voice 3: briefing that's in the agenda talks about the budget overview in total it doesn't specifically

[0:04:17] Voice 3: highlight things that have changed since the last time you looked at it this late item briefing

[0:04:22] Voice 3: specifically highlights the items that have changed perhaps

[0:04:26] Trustee Fast: you could speak to that right

[0:04:27] Trustee Fast: before you go into the regular briefing there at page 617 is that what you're proposing

[0:04:33] Trustee Fast: trustee mobs our story director mobs yes that's correct yeah okay so unless anybody objects we'll

[0:04:42] Trustee Fast: We'll add that item in as well.

[0:04:47] Trustee Fast: Changes since last FPC meeting.

[0:04:53] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[0:04:55] Trustee Fast: All right.

[0:04:56] Trustee Fast: Any other additions or changes to the agenda?

[0:05:02] Trustee Fast: And noting that we've got a closed agenda portion at the end of the regular meeting, at the public meeting.

[0:05:12] Trustee Fast: and just want to let people know if you put things in the chat,

[0:05:19] Trustee Fast: I might not see them and neither will the public.

[0:05:22] Trustee Fast: So if we can try to not use the chat, that would be great.

[0:05:30] Trustee Fast: And with that, I'd like to...

[0:05:35] Trustee Fast: Oh, Trustee Boland.

[0:05:37] Voice 6: Sorry, just one thing.

[0:05:39] Voice 6: uh the recent uh decision to pause on the heritage conservation act and the difficulties with respect

[0:05:49] Voice 6: to the initial adoption of undrip and i actually think that influences how we go forward in terms

[0:05:59] Voice 6: of our first nations reconciliation because we are now being so where would

[0:06:05] Voice 6: you like to put that

[0:06:05] Voice 6: on the agenda? I would like to discuss it during the plans to hire the new Indigenous

[0:06:16] Voice 6: relations manager etc. Okay,

[0:06:18] Trustee Fast: please bring it up then. That would be great. But then, any more

[0:06:24] Trustee Fast: changes, additions to the agenda? Okay, we're seeing none. By consent then, we have adjusted

[0:06:31] Trustee Fast: to the agenda by adding 7.0 which is yana's trust conservancy uh email from last night after their

[0:06:39] Trustee Fast: recent meeting and we're um director mobs is going to add a section which i think she's just

[0:06:46] Trustee Fast: emailed to us as well uh changes since the last meeting at the beginning of 7.1.1 and um at least

[0:06:55] Trustee Fast: for our agenda today. And then any more? Hearing none, then by consent, we've reviewed the agenda

[0:07:05] Trustee Fast: and we're approving it, right? I'm putting a checkmark beside approval of agenda. Seeing no

[0:07:11] Trustee Fast: hands flying up. Thank you, trustees. And then public comment period. Do we have anybody here

[0:07:18] Trustee Fast: for public comment?

[0:07:19] Voice 15: There is only one person, Chair, and that's Maxine Leichter. And she is

[0:07:25] Voice 15: here as a delegate for the Friends of the Gulf Islands Society.

[0:07:29] Trustee Fast: Right. Okay, thank you. So we'll skip the public comment period and go straight to the delegations.

[0:07:37] Trustee Fast: Welcome, Maxine, if you can hear us. And you have a few minutes here to present your

[0:07:46] Trustee Fast: information. Please go ahead. Can you hear me?

[0:07:49] Voice 16: Yes. Okay. So I'll speak in my own words.

[0:07:55] Voice 16: to the letter that was submitted.

[0:07:57] Voice 16: This is a plea for physical discipline from this committee.

[0:08:03] Voice 16: We feel the trust just cannot go on adding staff year after year,

[0:08:09] Voice 16: especially when we see no increase in actual protection of the trust area

[0:08:16] Voice 16: as the Trust Act requires.

[0:08:20] Voice 16: If you disagree with that, perhaps we could see some kind of a report

[0:08:24] Voice 16: on what kind of protection has taken place.

[0:08:28] Voice 16: But what you're being asked to do,

[0:08:30] Voice 16: it appears to us to backstop a number of positions

[0:08:33] Voice 16: since the trust can't hang on to their staff,

[0:08:37] Voice 16: there needs to be a second person to take over.

[0:08:40] Voice 16: And we just can't support this proposal

[0:08:44] Voice 16: or the continually adding more staff.

[0:08:48] Voice 16: And there was a few specific suggestions we had.

[0:08:51] Voice 16: Number one, the business cases do not reflect the actual cost of the projects.

[0:08:57] Voice 16: They are a minuscule portion of the actual cost because the staff costs are omitted.

[0:09:04] Voice 16: And if the trust is to do its job and, you know, oversee a budget, they have to have the full costs of the projects they're approving.

[0:09:13] Voice 16: Um, uh, my next point is, um, as a suggestion, the staff could say how many projects they can do

[0:09:25] Voice 16: under the current budget. And then the trustees could vote on what's the most important part.

[0:09:32] Voice 16: We don't have a suggestion as to what are most important, although we do, we would like to see

[0:09:40] Voice 16: a full-time biologist. And that's one item that's been cut completely from the budget.

[0:09:46] Voice 16: And we also suggest really looking carefully at the Water Sustainability Project. This has cost

[0:09:53] Voice 16: hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I know it's hard to abandon something that so much money has

[0:09:59] Voice 16: gone into. But sometimes it's better to cut your losses before there are more. And we know that one

[0:10:05] Voice 16: One of the committees has asked for a review of this, but they didn't tell the reviewer what their goal was.

[0:10:11] Voice 16: How was the reviewer supposed to evaluate the success of a project if they don't know what the goal of the project is?

[0:10:19] Voice 16: So we really feel that public trust and the idols trust is being threatened by this continually adding more staff

[0:10:28] Voice 16: and increasing the budget without a concurrent showing

[0:10:34] Voice 16: of how the trust is being better protected.

[0:10:37] Voice 16: So I'm really sorry to be so negative,

[0:10:43] Voice 16: but it's this committee's responsibility to oversee the budget,

[0:10:46] Voice 16: and we just want you to know that we really would be behind you

[0:10:50] Voice 16: if you could cut some of these items

[0:10:53] Voice 16: and not have such a big increase in the budget.

[0:10:58] Voice 16: Yeah, we know that, you know, the cost of living goes up and staff salaries go up because of the union contracts.

[0:11:05] Voice 16: We know that some of those things can't be avoided, but we just can't be adding so many staff year after year.

[0:11:11] Voice 16: So that's the conclusion of what I have to say.

[0:11:16] Voice 16: Thank you so much for letting me speak today.

[0:11:19] Voice 16: Thank you, Maxine Leichter.

[0:11:22] Trustee Fast: I appreciate your letter and the participation that you and your friends of the Gulf Island Society contribute.

[0:11:35] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:11:40] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[0:11:41] Trustee Fast: And then we've got anybody want to speak to the correspondence from Brian Milne, or shall we receive it?

[0:11:51] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[0:11:52] Trustee Fast: Okay, then by consent, let's receive the letter from, oh, I see Ruben, CAO, Bronnie.

[0:12:00] Voice 2: Thank you, Chair, and sorry, but if you'll just indulge me, I just want to note that in hindsight, I probably would have, well, I respect Mr. Milne's right to correspond with the committee.

[0:12:12] Voice 2: In hindsight, I probably would have recommended that this not be included in the public agenda, given some of the language that's in there that is directed at the performance of staff.

[0:12:20] Voice 2: um so um obviously it's in the agenda and and that that sort of ship has sailed but in future

[0:12:27] Voice 2: that's something that um i think we'll be a little more diligent about thank you thank

[0:12:32] Trustee Fast: you ceo we do

[0:12:32] Trustee Fast: have an opportunity to not receive this letter because of the kinds of uh um unsafe work

[0:12:40] Trustee Fast: environment kind of feeling that it uh gives um and so i saw toby's hand up first trustee elliott

[0:12:50] Voice 9: Yeah, I just wanted to ask, is it staff's job to include and vet correspondence? Or is that the chair's role? And how can we manage it better? Because I was concerned when I saw this as well. And I know there's a history of with this particular correspondent, making spurious allegations.

[0:13:08] Voice 9: So, I

[0:13:13] Trustee Fast: don't, I did, I don't see a draft or approve a draft agenda. And I believe from some of the text that I saw on there about censored version, that it may have, there may have been attempts to adjust the letter.

[0:13:35] Trustee Fast: letter um but i'm um i don't know if we need to make a big deal of it here so i'll just uh flag

[0:13:43] Trustee Fast: trustee yates thank

[0:13:46] Voice 18: you um it was my inclination to not receive this letter um it's distressingly

[0:13:55] Voice 18: inaccurate and um yeah it's not the kind of correspondence that can help us in any way

[0:14:03] Voice 18: with our work thank

[0:14:06] Trustee Fast: you trustee yates is that a motion i hear no motions

[0:14:11] Trustee Fast: go ahead trustee getty

[0:14:12] Trustee Fast: well

[0:14:14] Trustee Gedye: sorry staff have um oh

[0:14:16] Trustee Fast: yes sorry david marler yeah

[0:14:20] Voice 1: i just wanted to comment um this was

[0:14:23] Voice 1: originally a different language and staff do have responsibility to go back to the

[0:14:30] Voice 1: individual and advise them of defamatory language and that we will not forward the agenda

[0:14:35] Voice 1: and asked him to make changes to remove allegations against staff and individual

[0:14:42] Voice 1: staff and trustees so this came back and this bottom line I think the it doesn't

[0:14:49] Voice 1: specify individual staff so it's kind of like well put it on the agenda and let

[0:14:59] Voice 1: you decide how you want to handle it but yeah we did certainly take a look at it

[0:15:03] Voice 1: before it came onto the agenda.

[0:15:04] Voice 1: Thanks.

[0:15:05] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:15:06] Trustee Fast: Trustee Getty.

[0:15:08] Trustee Gedye: Well, these parties are in the middle of a dispute

[0:15:12] Trustee Gedye: and it's been going on a long time.

[0:15:14] Trustee Gedye: We get a lot of correspondence as trustees

[0:15:17] Trustee Gedye: and I think that, yeah, the process should be

[0:15:23] Trustee Gedye: and has been, obviously from what Director Marler has said,

[0:15:26] Trustee Gedye: to send it back and say, you know,

[0:15:28] Trustee Gedye: tone it down so that it's not offensive

[0:15:30] Trustee Gedye: and take some of the verbs out

[0:15:32] Trustee Gedye: and clean up the language.

[0:15:34] Trustee Gedye: It's an adversarial system that we're in.

[0:15:36] Trustee Gedye: So, you know, he's got a very strong opinion, obviously.

[0:15:40] Trustee Gedye: But I think that in terms of it being a public-facing document,

[0:15:43] Trustee Gedye: that it's still a little bit too disrespectful and strident.

[0:15:47] Trustee Gedye: And I think that it's important that we not accept this.

[0:15:52] Trustee Gedye: If he's been given an opportunity to tone it down already,

[0:15:54] Trustee Gedye: and this is what we've come up with,

[0:15:56] Trustee Gedye: I think it's still problematic and that, you know,

[0:16:01] Trustee Gedye: know, we shouldn't be supporting this kind of way of corresponding and communicating.

[0:16:09] Trustee Gedye: So I would not receive it for information.

[0:16:12] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:16:13] Trustee Fast: And I'll note, I have not received anybody's motion to receive it.

[0:16:22] Trustee Gedye: Okay.

[0:16:22] Trustee Gedye: I'm left wondering what we need to do then, if it's not a motion to receive, it's just

[0:16:27] Trustee Gedye: leave it?

[0:16:28] Trustee Fast: I think we just leave it.

[0:16:30] Trustee Fast: Perhaps that's a question for David Marler.

[0:16:33] Voice 1: Yeah, it's an interesting question because it being on your agenda, it's automatically assumed that you've received it.

[0:16:39] Voice 1: So if you want to make a statement about it, you'd have to do it by resolution.

[0:16:43] Voice 1: Otherwise, you can just leave it. It's up to you how you want to handle that.

[0:16:48] Trustee Gedye: I would make a motion that the correspondence be returned to Brian Milne in further attempts to tone down some of the potentially offensive rhetoric.

[0:17:01] Trustee Gedye: if he wants to make a point that's fine but how he makes it is important so the motion is to return

[0:17:08] Trustee Gedye: the letter to the correspondent thank

[0:17:11] Trustee Fast: you anybody would like to second that motion trustee yates

[0:17:18] Trustee Fast: seconding thank you any more discussion okay i'll call the question all those in favor of returning

[0:17:28] Trustee Fast: the letter please raise your digital hand i can do that thank you i

[0:17:37] Voice 1: see six hands thank you

[0:17:41] Trustee Fast: and lower your hands please any opposed trustee Boland is opposed that motion carries thank you

[0:17:53] Trustee Fast: very much trustees okay we're moving on now to the draft minutes from the last meeting anybody

[0:18:06] Trustee Fast: got any changes they would like to make to the draft minutes oops seeing none then by consent

[0:18:18] Trustee Fast: consent I'm trying to give everybody enough time here we're starting on page nine and going to 15

[0:18:28] Trustee Fast: no hands going up okay by consent then are we um approving the minutes from the previous meeting

[0:18:37] Trustee Fast: uh trustee Getty yes

[0:18:40] Voice 10: thank

[0:18:42] Trustee Fast: you okay just checking I've I have a note on my previous

[0:18:45] Trustee Fast: agenda to leave more time and don't be afraid of dead air this isn't it's a meeting okay thank you

[0:18:52] Trustee Fast: so by consent then we're approving the minutes 6.1.1 we're moving on now to follow-up action

[0:19:01] Trustee Fast: list if anybody wants to look at that page 16 a couple of completeds on there any questions for

[0:19:09] Trustee Fast: staff moving on to 7.0 this is the information from the islands trust conservancy and for those

[0:19:20] Trustee Fast: Those who haven't seen this yet,

[0:19:23] Trustee Fast: it looks like they looked at the opportunity fund guidelines back in

[0:19:27] Trustee Fast: December and now they're checking about their policy relating to other

[0:19:32] Trustee Fast: undirected donations. Would that be correct?

[0:19:35] Trustee Fast: Is there anybody who would like to speak to this?

[0:19:44] Trustee Fast: Director Frater,

[0:19:45] Trustee Fast: would you like to give more detail or present this in some way?

[0:19:49] Voice 4: Certainly I can introduce it simply by saying that the board had a

[0:19:52] Voice 4: discussion yesterday around the potential use of the property management fund but didn't have they

[0:19:58] Voice 4: felt they didn't have sufficient information around the guidelines around the use of the fund

[0:20:02] Voice 4: and they've asked staff to bring back some options to their next meeting which will be a special

[0:20:06] Voice 4: meeting in the next few next week or two i expect um so i expect they'll be continuing the conversation

[0:20:12] Voice 4: at that meeting thank

[0:20:14] Trustee Fast: you it's a respectful letter that um is trying to answer uh the concerns of

[0:20:20] Trustee Fast: financial planning committee and the um uh and trust council obviously and so they're working on

[0:20:26] Trustee Fast: it fast trustee boland thank

[0:20:32] Voice 6: you so am i to take from this letter that this is an attempt to reduce

[0:20:40] Voice 6: the budget request and that if it's impossible to allocate funds uh that they will actually reduce

[0:20:49] Voice 6: the budget request because what I witness over the last few years is that the ITC consistently

[0:20:59] Voice 6: resists any attempt to follow the trust in general and making an effort to reduce the budget

[0:21:05] Voice 6: and their budget request this year before administrative costs are added in has gone

[0:21:12] Voice 6: from a million to 1.4 million so it's gone up 40 percent and it seems as though if I read through

[0:21:21] Voice 6: this um I would like to believe that it's you know and if you were having a special meeting because

[0:21:28] Voice 6: we would like to see if we can reduce that ask so um then I would say if you can't allocate

[0:21:37] Voice 6: allocate any of your donation, will you reduce the budget in some way? And I would also ask,

[0:21:45] Voice 6: what does Trust Council, what do we need to provide to the Islands Trust Conservancy

[0:21:49] Voice 6: in order to have them understand that a 40% increase in the current economic climate is

[0:21:57] Voice 6: just not acceptable, I believe. Thank

[0:22:00] Trustee Fast: you, Trustee Bowman. Let's see. I know you may have

[0:22:03] Trustee Fast: have more questions but I'd like to pause there and see if anybody can answer some of the questions

[0:22:09] Trustee Fast: or the points that you've raised. Trustee Elliott I believe you're on that board is this something

[0:22:14] Trustee Fast: that you wish to respond to Trustee Boland or please go ahead.

[0:22:19] Voice 9: Just in general supporting the

[0:22:22] Voice 9: director's comments we did not really have time to go deeply into the budget there's there is a

[0:22:29] Voice 9: significant increase which I have to say it was the board's decision to I think it was back in

[0:22:40] Voice 9: remind me I can't remember the conservancy meeting but to increase or to have the capacity

[0:22:46] Voice 9: funding set at a level that we thought was respectful with the work that we're doing with

[0:22:53] Voice 9: the five-year plan. I understand from the director we may have an indication by somewhere around

[0:23:02] Voice 9: March and perhaps Director Frater can clarify because the letters have already gone out and

[0:23:09] Voice 9: we're asking for a commitment of engagement from First Nations that we're wanting to

[0:23:16] Voice 9: to consult with on the five-year plan as to what level of capacity funding would be needed.

[0:23:24] Voice 9: And so I think we'll have a better idea of the actual numbers by the time March Trust Council

[0:23:30] Voice 9: comes around. So this $110,000 is, it's really the reason for the biggest jump in the budget

[0:23:37] Voice 9: request. I'm not sure it will all be needed. Staff's original recommendation was, I think,

[0:23:44] Voice 9: $50,000. So somewhere in there is probably the range of what's going to be needed. But FPC could

[0:23:51] Voice 9: certainly make a recommendation that ITC look at its budget requests and reduce it by X amount.

[0:24:00] Voice 9: They can take that information, work with it, but ultimately it's Trust Council's decision

[0:24:06] Voice 9: what funds will be going to the Conservancy. We had a tough discussion yesterday. The board

[0:24:12] Voice 9: didn't feel that it could make any reductions at this time but as the director said there's

[0:24:15] Voice 9: going to be we're going to be looking at policy options for potentially using some of the property

[0:24:20] Voice 9: management um donated funds or other um donations that have come in um to offset operating costs

[0:24:28] Voice 9: so we're doing that work as much as we can thank you trustee elliott uh director freighter

[0:24:34] Voice 4: um thank

[0:24:35] Voice 4: you i just wanted to draw your attention to page two of this briefing which sets out the budget

[0:24:39] Voice 4: it, particularly that the increased budget at this time is sitting at 10.9%. There is a larger

[0:24:45] Voice 4: percent impact to Trust Council's budget due to the loss of the species at risk funding from

[0:24:51] Voice 4: Environment and Climate Change Canada, or sorry, it must be page three. It's a table. And if you

[0:24:55] Voice 4: scroll to the bottom of the table, you can see there we've noted the percent increases 10.9%.

[0:25:01] Voice 4: There is a larger impact to Council's budget due to loss of the grant. This is the challenge with

[0:25:06] Voice 4: grants. You've benefited for six years having core costs covered by another agency. So there

[0:25:12] Voice 4: is a challenge in accepting grants in that you then have to then boost your budget to make up

[0:25:17] Voice 4: for not having had that supplementary income. And so that's a decision to look at. If these bumps

[0:25:22] Voice 4: are too tricky when you lose the grant funding, that would then result in more cuts to core

[0:25:26] Voice 4: operations. That's going to be a philosophical conversation to have around accepting of grant

[0:25:30] Voice 4: funding i would think or i recommend um and finally yes the board is going to be meeting again

[0:25:36] Voice 4: and any decisions around that are entirely of the board so staff won't comment thank you thank you

[0:25:44] Trustee Fast: very

[0:25:44] Voice 4: much and

[0:25:46] Trustee Fast: uh i'm going to um uh i see your hand up again trustee boland i'm just wondering

[0:25:52] Trustee Fast: if it's particularly about this letter or if it's a more general request whether it would be better

[0:25:59] Trustee Fast: to speak to it at 7.1.3.3 which is islands trust conservancy board projects the five-year plan and

[0:26:06] Trustee Fast: the protected area software management uh or something or else

[0:26:12] Voice 6: actually a specific response

[0:26:14] Voice 6: to this is a question

[0:26:16] Voice 6: is it a question or no it's not a question but it's a response to the ten

[0:26:20] Voice 6: percent the ten percent uh takes into account the grant funding grant funding is supposed to be for

[0:26:27] Voice 6: a project and matched by the irons trust and i know there were discussions as to how to manage

[0:26:33] Voice 6: the budget when the grant funding ran out the grant funding isn't to prop up general operations

[0:26:39] Voice 6: ever it's usually to address a project and the qua and usually the requests are made on that basis

[0:26:47] Voice 6: so i find it absolutely unconscionable that it should be included in the calculations

[0:26:54] Voice 6: when the increase is discussed

[0:26:59] Voice 6: because the true increase is the draw on taxes

[0:27:02] Voice 6: and that goes from 1 million to 1.4 million.

[0:27:06] Voice 6: So I'll leave it at that.

[0:27:07] Voice 6: Thank you.

[0:27:09] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Boland.

[0:27:10] Voice 7: All right.

[0:27:12] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[0:27:13] Trustee Fast: So can I have a motion to receive the correspondence

[0:27:18] Trustee Fast: from the Islands Trust Conservancy Board?

[0:27:23] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Yates.

[0:27:25] Trustee Fast: Can I have a seconder?

[0:27:26] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Getty. All those in favor, please raise your digital hand. Thank you. And please lower your hands. Anyone opposed? Opposed to receiving the correspondence from the board? Trustee Boland? Thank you.

[0:27:52] Trustee Fast: Okay, moving on. Now we're getting into the budget overview. So here is where the materials that Director Mobs was referring to. Sorry, I can't see them at the moment. I'm looking all over.

[0:28:12] Trustee Fast: um uh trust uh director mobs please um introduce the the material that you were speaking about and

[0:28:19] Trustee Fast: then um uh perhaps we can go into the overview or we'll see if there's questions thank you whoops

[0:28:25] Trustee Fast: sorry my hand is up go ahead um

[0:28:28] Voice 3: thanks chair and my apologies to the committee that this

[0:28:30] Voice 3: briefing was missed um i'll go through it um line by line acknowledging that you haven't had a chance

[0:28:36] Voice 3: to really dig deep into it and i'm very happy to respond to questions um throughout or at the end

[0:28:42] Voice 3: whatever is your preference. So we do like to present this briefing separately just to

[0:28:48] Voice 3: help trustees and the public understand the changes that have happened between budget

[0:28:53] Voice 3: versions. It can be a little bit difficult to tease that out yourself when you're just

[0:28:56] Voice 3: looking at the budget overview document, and so that's why we bring this here.

[0:29:02] Voice 3: We start with a summary of the changes. So on planned spending, we've seen planned spending

[0:29:08] Voice 3: increased from $11.7 million to $11.9 million. And we'll talk about what's driving some of those

[0:29:15] Voice 3: changes as we move through the report. We've also seen our external revenues change. So external

[0:29:21] Voice 3: revenues have increased by about $290,000. And that's because we have to increase taxation

[0:29:26] Voice 3: in order to pay for the increase in planned spending. And so we've seen an increase there.

[0:29:31] Voice 3: We also have a very small increase to our investment income estimates. We've updated

[0:29:36] Voice 3: those and we see a $5,000 change on that side. Our local trust area general tax increase has

[0:29:43] Voice 3: shifted upwards to 13.9% and we've seen a same shift upwards in the Bowen Island general tax

[0:29:50] Voice 3: levy up to 31.1%. When we look at the shortfall and associated surplus and reserve draws,

[0:29:58] Voice 3: We've seen the budget shortfall.

[0:30:00] Voice 3: all decreased by $55,000. And that's due entirely to the fact that we've removed two projects that

[0:30:06] Voice 3: were formerly proposed to be funded by the special tax requisition. And so we also see $55,000 draw

[0:30:13] Voice 3: from the special property tax requisition reserve fund also being removed from the budget. And we

[0:30:18] Voice 3: have no change in the amounts that are being drawn from general surplus. So there's still no funds

[0:30:23] Voice 3: coming out of the surplus funds. And we have the same amount of $125,000 draw from the LTC

[0:30:29] Voice 3: see reserve funds. And in relation to draws from surplus and reserve, we will be updating those

[0:30:36] Voice 3: figures at the next meeting. So we are in the process of developing our third quarter forecast.

[0:30:41] Voice 3: And that forecast is really instrumental in helping us understand how operations might

[0:30:47] Voice 3: shape up in the current year, which will help us understand if we might have some money to use

[0:30:52] Voice 3: next year. So stay tuned for that. Moving into the detail and looking at changes in plan spending,

[0:31:00] Voice 3: We've had a small change, $109,000 change to amortization.

[0:31:05] Voice 3: It has no impact to our overall budget

[0:31:07] Voice 3: as it's a non-cash item that we don't tax for.

[0:31:10] Voice 3: We've seen a $10,000 jump in software support and licensing

[0:31:14] Voice 3: and that's due to the addition of costs

[0:31:16] Voice 3: for our Microsoft Exchange licensing

[0:31:18] Voice 3: which is a very important operational license

[0:31:20] Voice 3: we use at the Islands Trust.

[0:31:22] Voice 3: We've also seen $16,000 increase in internet

[0:31:27] Voice 3: and connectivity costs.

[0:31:28] Voice 3: And this is a cost that's being handed to us

[0:31:30] Voice 3: by the province. So we do have a connectivity to some of the provincial internal systems and they

[0:31:36] Voice 3: are increasing security related to those systems and that comes at a cost and they are passing that

[0:31:41] Voice 3: cost. We've added a new budget line for the purchase of ortho photos. So our budgets have

[0:31:49] Voice 3: historically included $25,000 to fund the purchase of ortho photos. The amount has been varied in the

[0:31:54] Voice 3: technical support budget line which doesn't really make a lot of sense and we think it makes more

[0:31:59] Voice 3: sense to have some visibility around that, so we've made it its own budget line. It's not actually a

[0:32:03] Voice 3: true increase in dollars, but we wanted to highlight it. The Council gave direction around

[0:32:09] Voice 3: their meetings for next year. They've directed to have four of their business meetings held in

[0:32:12] Voice 3: person, and so that's increased meeting expense by $67,500. A very small change, $800 to office

[0:32:20] Voice 3: lease costs, simply an updated calculation based on new information from property owners. We've

[0:32:26] Voice 3: We've seen some changes to staff salaries and benefits as well.

[0:32:30] Voice 3: I'll walk through those sort of group by group.

[0:32:33] Voice 3: In the Executive, Ledge and Information Services and Financial and Employee Services, we've

[0:32:38] Voice 3: seen that group of employees decrease by about $23,000.

[0:32:42] Voice 3: That's due to Trust Council's direction to remove the requested GIS analyst position.

[0:32:48] Voice 3: We've also made some changes to include cost to backfill staff leave, and we've updated

[0:32:54] Voice 3: for some information coming out of the new BCGEU collective agreement.

[0:33:00] Voice 3: For Trust Area Services and the Islands Trust Conservancy, we've seen this grouping of

[0:33:04] Voice 3: salaries increase by $203,000, and that's primarily due to Trust Council's direction

[0:33:12] Voice 3: to add a manager of Indigenous relations as well as a communications and engagement lead

[0:33:17] Voice 3: position.

[0:33:19] Voice 3: Director of Planning Services and Specialists has decreased by about $110,000 due to the

[0:33:24] Voice 3: removal of a registered biologist position and again that's also as a result of the direction

[0:33:29] Voice 3: from Trust Council in December. There's been some very small changes to the remaining staff

[0:33:35] Voice 3: groupings mainly due to some updates and information that we have out of the new

[0:33:40] Voice 3: collective agreement. Trustee remuneration and trustee health and dental benefits have changed

[0:33:46] Voice 3: very slightly so we've updated the number of folios for local trust area and we've also

[0:33:52] Voice 3: updated our health and dental premiums based on what we're seeing in our renewal of rates.

[0:33:58] Voice 3: We've already talked a bit about the results of the Conservancy conversation, so nothing to

[0:34:04] Voice 3: add to that piece. When we look at projects, we have seen an increase in project spending of $65,000.

[0:34:14] Voice 3: Trust Council gave direction to remove funding for all optional Trust Council programs,

[0:34:19] Voice 3: So those are listed on page three of this report, which of course is not in your agenda.

[0:34:25] Voice 3: So all of the optional programs that Trust Council normally funds, the funding for those

[0:34:30] Voice 3: will be removed in this version of the budget.

[0:34:33] Voice 3: We have seen the Trust Council strategic plan project amounts change as well.

[0:34:38] Voice 3: So primarily the reconciliation program has increased by $100,000, and that's due to the

[0:34:42] Voice 3: capacity funding that was added by Trust Council at their December meeting.

[0:34:47] Voice 3: And we've seen a $10,000 reduction to the freshwater sustainability strategy, also at

[0:34:53] Voice 3: the direction of Trust Council at the December meeting.

[0:34:57] Voice 3: We do have some changes to LTC projects.

[0:35:00] Voice 3: So as I mentioned before, we've removed the $55,000 funding that was to pay for SWPA coordination

[0:35:07] Voice 3: work next year.

[0:35:08] Voice 3: And we've seen an increase in the Salt Spring Island LTC project of $79,500.

[0:35:14] Voice 3: And I believe that that project is under review with the LPC one more time, and we might see

[0:35:21] Voice 3: a change in that budget request coming forward in the next budget version.

[0:35:26] Voice 3: So as I mentioned, we've seen some changes in the taxation for local trust areas in Bowen

[0:35:33] Voice 3: as a result of these changes.

[0:35:35] Voice 3: Just to recap, local trust area general tax increase is sitting at 13.9%, and the Bowen

[0:35:41] Voice 3: Island general tax levy increase is at 31.1 percent and I'm happy to take some questions

[0:35:50] Voice 3: if there are any what I've reported here today.

[0:35:54] Trustee Fast: I have a quick one Julia just on that last point

[0:35:57] Trustee Fast: you said 31.7 percent but on the page there it says 32.5. So

[0:36:10] Voice 3: the the total levy over last year

[0:36:13] Voice 3: has increased by 32.5 percent a portion of that will be collected on non-market change factors

[0:36:20] Voice 3: so 1.4 percent of that is coming from new properties changes in land value things like that

[0:36:24] Voice 3: so the general increase is 31.1 okay

[0:36:29] Trustee Fast: thank you very much for clarifying um questions for the

[0:36:33] Trustee Fast: the director? Okay. Well, what I propose is, like last year, that we ask Director Mobs to

[0:36:47] Trustee Fast: lead the budget overview, which follows now. And then I'll be asking for ideas. We'll make a list

[0:36:57] Trustee Fast: of ideas and go through and propose them, and a list of draft motions and that kind of thing. So

[0:37:07] Trustee Fast: and be ready to speak to them when I come to you for a list of ideas that seemed to work well last

[0:37:14] Trustee Fast: year at this time. So I thought we'd try that again. And please go ahead, Director Mobs.

[0:37:20] Voice 3: Thank you, Chair. So we are on page 17 of our agenda now. This is a report you're all familiar

[0:37:26] Voice 3: with the format of. It retains the same format as we've seen previously. It's simply been updated

[0:37:32] Voice 3: to reflect the changes in the budget that we've just walked through. So one thing I'll highlight,

[0:37:38] Voice 3: like the table at the beginning of this briefing always just gives a very high level summary of

[0:37:42] Voice 3: the activities taken place to date. There is a mention there about the Conservancy meeting that

[0:37:47] Voice 3: took place yesterday. So you're now up to speed on what what happened there. Regional Planning

[0:37:52] Voice 3: Committee had a number of outstanding budget tasks that needed to be completed. And I understand

[0:37:57] Voice 3: they've completed those tasks at a meeting last week or the week before. So I'd look to Director

[0:38:03] Voice 3: to give us a summary of the results of that meeting.

[0:38:11] Trustee Fast: Please go ahead, Director Cermak, if you're ready to report on the changes or the tasks that RPC has done related to the budget.

[0:38:21] Voice 17: Sure. Thank you, Chair.

[0:38:23] Voice 17: The summary is that the RPC made no resolutions of change in regards they reviewed the feasibility assessment report as well as the LTC, various LTC business cases.

[0:38:33] Voice 17: They had some questions about the Liskiti LTC business case, which has already been brought up today, but the summary is that they made no resolutions that will affect today's agenda.

[0:38:42] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. Okay. Back to you, Director Mobs.

[0:38:50] Voice 3: Okay. So as I mentioned, the overview report really just highlights or includes the changes that we just walked through.

[0:38:59] Voice 3: So I don't know that there's much need for me to actually walk through this report in its entirety.

[0:39:03] Voice 3: this will be the fourth time that this group has seen this report now. I will just highlight some

[0:39:10] Voice 3: of the changes that I made to the preamble section. And so, we wanted to make clear that

[0:39:19] Voice 3: the high tax increase that we're experiencing is in large part due to lost revenue streams.

[0:39:24] Voice 3: I'm not sure how clear that is for everybody and perhaps for members of the public.

[0:39:29] Voice 3: so we did take time to break down um the tax increase into the various pieces and so what

[0:39:37] Voice 3: we see there is the 13.9 percent general local trust area taxation almost half of that or more

[0:39:43] Voice 3: than half of that 7.1 percent is actually due to lost revenue streams next year so that's our lost

[0:39:48] Voice 3: grants um some of our lost investment income and lost jobs from surplus and reserve so even if we

[0:39:54] Voice 3: had zero change in spending next year, spending was at the exact same level, we would be experiencing

[0:40:00] Voice 3: a 7.1% tax increase. 3.7% of the tax increase is due to non-discretionary costs, such as elections,

[0:40:08] Voice 3: as well as changes to base staff wages. And then 3.1% is due to more discretionary spending and

[0:40:16] Voice 3: inflationary factors. So when you add up that 7.1% plus 3.7% plus 3.1%, you get your 13.9%

[0:40:24] Voice 3: local trust area taxation. And of course, that same principle applies to the Bowen Island

[0:40:30] Voice 3: levy. So a good portion of the increase to the Bowen Island levy is also due to lost revenue

[0:40:36] Voice 3: streams. So 14.5% of their increase is due to lost revenue streams, and the remaining percentage due

[0:40:45] Voice 3: to changes in planned spending. And the Bowen Island levy is quite nuanced. So they may see

[0:40:53] Voice 3: be a disproportionate increase as a result of where increases in spending are happening.

[0:41:00] Voice 3: So this year, we're actually seeing year over year, the budget for planning services is being

[0:41:05] Voice 3: reduced, while the budget for trust council services and Islands Trust Conservancy services

[0:41:10] Voice 3: is increasing. And so those are the two budget areas that Bowen Island Municipality contributes

[0:41:15] Voice 3: to. And so they are feeling the impact of that spending, whereas local trust areas are receiving

[0:41:21] Voice 3: seeing a bit of a break and a benefit from the fact that local planning services budget is

[0:41:25] Voice 3: actually being reduced um so i see trustee peterson's hand up chair would you like me to

[0:41:30] Voice 3: pause yes

[0:41:31] Trustee Fast: thank you i was just going to say um why don't we take trustee peterson's question

[0:41:35] Trustee Fast: go ahead trustee peterson uh

[0:41:37] Voice 12: thank you chair less of a question than a comment i think director

[0:41:41] Voice 12: mobs just laid out very clearly um the uh the seven percent the three point that information

[0:41:49] Voice 12: I think would be really good to have it a forum that trustees can access and

[0:41:58] Voice 12: share when we start having these conversations about the budget in in our

[0:42:04] Voice 12: communities I know the the draft that came out of December Trust Council's

[0:42:10] Voice 12: already generated some conversation there but there's some some really good

[0:42:15] Voice 12: hard information there that i think it would be really useful for um all of us to kind of have

[0:42:22] Voice 12: easy access to um because some of those numbers are are are pretty stark that that the bits that

[0:42:30] Voice 12: we really can't it sounds like we've got around three three and a half percent wiggle room um in

[0:42:35] Voice 12: total out of this proposed increase and so um i i don't know how we can sort of you just laid it

[0:42:44] Voice 12: out really simply there um it'd be great to have that you know written out so we can re-access that

[0:42:51] Voice 12: later thank you well

[0:42:53] Trustee Fast: thank you trustee peterson and if you wanted to make a motion about um uh

[0:42:58] Trustee Fast: having some kind of uh public information pulled out of the document because i i have to say for

[0:43:05] Trustee Fast: i think for many public people um a big budget document is difficult to find your way around in

[0:43:13] Trustee Fast: and uh the preamble here uh is very useful so please consider making a motion about that

[0:43:19] Trustee Fast: okay hands i see trustee uh bowen did you have a question at this point or should we let the

[0:43:24] Trustee Fast: director finish

[0:43:25] Voice 6: it's just a question uh so when you talk about the reduction in the um

[0:43:33] Voice 6: planning services element is it worth discussing the reason for that and the reason for that i

[0:43:41] Voice 6: I think, is because we have staff vacancies.

[0:43:45] Voice 6: So in another year, so it's purely, it's simply down to lack of resources.

[0:43:53] Voice 6: In another year, that would not necessarily happen.

[0:43:58] Voice 6: So it's kind of an artificial reduction.

[0:44:01] Voice 6: And the second thing I would like to ask is,

[0:44:05] Voice 6: is it not normal to anticipate a loss of income

[0:44:09] Voice 6: and to actually budget less accordingly

[0:44:14] Voice 6: rather than just accept that there's a loss of income,

[0:44:18] Voice 6: oh dear, but we'll carry on regardless.

[0:44:21] Voice 6: Thank you.

[0:44:22] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:44:22] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:44:23] Trustee Fast: And Director Mobs.

[0:44:27] Voice 3: So just in response to the first part of that,

[0:44:29] Voice 3: speaking to what might be an artificial reduction

[0:44:32] Voice 3: in planning services,

[0:44:34] Voice 3: the methodology for our budgeting year over year

[0:44:37] Voice 3: hasn't changed in terms of how we deal with vacancies.

[0:44:41] Voice 3: So we always plan for a full complement of staff and then have a percentage reduction, what we call term, for vacancies.

[0:44:48] Voice 3: And so that methodology was applied last year.

[0:44:51] Voice 3: The same methodology is applied this year.

[0:44:53] Voice 3: And so it really is a true reduction when we're looking at budget year over year.

[0:44:58] Voice 3: I think the reduction that we see is mainly driven by changes in project spending.

[0:45:04] Voice 3: I would have to do a little bit of analysis to really pull out what's driving that change.

[0:45:09] Voice 3: of course we also you know have now removed one of the staffing positions that was allocated to

[0:45:16] Voice 3: planning they registered professional biologists so that has an impact as well but I would say that

[0:45:22] Voice 3: it's not really artificial it really is a true reduction when we're looking budget year over

[0:45:27] Voice 3: budget year does that make sense trustee Bowman

[0:45:32] Voice 6: yes except that in previous years although we

[0:45:36] Voice 6: did a resource analysis we didn't apply it as rigorously as this year because of the operational

[0:45:42] Voice 6: report we were forced to look at ourselves in the mirror and you know agree to some you know

[0:45:49] Voice 6: no new projects etc a realistic review of the resources that were truly available so yes and

[0:45:57] Voice 6: no is my answer but thank you yeah

[0:45:59] Voice 3: and i

[0:46:00] Voice 7: think you know that review

[0:46:01] Voice 3: has yeah that review um you

[0:46:04] Voice 3: you know, it's a good point just to go on that review has been a part of why we see a reduction

[0:46:08] Voice 3: in that area, right? But the reduction is real. The second part of the question around sort of

[0:46:16] Voice 3: anticipating lost revenue streams and planning for them. So you might recall that year over year,

[0:46:22] Voice 3: I usually stand before Trust Council and usually with this group too and talk about the use of our

[0:46:28] Voice 3: surplus funds to offset taxation in our budgets and the acknowledgement that at some point that

[0:46:35] Voice 3: may run dry and we will see a tax increase at that point so that's what we're seeing here

[0:46:41] Voice 3: you know so it has been acknowledged in past I think usually there's been a shorter term focus

[0:46:48] Voice 3: on how do we get tax increase lowered in the immediate term and less of a consideration for

[0:46:53] Voice 3: the longer term just you know hoping or things might work out differently in the future um so

[0:47:01] Voice 3: that that's a result of you know real decisions that trust council has made on the grant side of

[0:47:07] Voice 3: things this was raised earlier that you know where we accept a grant to and use that money to

[0:47:13] Voice 3: operating costs that are continual we will once again experience the tax increase when we lose

[0:47:20] Voice 3: that grant funding where grant funding is accepted to take on new work we would then in the future

[0:47:26] Voice 3: see the cost for that new work removed from the budget as well as the revenue removed from the

[0:47:30] Voice 3: budget and you wouldn't feel an impact from that but because some of our larger grants

[0:47:36] Voice 3: historically over the last two years have been used to offset operational spending again with

[0:47:42] Voice 3: the view of helping in the short term to reduce the tax increase we are experiencing that pain

[0:47:47] Voice 3: as we lose

[0:47:48] Voice 3: those grants next year.

[0:47:51] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much, Director Mobs.

[0:47:54] Trustee Fast: I'm going to go now to Trustee Gates.

[0:47:57] Voice 18: Thank you, Chair Faust.

[0:47:58] Voice 18: I was just going to request that after Director Mobs

[0:48:02] Voice 18: has finished giving us her report, which I very much appreciate,

[0:48:06] Voice 18: could you give us a couple of minutes to make a motion

[0:48:09] Voice 18: hearkening back to what Trustee Peterson talked about,

[0:48:12] Voice 18: because I know we spoke about this at our December council meeting as well,

[0:48:16] Voice 18: how helpful it would be to have a very brief summary of how this budget is affected by those

[0:48:24] Voice 18: numbers that we just spoke about, particularly for the Bowen Island municipality. Thank you.

[0:48:30] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Yes, council was asking about that Bowen Council a couple of days ago. Trustee Getty.

[0:48:39] Trustee Gedye: Thanks. Director Mobs, on page 27 of your report, you talk about a reconciliation action plan for

[0:48:47] Trustee Gedye: For $150,000, it's been broken up into different chunks.

[0:48:53] Trustee Gedye: And I don't see that anywhere else.

[0:48:57] Trustee Gedye: So maybe it's labeled differently and it's caught up and found in other portions in the budget.

[0:49:05] Trustee Gedye: But can you help me identify where that $150,000 is?

[0:49:11] Trustee Gedye: Sure.

[0:49:13] Voice 3: Sure. So I'm on page 27 of the agenda, and it says the Reconciliation Action Plan is $150,000.

[0:49:21] Voice 3: The reason I've broken it down is because previous budget versions have $50,000 included for the Reconciliation Action Plan,

[0:49:29] Voice 3: and that amount was a request from Executive Committee.

[0:49:32] Voice 3: And then Trust Council added $100,000 at their meeting for capacity funding.

[0:49:37] Voice 3: And so I've simply acknowledged there that of that $150,000, $50,000, or one-third, was a request from Executive Committee for the base program, and $100,000 was added from West Council.

[0:49:53] Trustee Gedye: All right. So then I can find the engagement capacity funding in the Conservancy's engagement project. I guess it's $110,000.

[0:50:09] Trustee Gedye: where does the other 40 50 000 come in policy statement amendment project has some for

[0:50:17] Trustee Gedye: indigenous governance bodies involvement and the manager of indigenous relations is between 115 and

[0:50:25] Trustee Gedye: 140 000 and the senior policy advisor for i believe for the conservancy is 117 000 we've got

[0:50:35] Trustee Gedye: but Indigenous Relations Advisory at 55,

[0:50:41] Trustee Gedye: and then again with Conservancy Cultural Features Identification,

[0:50:46] Trustee Gedye: and I haven't written down the amount.

[0:50:49] Trustee Gedye: So is the Reconciliation Action Plan $150,000

[0:50:53] Trustee Gedye: described differently in the broken down

[0:50:57] Trustee Gedye: and described differently, or is there a separate line?

[0:51:02] Voice 3: The Reconciliation Action Plan is a separate line

[0:51:05] Voice 3: in the budget detail um that's considered you know strategic plan initiative or trust council's

[0:51:12] Voice 3: initiative um you know in the absence of an approved reconciliation action plan with specific

[0:51:18] Voice 3: actions in it we don't see a business case for it

[0:51:21] Voice 7: okay um

[0:51:22] Voice 3: but we've got fifty thousand dollars

[0:51:23] Voice 3: just sort of earmarked for that function and then council added a hundred thousand dollars

[0:51:28] Voice 3: specifically for capacity funding that is completely separate from those other items

[0:51:32] Voice 3: that you mentioned you know our

[0:51:34] Voice 3: new manager of indigenous relations the cost for that person

[0:51:37] Voice 3: will be included in salaries the conservancy capacity funding piece related to their project

[0:51:43] Voice 3: is included in the project piece so um if you're looking to understand the total dollars dedicated

[0:51:48] Voice 3: to this work you know we would have to um do some math to have it

[0:51:54] Trustee Gedye: all together i've been working on

[0:51:56] Trustee Gedye: that we might get into that conversation later thanks okay

[0:51:59] Trustee Fast: thanks we're just on the introduction

[0:52:01] Trustee Fast: here. Questions for the director? Trustee Graham.

[0:52:06] Voice 11: Thank you, Chair. This is just a follow-up to

[0:52:08] Voice 11: help put perspective on capacity funding for the rest of the group. I mean, I'm just referring to

[0:52:15] Voice 11: Denman's targeted OCP, LUB housing review. So it was a very targeted review, and we've incurred

[0:52:22] Voice 11: $20,000 in capacity funding for First Nations reconciliation to date, and we're not finished.

[0:52:28] Voice 11: So a simple project, well, in my mind, a simple project, but obviously it's not a simple project that's taken three and a half years. But these little projects at the local trust area can really mushroom and blow up as you go through the process. So those increases that we've seen in the last three years in that chart from 20,000 to 50,000 to 150,000, expect that graph to continue going up as the years progress.

[0:52:56] Voice 11: Thank

[0:52:58] Trustee Fast: you, Trustee Graham, for the example.

[0:53:03] Trustee Fast: Okay, I'm going to turn the stage back to Director Moffs.

[0:53:08] Trustee Fast: Please continue.

[0:53:10] Voice 3: Sure.

[0:53:11] Voice 3: So the last thing I'll mention in our preamble section, we did receive the updated current

[0:53:17] Voice 3: information from BC Assessment around property values.

[0:53:19] Voice 3: And so we've put together a crude estimate of what the tax increases might mean to the

[0:53:23] Voice 3: individual average taxpayer.

[0:53:25] Voice 3: fair. In the local trust area, we're seeing about a $55 to $60 increase per average household based

[0:53:33] Voice 3: on what we're seeing in the draft budget. And for Bowen Island, their increase generates $50 to $55

[0:53:40] Voice 3: increase per average household. And I did connect with the Bowen Island CFO to make sure that our

[0:53:46] Voice 3: numbers were aligned when we were calculating that information. Of course, I don't have access

[0:53:50] Voice 3: to some of the specific Bowen Islands test rates.

[0:53:53] Voice 3: And so I did reach out to their CFO

[0:53:55] Voice 3: who generates the same number that I do.

[0:53:58] Voice 3: In fact, the number is $53 per hour.

[0:54:02] Voice 3: So we understand trustees and the public

[0:54:04] Voice 3: like to have that information.

[0:54:07] Voice 3: And so we've provided it here with this version

[0:54:09] Voice 3: now that we've got BC assessment info.

[0:54:11] Voice 3: And the rest of the budget overview document

[0:54:14] Voice 3: simply talks about the budget overall

[0:54:17] Voice 3: and includes the changes that we talked about

[0:54:19] Voice 3: from the previous report.

[0:54:20] Voice 3: court so i don't think i need to go through that in detail no

[0:54:24] Trustee Fast: thank you director mobs uh yeah i find

[0:54:27] Trustee Fast: the information about the cost increase per or decrease some years maybe uh per average household

[0:54:35] Trustee Fast: to be really helpful and i had pulled out um somewhere here oh anyway the the the ad that

[0:54:46] Trustee Fast: went into the bowen island undercurrent that had the diagrams of the uh houses and uh very helpful

[0:54:52] Trustee Fast: I think anyway I'm going to open the floor now for motions did somebody I

[0:54:59] Trustee Fast: think trustee Yates you had a suggestion about a communication motion that may be

[0:55:05] Trustee Fast: coming forward

[0:55:06] Voice 18: I'm sort of working on it but trying to listen to the conversation

[0:55:10] Voice 18: at the same time okay I've got a couple of other hands so

[0:55:13] Trustee Fast: I'll come back to you

[0:55:14] Trustee Fast: good trustee Patrick

[0:55:18] Voice 10: yeah I know the tasks before us for the next several

[0:55:22] Voice 10: hours. We will likely go through, cut here, do this, do that, or recommend. But I think we should

[0:55:29] Voice 10: spend some time talking about process and information needs. We have a community of the

[0:55:34] Voice 10: whole meeting coming up in, when is that, February? And how do we get the information to trust council

[0:55:42] Voice 10: to do a good, you know, be able to make good decisions? And I look back at, you know,

[0:55:49] Voice 10: Bowen Island Council and you received your operational budget from each department saying

[0:55:53] Voice 10: we must have this, nice to have this, we could live without this. That information is helpful

[0:55:59] Voice 10: and we sit here and take, let's cut this from the budget or cut that from the budget. We may have

[0:56:03] Voice 10: just done something that isn't helpful or it was a must have and we removed it. So how do we do

[0:56:10] Voice 10: information and how do we have process for that upcoming community? I don't want to lose that

[0:56:14] Voice 10: that today. We want to know that we're bringing information forward that's going to help Trust

[0:56:19] Voice 10: Council make good decisions about this budget.

[0:56:22] Trustee Fast: Thank you. That is part of the terms of reference

[0:56:26] Trustee Fast: for this committee is to assist Trust Council making good decisions. And I think maybe this

[0:56:32] Trustee Fast: communication piece is part of that. Trustee Graham?

[0:56:38] Voice 11: Yeah, thank you for that question,

[0:56:40] Voice 11: question, Chair Patrick. And I think Director Mobbs, as Trustee Peterson alluded to, has really

[0:56:48] Voice 11: given us a valuable tool when we look at what do we have as far as discretional opportunities. And

[0:56:56] Voice 11: it's about 3.1%. So for the sake of just discussion, if we cut out all of the discretional

[0:57:02] Voice 11: spending, we're still over 10% tax increase per household. And so we're not ever going to get down

[0:57:09] Voice 11: to a figure that we hear from mainly our constituents and some of the trustees.

[0:57:14] Voice 11: So it shortens the conversation because it limits the effect that we have.

[0:57:19] Voice 11: Unless we want to start looking at an actual reduction in the organization,

[0:57:24] Voice 11: which I don't think anyone is prepared to do that,

[0:57:26] Voice 11: especially after the review from our CAO, and certainly not this term.

[0:57:31] Voice 11: But considering this is an election year

[0:57:34] Voice 11: and there are people watching this budget with eagle eyes,

[0:57:37] Voice 11: don't be surprised if there are a number of people that put their names forward and advertise that

[0:57:43] Voice 11: they intend to make deep cuts to the machine of the trust because of this increase. But the

[0:57:48] Voice 11: increase is only really 3.1% based on, and I think that's so important for us to share and to talk

[0:57:55] Voice 11: about those few points that we have an opportunity to reduce.

[0:58:00] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Graham. Trustee

[0:58:03] Trustee Fast: Trustee Elliott, then I'll come to you, Trustee Yates.

[0:58:07] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Chair.

[0:58:08] Voice 9: Sorry.

[0:58:11] Voice 9: So I have done, as best I could, sort of a review of what looked like staff indicated

[0:58:19] Voice 9: might be discretionary, mostly highlighted in the budget justification cases, which I

[0:58:27] Voice 9: sent out in an email on pages uh 112 i think to 191 to 212 um so in each of those there are i

[0:58:41] Voice 9: think some areas that we could have discussion about maybe ask each director to um answer if

[0:58:49] Voice 9: they could see some reductions um i've already gotten some answers from some of them and perhaps

[0:58:57] Voice 9: Perhaps we could discuss by department what the potential would be for reducing the operational departmental requests, and then we could look at projects.

[0:59:09] Voice 9: And I have sent a list of potential motions that we could discuss one by one if the chair is ready for that.

[0:59:16] Voice 9: But I don't want to get right into cutting if we're not prepared.

[0:59:21] Trustee Fast: Yeah, if you could hang on a moment with that. I think I'm hoping that when we take our break at 1115, people might have a chance to read your email, which I believe only came this morning, and before the meeting, and then we would have had a chance to discuss this communications topic that Trustee Yates has been working on. Please go ahead, Trustee Yates.

[0:59:48] Trustee Fast: Thank

[0:59:50] Voice 18: you, Chair Fast. I'll read this very slowly. I move that financial planning committee

[1:00:00] Voice 18: Request financial services staff to provide speaking notes for trustees on the proposed 26-27 budget, explaining budget changes as per the second and third paragraphs of the draft 26-27 budget overview presented to financial planning committee.

[1:00:44] Voice 18: on january 21st

[1:00:45] Voice 7: so

[1:00:47] Voice 18: that just refers to the second and third paragraph that

[1:00:51] Voice 18: both trustee peterson and trustee graham and i have already reflected on how helpful

[1:00:59] Voice 18: those two paragraphs are that point out we really only got about 3.1 to play with

[1:01:07] Voice 18: and i think that would be really helpful if we just had that information in a very short speaking

[1:01:12] Voice 18: notes.

[1:01:14] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Is that motion clear enough, Director Mobs, for the answer? I believe this

[1:01:22] Trustee Fast: is on page 19 of today's agenda, 18 and 19. Is that correct?

[1:01:28] Voice 18: Yeah, those two paragraphs are just,

[1:01:30] Voice 18: they're both on page 19. Okay.

[1:01:34] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Is that clear enough, Director Mobs, that motion?

[1:01:37] Trustee Fast: Or do you need more clarity before it's seconded? Very

[1:01:44] Voice 3: clear. I would suggest maybe just saying

[1:01:47] Voice 3: staff. I'll probably run whatever

[1:01:49] Voice 3: I prepare through the comms team to make sure

[1:01:50] Voice 3: it's understandable in layman's terms.

[1:01:53] Voice 3: So it'll be a joint effort.

[1:01:55] Voice 3: Great.

[1:01:56] Voice 3: I think that's fine. I mean, I fully understand what it is

[1:01:59] Voice 3: that you're after there.

[1:02:00] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Any more

[1:02:03] Trustee Fast: fine-tuning to this motion before

[1:02:05] Trustee Fast: Just

[1:02:06] Voice 18: a quick comment,

[1:02:07] Voice 18: Chair Fast. Sometimes in

[1:02:09] Voice 18: previous years, I know, and we've received

[1:02:11] Voice 18: in our mailboxes

[1:02:13] Voice 18: a really good outline

[1:02:15] Voice 18: line of something like this explaining the island's trust budget when it's been completed

[1:02:22] Voice 18: so we may be asking for that too at some point i'm not sure but this is great if we can get this

[1:02:28] Voice 18: for ourselves well if

[1:02:30] Trustee Fast: we can get it before um trust council did you did you want to make any

[1:02:36] Trustee Fast: uh distinction in there about by when and for who i

[1:02:45] Voice 18: mean perhaps maybe i should ask director mobs

[1:02:47] Voice 18: about that yeah director mox um

[1:02:52] Voice 3: certainly you could add a deadline or provide some clarity on

[1:02:56] Voice 3: timeline it's my understanding that you would want this as soon as possible so you can talk

[1:02:59] Voice 3: to your communities um certainly we try to um make that happen before committee the whole

[1:03:04] Voice 3: um in february certainly before council um since i have the floor chair i'd also like to just

[1:03:11] Voice 3: remind this group that sub-council did request staff to um undertake a bit of a communications

[1:03:17] Voice 3: exercise around the budget and so there has been some new communications materials developed

[1:03:22] Voice 3: that have gone through the executive committee they've approved it and that information will be

[1:03:27] Voice 3: up on the website so that will be available as well and might be a good place for you to point

[1:03:33] Voice 3: your constituents to if they're asking questions we'll let you know when that's live on the web

[1:03:37] Voice 3: thank

[1:03:38] Trustee Fast: you and uh hearing that it'll be ready in time for the committee of the whole i think that

[1:03:44] Trustee Fast: That is also helping our function of assisting Trust Council in understanding the budget

[1:03:50] Trustee Fast: and being able to debate and discuss it well.

[1:03:58] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[1:04:00] Trustee Fast: Trustee Patrick?

[1:04:06] Voice 10: Well, it's nice to know all the trustees read the newsletter I put out every weekend.

[1:04:11] Voice 10: I guess I can save myself some time.

[1:04:13] Voice 10: I did tell you that the executive last week did ask staff to prepare some links and speaking notes for trustees to be able to link the constituents to the information that Director Mops was just talking about.

[1:04:27] Voice 10: So that is happening.

[1:04:31] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Patrick.

[1:04:32] Trustee Fast: I did see that, but I didn't see any reference to it in the financial planning committee agenda.

[1:04:39] Trustee Fast: So I didn't know how linked they were.

[1:04:43] Trustee Fast: Thank you for bringing that to our attention.

[1:04:47] Trustee Fast: Do I have then a seconder for Trustee Yates' motion?

[1:04:54] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Peterson.

[1:04:57] Trustee Fast: And any more discussion on the motion?

[1:05:03] Trustee Fast: Seeing none, I'm going to call the question.

[1:05:05] Trustee Fast: Please raise your digital hand if you're in favor.

[1:05:08] Trustee Fast: All those in favor?

[1:05:13] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[1:05:14] Trustee Fast: Lower your hands.

[1:05:17] Trustee Fast: Any opposed?

[1:05:20] Trustee Gedye: I didn't get my hand up in time.

[1:05:22] Trustee Gedye: I'm in favor.

[1:05:23] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[1:05:24] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[1:05:25] Trustee Fast: then that passes unanimously very good thank you trustee uh trustee yates so now uh we're at 1106

[1:05:35] Trustee Fast: and uh here's the point where um i'm going to ask trustees for what are your suggestions for uh

[1:05:44] Trustee Fast: addressing um this draft budget in front of us your list of uh ideas or reductions i haven't read

[1:05:53] Trustee Fast: to Trustee Elliott's email and I think people might want to, I don't know, do we have a few

[1:06:03] Trustee Fast: more questions for the director before we take a break at 11.15 or would people like to take a

[1:06:09] Trustee Fast: break now? Trustee Getty.

[1:06:11] Trustee Gedye: Well, I guess going into the Trust Council meeting with the work that we'd

[1:06:19] Trustee Gedye: done before that. And I thought that was the principles in terms of, you know, not starting

[1:06:25] Trustee Gedye: new projects unless we'd finished some others and not hiring new staff unless there were a whole lot

[1:06:31] Trustee Gedye: of exigent kinds of reasons for it. We got the operating report and we wholeheartedly endorsed

[1:06:39] Trustee Gedye: that and made some pretty substantial changes in terms of increasing budgets for reconciliation

[1:06:47] Trustee Gedye: and communications and decrease all the unfunded items that have come out.

[1:06:53] Trustee Gedye: So I have gone through and highlighted on my notes

[1:07:01] Trustee Gedye: all of the things that have to do with three issues,

[1:07:04] Trustee Gedye: elections, reconciliation, and communications.

[1:07:07] Trustee Gedye: And I'd like to spend some time looking at what I think were budget business cases

[1:07:15] Trustee Gedye: that were proposed before we had the operation committee in terms of both reconciliation and communication and the items that may now overlap and whether or not there's any way of compressing things so that the, you know, the things that specifically speak to the recommendations from the operations report around reconciliation and whether or not that is repeated in the earlier submissions from the

[1:07:45] Trustee Gedye: budget um and if there's any anything there that we can change i'm um if i'm not necessarily um

[1:07:53] Trustee Gedye: strongly opposed to you know the 55 increase or the three percent increase and things like that

[1:08:01] Trustee Gedye: but i am concerned about some of the um unfunded um projects that uh are now incomplete that um

[1:08:11] Trustee Gedye: We've always thought in our strategic planning and all of the discussions were pretty important and if not essential.

[1:08:18] Trustee Gedye: So, you know, if there's any wiggle room, then I'd like us to consider bringing some of those back.

[1:08:24] Trustee Gedye: So the biologist and the resilience assessment.

[1:08:30] Trustee Gedye: Well, all of them, the electric electronic records management.

[1:08:34] Trustee Gedye: And I feel very strongly about the secretariat and can speak to that at length.

[1:08:39] Trustee Gedye: But, you know, I think this is great.

[1:08:46] Trustee Fast: If we can just kind of list the things that you're going to bring up and that we're going to then over the break, people can think about it and read about it and look at their own notes about those three points.

[1:09:00] Trustee Fast: That's fabulous.

[1:09:01] Trustee Fast: Giving us a heads up.

[1:09:02] Trustee Fast: Trustee Peterson?

[1:09:03] Trustee Fast: Yeah,

[1:09:06] Voice 12: just thinking about not even so much today's discussion, but a preparation for the Committee of the Whole on February 18th and back to the piece that Director Mobs laid out so nicely there for us.

[1:09:25] Voice 12: It might be helpful for that Committee of the Whole discussion to really sort of have those bits laid out, like the 3.1, I believe it was, that's, you know, we're sort of calling discretionary.

[1:09:41] Voice 12: What are those items?

[1:09:42] Voice 12: I'm just thinking about how this committee can assist framing the discussion at Committee of the Whole in a way that helps it to be a bit more of a productive discussion.

[1:09:59] Voice 12: I completely take Trustee Getty's point you know it

[1:10:05] Voice 12: is up to Trust Council to

[1:10:07] Voice 12: just determine what what the whole budget looks like and and if it's the

[1:10:13] Voice 12: will of Trust Council to reconsider things like Secretariat or other than

[1:10:18] Voice 12: then that is that's that's fine but just thinking it might be we might be able to

[1:10:25] Voice 12: um consider some direction on how we uh assist framing that conversation

[1:10:34] Voice 12: thank you i don't have a motion ready but i'll work on ones thank

[1:10:38] Trustee Fast: you that's good uh anybody

[1:10:40] Trustee Fast: else uh one more two more few more heads up as to what's going to be uh on the trustee ideas list

[1:10:48] Trustee Fast: that i'll ask for as soon as we come back from our break no we'll read trustee elliott's uh email

[1:10:59] Trustee Fast: perhaps then and i think there's going to be a focus on communications also coming from executive

[1:11:06] Trustee Fast: committee as trustee patrick has reminded us although we didn't know what that was okay and

[1:11:14] Trustee Fast: then um uh let's take a break and we'll come back um it's 11 11 15 minutes uh let's come back at

[1:11:22] Trustee Fast: 11 25 and um uh and continue and hopefully people can um put their thoughts together i'll be asking

[1:11:31] Trustee Fast: for a list of ideas we'll make a list and then we'll go through them as as we did last time is

[1:11:37] Trustee Fast: my idea sound okay okay let's take a break till 11 25 are we back if i could see some more faces

[1:26:05] Trustee Fast: as I would know. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Robert. Robert's taking the minutes and helping

[1:26:19] Trustee Fast: me by... I can see a bunch of black squares. I just know people don't have their... Have we got

[1:26:28] Trustee Fast: a quorum of trustees that we can see? Trustee Maud, are you there?

[1:26:32] Trustee Gedye: I are there. Thank you.

[1:26:34] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Trustee Graham, are you there? Trustee Giddey? Very good. Okay. I think that's... We're

[1:26:44] Trustee Fast: we're mostly back let's reconvene and uh i've sent in a motion but i'll put myself further down on

[1:26:50] Trustee Fast: the speakers list than everybody else um and uh where's my pencil here we go so i would like to

[1:26:58] Trustee Fast: um now our next break i had it down for 12 but i think maybe we move it to 12 30 if everybody

[1:27:07] Trustee Fast: everybody agrees. Next break. And we'll, let's make a list. Who's got motions that they have

[1:27:20] Trustee Fast: sent in or that topics that they want to speak to ideas? Trustee Peterson, what's yours? So we can

[1:27:28] Trustee Fast: make a list.

[1:27:30] Voice 13: Yeah, I sent a motion in just shortly ago. And

[1:27:34] Voice 12: it's about what I spoke about before the

[1:27:36] Voice 12: a break uh requesting staff to prepare a summary of the requests which represent the 3.1 percent

[1:27:44] Voice 12: discretionary uh for the february committee of the whole meeting

[1:27:49] Trustee Fast: okay summary of the 3.1 percent

[1:27:52] Trustee Fast: thank you who else had trustee getty yeah

[1:27:57] Trustee Gedye: i'd like to talk about elections reconciliation and

[1:28:01] Trustee Gedye: communications and the unfunded

[1:28:03] Trustee Fast: elections that's the one i missed from the other last

[1:28:06] Trustee Fast: communications, unfunded reconciliation

[1:28:12] Trustee Gedye: and

[1:28:13] Trustee Fast: reconciliation. Okay. Thank you. Just Robert

[1:28:20] Trustee Fast: Barlow.

[1:28:22] Voice 15: Thank you, Chair Fast. I just wanted to make sure the committee understood that I do not

[1:28:29] Voice 15: have access to the motion email address because I'm working remotely and I don't have access to

[1:28:36] Voice 15: to it. So if you could just send it to FPC email distribution, everyone will have it, including

[1:28:41] Voice 15: myself.

[1:28:42] Trustee Fast: Okay, so let's, I'll just take a moment to do that. Thank you for reminding me. I'm sorry,

[1:28:48] Trustee Fast: I'm trying to make myself trained to always say send to motion. Okay, so this is to FPC

[1:28:59] Trustee Fast: at islandstrust.pc.ca. Okay, there we go. I've done mine. Thank you very much for reminding me.

[1:29:09] Trustee Fast: Trustee Elliott.

[1:29:12] Voice 9: Thank you, Chair.

[1:29:13] Voice 9: I sent a list of potential motions to the FPC email.

[1:29:19] Voice 9: They're all pretty small cuts and just asking mainly the departments to review their requests.

[1:29:25] Voice 9: And that could be considered when these other larger topics maybe.

[1:29:30] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[1:29:31] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[1:29:32] Trustee Fast: And I'll put myself on the list here.

[1:29:35] Trustee Fast: um i've got a reconciliation one as well specific to bowen island and uh so that's for a possible

[1:29:47] Trustee Fast: percentage uh contribution okay so that's um and as if others come up uh that would be that would

[1:29:59] Trustee Fast: be fine as well

[1:30:00] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you. I see them coming in.

[1:30:01] Trustee Fast: And Tim, perhaps, Trustee Peterson, could you go first?

[1:30:07] Trustee Fast: Unless there's more, are there others who want to be on the list?

[1:30:13] Trustee Fast: Okay, I think there's substantial topics here. That's great.

[1:30:18] Trustee Fast: So please go ahead, Trustee Peterson.

[1:30:21] Voice 12: Okay, I will read my motion.

[1:30:24] Voice 12: I move that Financial Planning Committee request staff to prepare a summary of budget requests,

[1:30:29] Voice 12: which represent the plus 3.1 percent discretionary spending inflation identified on page 27 of the

[1:30:36] Voice 12: fp agenda for january 21st 2026 for the february 18th committee of the whole meeting what was that

[1:30:44] Trustee Fast: page number 27 correct

[1:30:47] Voice 12: thank

[1:30:48] Trustee Fast: you and

[1:30:52] Voice 12: it's on the screen now mr burlow has shared it with us

[1:30:54] Voice 12: thank

[1:30:56] Trustee Fast: you very much very good thanks everybody okay uh director mobs

[1:31:08] Voice 3: I have too many places where I'm muted, so I have to turn it off.

[1:31:12] Voice 3: Just in relation to this motion that's here, I just want to make clear for the committee that

[1:31:19] Voice 3: most of the items are not specific budget requests in terms of business cases for these items. They

[1:31:27] Voice 3: tend to be more the operational pieces, some of which we'll see in the justification form,

[1:31:33] Voice 3: so just wanted to make sure that everyone understands that piece.

[1:31:36] Voice 3: The other thing to note is that 3.1%, of course, is going to be the net of cost increases plus areas that are decreasing.

[1:31:47] Voice 3: And so if you're looking for a summary of everything, the areas that are increasing as well as decreasing, absolutely we can do that.

[1:31:54] Voice 3: If you're just looking for the areas that are increasing that are contributing to that, that's a different piece of information.

[1:32:00] Voice 3: information. So if you're happy for me to, you know, just have some discretion there to present

[1:32:05] Voice 3: it in a way that I feel makes sense, I can do that. But if there's a specific you're looking

[1:32:09] Voice 3: for, then direction on that's helpful. Trustee Peterson?

[1:32:17] Voice 12: Yeah, thank you, Director Mobbs.

[1:32:21] Voice 12: I think my intent was trying to frame, I believe committee of the whole will have some appetite

[1:32:31] Voice 12: for trying to reduce the the budget left so perfectly happy to leave it to your

[1:32:38] Voice 12: discretion that here you're incredibly good at doing these things but that my

[1:32:44] Voice 12: intent was around stimulating a conversation at that committee of the

[1:32:49] Voice 12: whole meeting around the increases that that council might wish to reconsider

[1:32:56] Voice 12: consider okay

[1:32:59] Trustee Fast: so i think i'm hearing leaving it to the discretion of uh before the motion seconded

[1:33:07] Trustee Fast: uh director mobs i see your hand is up and maybe you could also let us know if there's changes in

[1:33:12] Trustee Fast: the wording needed um

[1:33:15] Voice 3: so what i'm hearing from trustee peterson is really the intent is just

[1:33:18] Voice 3: to understand where there might be areas of discretion that trust council can look to if

[1:33:23] Voice 3: they're wanting to make budget reduction so that's perfectly understandable i can definitely put

[1:33:27] Voice 3: put something together to help with that. I'll just look at the wording. It's quite small on my

[1:33:32] Voice 3: screen.

[1:33:36] Trustee Fast: While the director's looking at that, is there a member, I see we've got four members of

[1:33:41] Trustee Fast: the executive committee here. Does this overlap with the information that you've already also

[1:33:46] Trustee Fast: asked for?

[1:33:49] Voice 10: No, Trust Council made decisions regarding how to communicate the budget that

[1:33:58] Voice 10: was made in the December meeting. Staff are working on setting up the website to have those

[1:34:04] Voice 10: communications. What we asked is that the staff prepare for trustees some speaking points and

[1:34:11] Voice 10: links that they can use in sharing with their constituents to bring them to that information

[1:34:16] Voice 10: that will be on the website.

[1:34:18] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you. It sounds like we're all pointing in the same

[1:34:21] Trustee Fast: direction. Thank you for volunteering that. I thought if it was different, you would probably

[1:34:27] Trustee Fast: hopefully bring it up. Okay. Director Mobs, any changes to the wording that you might suggest

[1:34:33] Trustee Fast: of the motion?

[1:34:35] Voice 3: Yeah, I would maybe suggest something a little more generic, just

[1:34:38] Voice 3: requesting that staff prepare a list of discretionary spending items from the draft

[1:34:44] Voice 3: 26-27 budget for discussion at the committee level.

[1:34:48] Trustee Fast: Is there a reason that you want to take

[1:34:50] Voice 3: I'm not fussed with what's there if it's easier to just go with it. I just thought the more

[1:34:56] Voice 3: a more generic description might be more useful.

[1:34:59] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you.

[1:35:00] Trustee Fast: I think it's useful to have the plus 3.1% in there

[1:35:05] Trustee Fast: to remind, just as a focus for trustees.

[1:35:09] Trustee Fast: Trustee Peterson.

[1:35:10] Trustee Fast: I understand that.

[1:35:14] Voice 12: So, I mean, I was very specific,

[1:35:18] Voice 12: as specific as I could be to try and make it really clear

[1:35:22] Voice 12: what I was hoping to achieve here.

[1:35:24] Voice 12: But if we removed

[1:35:29] Voice 12: uh identified on page 27 of the agenda etc and just said the 3.1 percent for the february 18th

[1:35:39] Voice 12: 2026 committee of the whole meeting it's is that sort of more in line what you were thinking

[1:35:45] Voice 12: as for being more generic because i'm happy to do that if staff don't need that extra wording

[1:35:53] Voice 12: wording in there, then that's fine.

[1:36:02] Trustee Fast: I think Director Mobs was thinking a little broader,

[1:36:06] Trustee Fast: but I'm not sure. However, I don't see you're raising particular concerns about

[1:36:11] Trustee Fast: the wording or points here. So maybe it's fine. I'm not seeing the director's hand go up. I can't

[1:36:20] Trustee Fast: hear you.

[1:36:21] Voice 3: Oh, sorry, folks. I was muted again. Yeah, I think it's fine. If you'd like to remove

[1:36:25] Voice 3: that wording, that's no problem. I understand the intent of the motion.

[1:36:28] Voice 3: um we'll just bring forward um a list of spending changes that are contributing to the 3.1 percent

[1:36:35] Voice 3: increase in taxation it's not a 3.1 percent increase in spending 3.1 increase in taxation

[1:36:40] Voice 3: so i understand the intent and i'll make sure that we get there for you thank you great thanks so

[1:36:46] Voice 12: much so we could

[1:36:48] Voice 12: drop the highlighted text great thanks

[1:36:53] Trustee Fast: very good okay now uh would somebody like

[1:36:57] Trustee Fast: like to second Trustee Peterson's motion. Trustee Yates, are you seconding? Okay, very good. We've

[1:37:03] Trustee Fast: got a mover and a seconder. Any more discussion? Seeing none, I'll call the question. All those

[1:37:11] Trustee Fast: in favor, please raise your digital hands. Okay. And lower your hands. Anyone opposed?

[1:37:26] Trustee Fast: None opposed. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Director Frater, did I see your hand fly up

[1:37:34] Trustee Fast: up in there somewhere did you want to chime in no okay uh then thank you very much for that that's

[1:37:44] Trustee Fast: one down and uh now let's go on to uh trustee getty's list um of topics and maybe you could

[1:37:54] Trustee Fast: take us through the um uh questions and ideas that you've got all

[1:37:59] Trustee Gedye: right so assuming that i've

[1:38:01] Trustee Gedye: got a time limit i'm going to be fairly quick and it's maybe not something that we can um

[1:38:05] Trustee Gedye: to decide today. I don't have any motions. I want a general discussion.

[1:38:10] Trustee Gedye: So with respect to elections, there's an item on page 110 of our agenda for onboarding training

[1:38:18] Trustee Gedye: at 32,000. There's an item on page 115, and it might be repeated, I'm not sure, on 203

[1:38:27] Trustee Gedye: with respect to new laptops for incoming trustees

[1:38:31] Trustee Gedye: and another $32,000.

[1:38:34] Trustee Gedye: And then on page 23, general expenses,

[1:38:38] Trustee Gedye: designing a package, $1,000,

[1:38:40] Trustee Gedye: communications, $10,000,

[1:38:42] Trustee Gedye: administration of the election, $212,000,

[1:38:45] Trustee Gedye: and photos at $3,500.

[1:38:47] Trustee Gedye: So that adds up to $291,400.

[1:38:51] Trustee Gedye: It's divided up into little different parts of our...

[1:38:54] Trustee Gedye: And my recommendation is for staff to, or I would ask if it's, I'd like us to think about whether or not it's possible for us to have a specific reserve fund created to deal with these kinds of expenses.

[1:39:10] Trustee Gedye: If it was over a four-year period, it'd be $75,000 a year instead of the $300,000 in this fiscal year.

[1:39:18] Trustee Gedye: And, you know, it's almost fixed costs.

[1:39:23] Trustee Gedye: We're not going to probably change very much. We might change the, you know, communications if we do end up with a communications specialist. But basically, it's, you know, $300,000 that should be divided up. So I'd like to find out from staff whether or not we're able to create a special reserve fund. And if so, then do that so that we don't have this kind of item in this, the end of term financial package, because it's a big chunk.

[1:39:50] Trustee Gedye: young. Secondly, with respect to reconciliation... Hang

[1:39:53] Trustee Fast: on. Can I just stop? I'm going to go one at

[1:39:56] Trustee Fast: a time. Thank you. That's a great question because it kind of sets up any trustees running for

[1:40:01] Trustee Fast: re-election with a problem. Okay. Over to you, Director Mobs. Possibilities

[1:40:07] Voice 3: of a reserve. Yeah.

[1:40:10] Voice 3: Yeah. I was hoping I'd have a chance to respond to that. Setting up a reserve fund for elections

[1:40:15] Voice 3: is certainly something that can be done. Historically, we haven't seen such an impact

[1:40:20] Voice 3: from elections for a couple of reasons. First, the cost of elections is actually quite a bit

[1:40:25] Voice 3: higher now than it used to be. You know, we're seeing a 50% increase over the last election

[1:40:31] Voice 3: term. We also historically have seen a reduction in project spending in an election year, because

[1:40:41] Voice 3: in the changeover of trustees, you have a period of orientation, you have some time

[1:40:45] Voice 3: where trustees are learning their role, and so less work on projects is typically advancing.

[1:40:50] Voice 3: particularly at council and the local trust committees and so we've tended to see a reduction

[1:40:55] Voice 3: in that which then pays for the elections and so we don't actually feel much of a tax impact

[1:41:00] Voice 3: um this year's a little different right we do um as i mentioned have a higher election cost and

[1:41:07] Voice 3: then we're not seeing as much of that project spending offset so um but i'll let you say it's

[1:41:12] Voice 3: certainly um good to plan for the future and reserve funds do help to do that um as you

[1:41:18] Voice 3: you mentioned reserve funds if you're going to have money at a point in time when you require

[1:41:22] Voice 3: it you do need to make deposits into that reserve fund over time and so that will create a budget

[1:41:28] Voice 3: increase each year instead of a significant one at the time of election absolutely reasonable

[1:41:33] Voice 3: to consider that an action that if we were to take direction to do so thank

[1:41:38] Trustee Fast: you um that's

[1:41:41] Trustee Fast: very interesting and i look forward to your motion trustee getty about creating a reserve

[1:41:46] Trustee Fast: or elections reserve fund uh or one of us can help with that uh later um good info please go

[1:41:55] Trustee Fast: next one justy getty oh sorry director director mobs um

[1:42:01] Voice 3: i'll just remind the committee there is

[1:42:02] Voice 3: a project on the work plan related to the creation of reserve funds and so there has

[1:42:07] Voice 3: been a request of staff already made to bring back a report looking at what might be reasonable

[1:42:13] Voice 3: reasonable or recommended in terms of creation of reserve funds and how they might be used so

[1:42:18] Voice 3: that is a piece of work that's already on the work program.

[1:42:21] Trustee Fast: Oh thank you that's great if you

[1:42:23] Trustee Fast: can just add elections to that.

[1:42:25] Trustee Gedye: Is that going to come to the financial planning committee at some

[1:42:28] Trustee Gedye: point?

[1:42:30] Voice 3: Yes at some point it's on the work program it's generally not possible to do a lot of extra

[1:42:35] Voice 3: work during the budget cycle that's the primary focus of financial staff is to support this

[1:42:39] Voice 3: committee so it would be something that would come forward outside of budget.

[1:42:43] Trustee Gedye: So then I'm not

[1:42:44] Trustee Gedye: going to make a motion at this point and um but i will remember it if we get this other report and

[1:42:49] Trustee Gedye: bring it up again then and probably have a motion okay so my next item was reconciliation on page 27

[1:42:56] Trustee Gedye: which is the briefing and an overall and then it's a line item on the budget that director mobs

[1:43:02] Trustee Gedye: pointed out before there's the reconciliation action plan for 150 000 plus on page 44 there's

[1:43:10] Trustee Gedye: There's a policy statement amendment project, and that has a component of that at $20,000 for Indigenous governing body involvement.

[1:43:19] Trustee Gedye: And by the way, I've sent an email around to this group.

[1:43:22] Trustee Gedye: I sent it to Julia, sorry, Director Mobs earlier, but if you want to refer to that, then all of this is written in there.

[1:43:30] Trustee Gedye: Page 61, the Islands Trust Conservancy has an engagement project for $110,000 for capacity funding, which is basically helping Indigenous governance bodies and different levels of government to have the capacity to engage with all of our activities in terms of getting agreements and getting, I don't know, I suppose, zoning applications vetted.

[1:44:01] Trustee Gedye: chair

[1:44:02] Voice 9: can i just clarify that just because i don't want us to roll ahead with misinformation

[1:44:08] Voice 9: that is specifically on the five-year plan for the conservancy it is not zoning it is not

[1:44:13] Voice 9: it's one specific project just to clarify i apologize for interrupting thank you i believe

[1:44:18] Trustee Fast: is that the one that the minister sent back to the islands trust part of it conservancy

[1:44:25] Trustee Fast: yep

[1:44:26] Voice 9: the conservancy had submitted an interim plan the minister did not accept it and we have

[1:44:32] Voice 9: a deadline of december 2027 to complete the five-year plan and submit thank

[1:44:38] Trustee Fast: you for the

[1:44:38] Trustee Fast: information i'll come to you in a moment uh trustee bull and i'll go back to the speaker

[1:44:43] Trustee Fast: go ahead trustee getty it's

[1:44:44] Trustee Gedye: part of the problem in terms of figuring out what if there is overlap

[1:44:48] Trustee Gedye: and where there's overlap so a lot of the uh projects they're all good projects we all have

[1:44:54] Trustee Gedye: have great ideas. It's just whether we can handle them all. So that's my question. So if there's

[1:45:00] Trustee Gedye: overlap, and I don't have enough of an understanding of all of these, but I think it needs to be

[1:45:06] Trustee Gedye: examined. So continuing at page, and I'm just chronologically going through the material that

[1:45:13] Trustee Gedye: we've got. On page 123, we've got the Manager of Indigenous Relations, and that's $115,000 this

[1:45:20] Trustee Gedye: This year, probably going up to $140,000 with a full year of salary and benefits.

[1:45:27] Trustee Gedye: In page 143, there's the budget allocation for a senior policy advisor.

[1:45:33] Trustee Gedye: Now, this is a position that hasn't been filled.

[1:45:39] Trustee Gedye: I think it's been on the budget a couple of years.

[1:45:41] Trustee Gedye: It's really important.

[1:45:42] Trustee Gedye: Part of that is, and I don't know what the percentage would be,

[1:45:47] Trustee Gedye: But part of that is to help with the, I don't know, Claire can help sort that out.

[1:45:56] Trustee Gedye: But part of that is some sort of policy advice on Indigenous relations.

[1:46:01] Trustee Gedye: Thanks, Judy.

[1:46:02] Trustee Fast: Just one sec.

[1:46:03] Trustee Fast: Claire's got her hand up.

[1:46:04] Trustee Fast: She can help.

[1:46:05] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Claire.

[1:46:07] Voice 4: Thank you.

[1:46:08] Voice 4: I can confirm that the position has been filled to March 31st with Jill Merrick, who is currently assisting with the development of the five-year plan with Conservancy and engagement with 30 nations, and is also assisting with some policy work.

[1:46:21] Voice 4: And I'm hoping to pull her in as well to assist with some of the backlog of agreements and legislative monitoring and the general functions of trustee services.

[1:46:30] Trustee Gedye: Thank you.

[1:46:31] Trustee Gedye: Would it be fair to say that the $117,000 that's budgeted is somebody that's working almost primarily on the Senior Policy Advisor for Indigenous Relations?

[1:46:44] Voice 4: Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question. You're speaking about the Auxiliary Senior Policy Advisor position?

[1:46:50] Trustee Gedye: Is that what it is? Okay.

[1:46:52] Voice 4: So that position is a policy position, but I'm having them take on the coordination of the five-year plan. It's just too much for the Conservancy Manager.

[1:47:00] Voice 4: manager we've we've

[1:47:02] Voice 4: been unable to execute for three years there's just not enough staff capacity

[1:47:05] Voice 4: without that position to run that project but also we've identified a lack of capacity generally in

[1:47:10] Voice 4: trust area services for other work okay so we've asked for one additional year for that rule

[1:47:15] Voice 4: okay and there is currently an incumbent in the auxiliary position all

[1:47:19] Trustee Gedye: right thank you so um on

[1:47:22] Trustee Gedye: page continuing then on page 156 the um conservancy is uh budgeting asking for a budget for an

[1:47:30] Trustee Gedye: Indigenous Relations Advisor, and I believe it's $55,000. And then, again, the Conservancy on 213,

[1:47:38] Trustee Gedye: and an increase in the budget, I believe it's $11,000 for cultural features identification,

[1:47:44] Trustee Gedye: in addition to, oh, I can't remember how they explained it, but it was

[1:47:52] Trustee Gedye: getting more feedback from First Nations in terms of identifying culturally important,

[1:48:00] Trustee Gedye: significant areas. So I haven't added all of that up, but I think all of that has to do with our

[1:48:07] Trustee Gedye: reconciliation work. And my question to staff would be, is there overlap? Are some of these

[1:48:15] Trustee Gedye: earlier, like the auxiliary senior policy advisor, that position has now been filled,

[1:48:24] Trustee Gedye: Is any of that a repetition, an overlap, a repeat? I suppose it's the big position of manager of Indigenous relations. It might be some of the minor ones in terms of the advisors.

[1:48:45] Trustee Gedye: But I'd really like to have some feedback, possibly from Claire. I'm not sure who would have an overview in terms of, you know, the old submissions and the new ones. And what's, if anything, is being repeated. And I'd like to have a better understanding and picture of that.

[1:49:04] Trustee Gedye: I don't have a

[1:49:05] Trustee Gedye: moment, that's a request.

[1:49:06] Voice 4: Thank you. Director Freider, can you respond?

[1:49:09] Voice 4: on? Certainly. In terms of the staff requests, we don't see overlap. Of course, it's all complementary

[1:49:14] Voice 4: work and there's more than enough work in this field to go around. Certainly the manager of

[1:49:19] Voice 4: Indigenous relations position could take on some of the work that's been proposed for the

[1:49:24] Voice 4: Conservancy at the specialist level. However, we see that there is ample enough work to justify

[1:49:29] Voice 4: the request for both positions. With regard to the capacity funding, I would say I'm hoping to

[1:49:35] Voice 4: to councils operating in this space without guiding policy,

[1:49:38] Voice 4: I am very much hoping to get some kind of documentation

[1:49:42] Voice 4: and perhaps a draft policy to council for March meeting

[1:49:45] Voice 4: that would guide allocation of funds

[1:49:47] Voice 4: and have us act in a more coordinated manner

[1:49:49] Voice 4: around capacity funding requests.

[1:49:51] Voice 4: So that's my hope.

[1:49:53] Voice 4: So at this time, it's hard to answer that question

[1:49:55] Voice 4: because you don't have a policy to guide staff advice

[1:49:58] Voice 4: in this area, but I am hoping to have something

[1:50:00] Voice 4: to bring forward to guide conversations

[1:50:02] Voice 4: by the March Trust Council meeting.

[1:50:05] Voice 4: Thank you.

[1:50:05] Trustee Gedye: That's helpful.

[1:50:07] Trustee Gedye: As a follow-up then, it seems to me that the $150,000

[1:50:11] Trustee Gedye: for the Reconciliation Action Plan,

[1:50:13] Trustee Gedye: that seems to me to be the main function in the job description

[1:50:17] Trustee Gedye: for the Manager of Indigenous Relations.

[1:50:22] Trustee Gedye: And if there's particularly an overlap there,

[1:50:28] Trustee Gedye: there's always, in every single area that the Trust is involved with,

[1:50:32] Trustee Gedye: There's always more than enough work for what we've got for capacity and all of it is important and all of it is good.

[1:50:38] Trustee Gedye: But if we're trying to find ways of, you know, making some tweaks and some adjustments, then I'd like to have an analysis of, you know, the job descriptions and the work to be done and whether or not it's covered in two areas.

[1:50:56] Trustee Gedye: is um because i think that we're um we're maybe throwing the baby out with the bath water kind

[1:51:02] Trustee Gedye: of thing in terms of some of these other unfunded projects that if we can squeeze a little bit on

[1:51:08] Trustee Gedye: in one maybe we can open it up in terms of some of these others so that's basically um the i don't

[1:51:15] Trustee Gedye: have the um an idea i don't have the um the final knowledge in terms of what all of this is about so

[1:51:23] Trustee Gedye: So I'd like some staff help with that.

[1:51:25] Voice 7: Thank you.

[1:51:27] Trustee Gedye: I'm sure you can justify all of it, but I'm not sure that that's the most helpful.

[1:51:32] Trustee Gedye: I think that it's, you know, the reality checking in terms of if there is overlap.

[1:51:38] Trustee Gedye: Can

[1:51:39] Trustee Fast: I just pop in here?

[1:51:40] Trustee Fast: I like your word analysis, and I'm envisioning some kind of grid

[1:51:46] Trustee Fast: so we can see it all on one page and how they align.

[1:51:51] Trustee Fast: line anyway possibly i'm sorry to butt in please go ahead director freighter um

[1:51:57] Voice 4: the one thing i'd

[1:51:57] Voice 4: also like to acknowledge is that the other piece you're missing here is the drafted reconciliation

[1:52:01] Voice 4: action plan for trust council to review which once that's completed would be what you needed

[1:52:07] Voice 4: so this is place you know essentially holding money for that plan to come forward which i'm

[1:52:11] Voice 4: also working on i will acknowledge i've been the bottleneck on it it is drafted um but we want to

[1:52:16] Voice 4: do internal review with staff um prior to bring it forward to make sure we've got a good set of

[1:52:20] Voice 4: perspectives on the contents of it and so once that's complete the budget you've got will be

[1:52:25] Voice 4: refined based on the content of that plan and the final actions proposed for the next fiscal year so

[1:52:31] Voice 4: you'll have that again coming forward um for consideration at the march meeting and just

[1:52:35] Voice 4: apologies it hasn't arrived in time um for this meeting it just simply hasn't been achievable

[1:52:41] Trustee Fast: thank you and i'm going to um if you give me a moment trustee getty um i had seen uh where'd she

[1:52:50] Trustee Fast: you go trustee yes you had your hand up and you wanted to speak to something at some point thank

[1:53:00] Voice 6: you i did want to speak and then i changed my mind but i've changed it back so thank you trustee

[1:53:05] Voice 6: getty i really appreciate this i have for a while asked for something similar which is kind of an

[1:53:12] Voice 6: overview and uh the other thing i would ask that would be considered in the analysis and it answers

[1:53:21] Voice 6: is something i brought up earlier but is what is the impact of the current let's say model for lack

[1:53:29] Voice 6: of a better word with respect to the provincial uh strategy and agreements and legislative

[1:53:37] Voice 6: authorities with respect to first nations and because we i feel like we are being pushed out

[1:53:46] Voice 6: out ahead like cannon fodder and encouraged to go where others fear and we are you know in danger of

[1:53:56] Voice 6: of leaving ourselves exposed if we don't actually follow provincial legislation rather than

[1:54:03] Voice 6: go ahead you know with like what does reconciliation engagement look like when

[1:54:08] Voice 6: And the very bedrock of everything that was supposed to happen is now, you know, being reviewed.

[1:54:17] Voice 6: So I would like to know, like, should we slow down? Should we still carry on?

[1:54:23] Voice 6: And sorry, part two of my question is...

[1:54:26] Trustee Fast: Well, just

[1:54:26] Voice 6: one part at a time. That's a big question. Please, one moment.

[1:54:29] Voice 6: Sure. I'm just asking that it's considered in that analysis.

[1:54:33] Voice 6: And the other thing, the last thing is that, so with respect to capacity funding and the proposal that we come up with a policy to guide us, I would ask if there are policies in other jurisdictions and local governments that we're drawing on. Thank you.

[1:54:54] Trustee Fast: Thank you. So if all of those can be included in the analysis, is that what you're asking? Or over to you, Director Frater.

[1:55:03] Trustee Fast: yes

[1:55:03] Voice 6: it is thank you okay

[1:55:06] Voice 4: would you like a response now chair certainly i can um suggest that um

[1:55:11] Voice 4: certainly have to undertake whatever work is required with regard to the provincial request

[1:55:16] Voice 4: i think we've had a clear signal from the minister that particularly for bylaws i'm going to the

[1:55:21] Voice 4: minister that there's an expectation of working towards consent um and i think that is your

[1:55:27] Voice 4: direction that you've received to the state and there has been no shift in that advice that we

[1:55:31] Voice 4: we're aware of so far. Any particular changes to the Declaration Act, I think, would not

[1:55:36] Voice 4: make a material change to the provincial duty to consult, would be my analysis there. And then

[1:55:42] Voice 4: it's really for Trust Council to guide what kind of relationships it wishes to have with the

[1:55:47] Voice 4: Indigenous governing bodies in the region that it works with. What we've understood from Trust

[1:55:51] Voice 4: Council is there's a strong commitment to working in a collaborative and close way and trying to

[1:55:56] Voice 4: grow those relationships and the extent of coordination. So we're striving to achieve that

[1:56:01] Voice 4: ambition. With regard to capacity funding, when I have made it known that I'm working on a policy,

[1:56:07] Voice 4: I am the one getting calls from other jurisdictions looking to find out what we're

[1:56:11] Voice 4: working on. I have, as of yet, have not found policies to borrow from, despite some various

[1:56:18] Voice 4: attempts. So we will continue. If anyone learns of one, please do send it our way.

[1:56:23] Voice 4: Thank

[1:56:24] Trustee Fast: you very much. Excuse me, Trustee Boland, I'm going to go back to Trustee Getty. You had some questions about that topic, and I can come back to you if you like. Trustee Getty, would you like to continue?

[1:56:37] Trustee Fast: you?

[1:56:38] Trustee Gedye: Well, I think that what Trustee Boland is bringing up is a much larger, possibly philosophical

[1:56:46] Trustee Gedye: discussion at Trust Council in terms of how we want to do reconciliation and how deeply involved

[1:56:53] Trustee Gedye: we want to be. But I think we've talked about that fairly, to some reasonable extent. And,

[1:57:01] Trustee Gedye: you know, we've had some advice in closed meetings and things like that. I don't see us as cannon

[1:57:06] Trustee Gedye: on fodder i see us as trailblazers and i think that we've got a real possibility in terms of you

[1:57:12] Trustee Gedye: know uh being the body that has come up with some really good answers um you know it's like

[1:57:20] Trustee Gedye: we can dodge through the middle quite adeptly um i don't want that my my request for an analysis

[1:57:27] Trustee Gedye: to be taken and interpreted as being in any way opposed to reconciliation i think that if this

[1:57:33] Trustee Gedye: This organization is going to pivot from some of the environmental stresses and priorities that we've had, which is what looks like in the unfunded projects, and that we want and need to take on reconciliation much more powerfully and much more meaningfully.

[1:57:52] Trustee Gedye: That's a really good direction.

[1:57:54] Trustee Gedye: I'm trying to figure out if there's a way of having both.

[1:57:57] Trustee Gedye: I want my cake and I like eating it.

[1:57:59] Trustee Gedye: So, you know, it's the analysis of all the funding that's in this budget, because it's in different places in different ways. I'm interested in terms of if there's any way that we can squeeze some of that into other projects.

[1:58:14] Voice 4: Thank you. Director Frater?

[1:58:17] Voice 4: Thank you. It's just been pointed out to me. I inadvertently used the word consent. The Minister asked that we work towards consensus. So just wanted to clarify my words. Thank you.

[1:58:26] Voice 4: Thank you. I

[1:58:27] Trustee Fast: wrote that word down because I don't usually see that one. Thank you. Over to you, Trustee Elliott, for a change.

[1:58:35] Trustee Fast: Sure.

[1:58:37] Voice 9: Thank you for this discussion and for raising, you know, potential areas of overlap. Respectfully, I think we do need to have this conversation about how we undertake reconciliation and prepare the incoming council with really good policy, a reconciliation action plan, and staff that can do the work.

[1:59:00] Voice 9: I think, as the director said, there is more work than the current request for staff can actually do.

[1:59:13] Voice 9: From what I've seen, the senior policy advisor position, the auxiliary, is really providing capacity to do our base level work.

[1:59:27] Voice 9: I don't think we can omit that for the next year, simply because the policy statement is still ongoing and that is taking up the policy advisor's work. Once that project is finished, that person hopefully will be released to do senior policy advisor work.

[1:59:47] Voice 9: So that auxiliary position I would like to see maintained for the next year. I think it's very important. And she's giving excellent, really logical framing for the five-year plan. We just saw a logic.

[2:00:00] Voice 9: model um for how we're going to determine success in the engagement with first nations on the five

[2:00:07] Voice 9: year plan and i can really see that um that staff person in that role is is going to contribute far

[2:00:15] Voice 9: more than um than we had anticipated i think so um i'm i'm kind of asking about that part-time

[2:00:23] Voice 9: manager of Indigenous relations. Whether we can delay that for a year for the Conservancy,

[2:00:31] Voice 9: I think as the Director said, there is more than enough work for both a full-time

[2:00:38] Voice 9: position, but if there was one that had to be deferred for a year and then re-evaluate if that

[2:00:46] Voice 9: part-time position is needed, I'm wondering if that Indigenous relations advisor for the

[2:00:53] Voice 9: ITC could be recommended to cut another cultural features identification I think I don't know if

[2:01:01] Voice 9: we covered that I'm not sure if that's the two new arc sites that we are sorry two new perhaps

[2:01:11] Voice 9: director Freddie you can help me with this I think in the budget there's we have heard and we are

[2:01:19] Voice 9: are doing archaeological overviews, I believe,

[2:01:24] Voice 9: of some of the potential protected areas

[2:01:26] Voice 9: that we'll be taking on.

[2:01:27] Voice 9: And so there's budgeted 40,000, 20,000 each

[2:01:31] Voice 9: for two arc assessments,

[2:01:33] Voice 9: but I don't think that's the

[2:01:34] Voice 9: Archaeocultural Features Identification

[2:01:36] Voice 9: that's referenced here.

[2:01:38] Voice 9: That was another spot that we could potentially ask

[2:01:40] Voice 9: the Conservancy if it could be deferred

[2:01:44] Voice 9: to start a year from now.

[2:01:46] Voice 9: Hang

[2:01:47] Trustee Fast: on. Thanks, Toby. Just because I know you've got a list there. That sounded like a question about the two archaeological ones. Director Freider, do you have any information there? Oh, can't hear you.

[2:02:04] Voice 4: Thank you. I'm just scrolling here. It shows up we are proposing cultural overlay assessments prior to a decision of the board of whether to accept a property.

[2:02:14] Voice 4: So that could be part of their consideration of the values associated with a property they might be contemplating for protection.

[2:02:20] Voice 4: And then in addition, we had proposed archaeological assessments once the property has been acquired to inform management planning for that property.

[2:02:28] Voice 4: So a lighter investment to assess whether to take on a property, and then a deeper investment, we're actually undertaking them how we're going to manage the land.

[2:02:36] Voice 4: So that's what's been proposed in that both operations and the management planning budgets.

[2:02:41] Trustee Fast: And thank you. So I like it. Presence or absence and then detail. Thank you. Does that answer your question, Trustee Elliott?

[2:02:50] Trustee Fast: yeah and

[2:02:52] Voice 9: i just wanted to suggest that if we wanted to make a motion to ask the conservancy

[2:02:57] Voice 9: board to again look at their requests and reduce their budget by a certain amount they could do

[2:03:03] Voice 9: that evaluation of what aspects could be deferred and whether that part-time position and i think

[2:03:10] Voice 9: it is time for fpc to make a specific request i mean council has asked um the conservancy board

[2:03:17] Voice 9: to reconsider its budget requests i think it's still evaluating that and we're coming close to

[2:03:23] Voice 9: okay we we do need to do our part i am of the view that every committee and department

[2:03:30] Voice 9: and the conservancy um needs to do their part to to make an effort to reduce this budget and i have

[2:03:37] Voice 9: made that clear to the conservancy board i was quite strong on that yesterday but we

[2:03:42] Voice 9: We weren't able to come to a decision, but I think if FPC were to direct that either they come back with a voluntary reduction of their own or reduce the budget request by a certain amount,

[2:03:54] Voice 9: the board can own that decision rather than council making a rash decision in March because it's simply unpalatable.

[2:04:02] Voice 9: So I think FPC should...

[2:04:05] Trustee Fast: My hand up for this one too, but I see other hands are up before mine.

[2:04:11] Trustee Fast: trustee getty are you wanting to speak to trustee elliott's point go ahead

[2:04:15] Trustee Gedye: um yes and um director

[2:04:19] Trustee Gedye: frader's reply um i'm i think that the cultural features identification part of the conservancy

[2:04:27] Trustee Gedye: application on our business case on 213 is fabulous it's really important i think that it's

[2:04:34] Trustee Gedye: you know, important work that should be prioritized. I'm more concerned about

[2:04:40] Trustee Gedye: the Policy Statement Amendment Project that has $20,000 for Indigenous Governance Bodies

[2:04:48] Trustee Gedye: involvement, for instance, and the Indigenous Relations Advisor at $55,000, and whether or not

[2:04:57] Trustee Gedye: But those are work plans that will be taken up by this new auxiliary Indigenous senior policy advisor and the manager of Indigenous relations.

[2:05:12] Trustee Gedye: So if there's duplication there, then that frees up $70,000, for instance.

[2:05:19] Trustee Gedye: So that's the kind of thing that I was fiddling around with in my head.

[2:05:25] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Comment from Director Frater?

[2:05:29] Voice 4: Well, what I can say, you have proposed job profiles in the agenda. They are proposed to undertake different work. As I said, certainly, I think the manager position could take on some of the functions that we were proposing for the specialist if that was, you know, if you're looking for trade-offs.

[2:05:44] Voice 4: but yeah there were different levels of work and different types of work that were proposed

[2:05:47] Voice 4: with regard to the capacity funding grants that are proposed in the policy statement budget

[2:05:52] Voice 4: that's entirely up to trust council if you'd like to make funding available for that purpose or not

[2:05:57] Voice 4: it wasn't originally part of the process but should we not be getting answers from some

[2:06:02] Voice 4: nations because they simply don't have the capacity to respond you know it was we thought

[2:06:06] Voice 4: it might be prudent to have some funds available but certainly that's that's up to trust council

[2:06:10] Voice 4: if you'd like to put that capacity funding in there in that budget for next fiscal thank you

[2:06:17] Trustee Fast: that's helpful and trustee getty and encourage any motions that you might want to make i wanted

[2:06:23] Trustee Fast: to yeah i know i wanted to um uh just respond to the idea of uh this committee um directing

[2:06:33] Trustee Fast: the islands trust conservancy board to do anything or requesting i can't remember exactly what word

[2:06:38] Trustee Fast: to use uh trustee elliott but i mean these are staff who um some of whom ride bicycles through

[2:06:46] Trustee Fast: ferry terminals and in order to save time and money and that so they're going to continue to

[2:06:52] Trustee Fast: do that and uh i am i am a little alarmed as a trustee on bowen island where we have several

[2:07:00] Trustee Fast: nature reserves and conservation covenants as most islands do uh at um the idea of

[2:07:08] Trustee Fast: uh beginning to look to donations to the islands trust conservancy which are usually for

[2:07:15] Trustee Fast: uh people with dreams for their land or some kind of nature uh legacy in the future um

[2:07:24] Trustee Fast: beginning to look to those for uh operations not that i'm against having policies for that

[2:07:30] Trustee Fast: if that's in case, but I just wonder if Islands Trust Council should be in charge of the Islands

[2:07:42] Trustee Fast: Trust Conservancy budget. And so that's a bigger question for down the road, whether eventually

[2:07:48] Trustee Fast: Islands Trust Conservancy should be separated from Islands Trust Council, because I don't know

[2:07:59] Trustee Fast: that the

[2:08:02] Trustee Fast: donations and the

[2:08:03] Trustee Fast: philanthropy and the

[2:08:07] Trustee Fast: nations

[2:08:07] Trustee Fast: I think this is

[2:08:07] Voice 6: a point of order issue

[2:08:09] Voice 6: if you don't mind

[2:08:09] Voice 6: my saying so

[2:08:10] Trustee Fast: I have put

[2:08:10] Voice 6: myself on, what is your point of order?

[2:08:13] Voice 6: My point of order is

[2:08:15] Voice 6: that you're going into a discussion

[2:08:17] Voice 6: about, a philosophical discussion

[2:08:20] Voice 6: about

[2:08:20] Voice 6: We

[2:08:21] Trustee Fast: have a certain number of those

[2:08:22] Voice 6: but I take your point, I'll stop

[2:08:23] Voice 6: I do believe

[2:08:25] Voice 6: if you think that they should be separated

[2:08:28] Voice 6: So you're

[2:08:30] Voice 4: continuing the discussion, my dear.

[2:08:32] Voice 6: Go ahead and make that happen. That's what I'm saying. In the meantime, the trust is in charge of the budget. So that's what we should be discussing now. Thank you.

[2:08:43] Trustee Fast: Thank you. And I would appreciate any points of order, especially if it's used to stop a discussion rather than interrupt a speaker and continue the discussion. But I'll take that point. I'm going to move back now to the topic of Toby Elliott's various emails, and then we'll come back to you, Judy, if you've got more.

[2:09:06] Trustee Fast: I don't know if we finished all of yours. You wanted to talk about the unfunded things and communications. Who would like to be next?

[2:09:17] Trustee Fast: Did you want to make a motion, Toby, about something specific to the Conservancy Board?

[2:09:25] Voice 9: No, I think we're still in the discussion phase and learning about the various elements.

[2:09:33] Voice 9: I don't think I'm ready to test that with a motion.

[2:09:36] Voice 9: I just wanted to state my support for the Auxiliary Policy Advisor position, which has been critical to the work, but not quite ready for a motion yet.

[2:09:46] Voice 9: Thank

[2:09:47] Trustee Fast: you. That's really helpful as the liaison from that board, because maybe there's others of you who know as well, but I haven't seen the staff person except in a reconciliation working group learning program. So that's helpful. Thank you.

[2:10:07] Trustee Fast: um okay did i stop the discussion my apologies everybody um i want to uh i think we're going

[2:10:18] Trustee Fast: to go till 12 30 we'll have a break then for lunch unless people would like a break now

[2:10:22] Trustee Fast: nope okay then i would like to continue uh discussing the idea of um that toby last had

[2:10:34] Trustee Fast: about any specific request to the islands trust conservancy board okay

[2:10:43] Voice 6: then back to um i'll make

[2:10:46] Voice 6: a motion okay just uh so i propose that financial planning committee recommend or request the

[2:10:56] Voice 6: islands trust conservancy board to reconsider uh the request already asked of them by trust council

[2:11:05] Voice 6: council to review their budget with a view to reducing it in particular the item about

[2:11:13] Voice 6: um the uh first nations position is that is that adequate how would i describe that position toby

[2:11:22] Voice 6: that particular item it's a part-time indigenous relations manager in

[2:11:28] Voice 6: particular thank you the

[2:11:29] Voice 6: item about the part-time indigenous relations advisor but

[2:11:36] Trustee Fast: we'll see i imagine robert is

[2:11:40] Trustee Fast: furiously typing so hold those thoughts trust people i'm

[2:11:44] Voice 6: happy to have it made more succinct

[2:11:47] Voice 6: robert or anybody else that's fine well i just meant keep

[2:11:51] Trustee Fast: them in your head if robert yes

[2:11:55] Trustee Fast: i think it'll be coming up shortly one moment

[2:12:01] Trustee Fast: oh well done okay thank you we've got a draft motion up there um thank you robert and uh

[2:12:24] Trustee Fast: he's still working on it there does this um what you wanted to uh

[2:12:29] Voice 6: i think it's uh to review their

[2:12:33] Voice 6: budget with a view to reducing it and in particular request

[2:12:40] Trustee Fast: the islands trust conservancy

[2:12:41] Voice 6: Right. Request the Islands Trust Conservancy to reconsider the request already made of them by Trust Council to review their budget with a view to reducing it and to look in particular at the request for a part time Indigenous relations advisor.

[2:13:14] Voice 6: that looks great thank you any suggestions uh for anybody else toby in particular does that work

[2:13:29] Voice 6: people

[2:13:34] Trustee Fast: are reading any advice from staff about is this clear enough or

[2:13:41] Voice 6: a comma after to review

[2:13:43] Voice 6: their budget comma you

[2:13:46] Voice 9: could just say to reconsider trust council's request to reduce its budget

[2:13:50] Voice 9: in particular, the part-time Indigenous Relations Advisor,

[2:13:53] Voice 9: but I think it's clear enough.

[2:13:58] Trustee Fast: Is it clear enough?

[2:13:59] Trustee Fast: I don't want to do a lot of wordsmithing.

[2:14:02] Trustee Fast: I'm not seeing any staff hands flying up.

[2:14:12] Trustee Fast: Do I have a seconder?

[2:14:18] Trustee Fast: Trustee Yates, are you seconding the motion?

[2:14:24] Trustee Fast: So I can't tell, I can't hear you.

[2:14:28] Trustee Fast: Oops, I think we've lost her.

[2:14:32] Voice 18: Yes, no, I am seconding the motion. Sorry about that.

[2:14:37] Voice 18: Okay,

[2:14:37] Trustee Fast: thank you. So, Trustee Yates has seconded the motion, and I see now for discussion.

[2:14:43] Trustee Fast: Trustee Graham, did you wish to say something?

[2:14:46] Voice 11: Sorry, I had to immediately plug in my computer and push the wrong button in response.

[2:14:53] Trustee Fast: Okay, so this is a no comment?

[2:14:57] Voice 11: No comment.

[2:14:57] Voice 11: Okay,

[2:14:58] Trustee Fast: thank you. Any discussion on the motion, which has been moved by Trustee Boland, seconded by Trustee Yates, to ask the Trust Conservancy Board to reconsider? Trustee Elliott.

[2:15:11] Trustee Fast: Yeah,

[2:15:13] Voice 9: I just want to thank Trustee Boland for the motion. It does empower the Conservancy Board to

[2:15:18] Voice 9: relook again at their requests and perhaps undertake a prioritization exercise in light

[2:15:24] Voice 9: of the urgency of the five-year plan and see what can be perhaps deferred. So I appreciate this.

[2:15:32] Voice 9: Thank you very much.

[2:15:33] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you. Any more discussion? Okay. So we've got a motion on the

[2:15:43] Trustee Fast: the floor. I'm going to call the question. All those in favor? Thank you. And remove your hand,

[2:15:58] Trustee Fast: take your hands down, please. And any opposed? Philosophically? I'm opposed. Thank you.

[2:16:07] Trustee Fast: That motion carries. Very good. And now we're at 2.16. Do we have time to do something else before

[2:16:14] Trustee Fast: we break for lunch? Who has another topic to raise or an idea? Trustee Getty?

[2:16:20] Trustee Fast: Sorry,

[2:16:22] Trustee Gedye: do you want me to, I've got four points or three points for the communications.

[2:16:26] Trustee Gedye: Go ahead.

[2:16:28] Trustee Gedye: All right. So on page 27, the Conservancy is talking about educational and different communication things at $55,000.

[2:16:42] Trustee Gedye: And I've mentioned it before, but the election material on page 23 has $10,000 for communications.

[2:16:50] Trustee Gedye: And on page 196, Trust Area Services has routine corporate communications at $67,000.

[2:17:03] Trustee Gedye: So I'm wondering if all or any of those would be subsumed under the page 134, Engagement and Communication Leader.

[2:17:14] Trustee Gedye: leader um that's a 95 to 115 000 plus 10 000 for a outside consultant um so those are

[2:17:26] Trustee Gedye: different again it's um going through the budget there's different items that show up in different

[2:17:31] Trustee Gedye: places and i'm just wondering if there's any repetition um and if we can make some adjustments

[2:17:36] Trustee Gedye: there so okay

[2:17:39] Trustee Fast: those that's a topic

[2:17:42] Trustee Gedye: I

[2:17:45] Trustee Fast: am I think this might be a question for

[2:17:47] Trustee Fast: director freighter is there overlap among those items

[2:17:53] Voice 4: between the trust area

[2:17:55] Voice 4: services communication budget and the Conservancy budget those are delivered

[2:17:58] Voice 4: as separate functions so the answer is no there are elements spelled out in the

[2:18:05] Voice 4: the justification form for the trust area services budget that the committee might wish to look at to

[2:18:10] Voice 4: see if all those activities are desirable next year but yeah they're they are delivered separately

[2:18:14] Voice 4: and then i would note that each local trust committee has communications embedded within

[2:18:19] Voice 4: their various projects as well that are funded separately they're good just

[2:18:27] Trustee Gedye: to get it so i guess

[2:18:28] Trustee Gedye: i need a better understanding if we're going to hire somebody um full-time for engagement and

[2:18:34] Trustee Gedye: communications leadership um then and they're not going to be doing the routine corporate

[2:18:40] Trustee Gedye: communications or any of these other um educational and communication things and i guess that's part

[2:18:47] Trustee Gedye: of the overall communication strategy um that we haven't seen yet um then uh i'm a little bit

[2:18:58] Trustee Gedye: surprised perhaps

[2:19:00] Voice 4: i could refine my answer and i'll look to the cao to supplement this position

[2:19:03] Voice 4: is intended as a supervisory position that will also help coordinate the overall work of the unit

[2:19:10] Voice 4: and communications generally. But in terms of the budgeting, sorry, I was speaking to budgeting,

[2:19:14] Voice 4: but in terms of the position, it's meant to act as a coordination role and help with supervision.

[2:19:18] Voice 4: But I can turn to the CAO. And you'll note there's a job profile within the agenda package as well.

[2:19:24] Voice 2: Yeah, thank you. Through the chair, if I may. I think there's also a distinction between some of

[2:19:30] Voice 2: of those specific communications budget items so for example the election communications is

[2:19:36] Voice 2: it would include things like if there are advertising dollars associated and that kind

[2:19:40] Voice 2: of thing in production of materials it's not necessarily just staff time or contracted time

[2:19:45] Voice 2: and so where we have some of those specific items highlighted those are it's not just for somebody

[2:19:53] Voice 2: to do the work it's actual production costs and some of those some of those pieces that would go

[2:19:57] Voice 2: along with that work as well and so director freighter could speak to individually what might

[2:20:02] Voice 2: be captured in each of those line items but it's not that we're using those items just to contract

[2:20:07] Voice 2: staff to do work that if that new position was brought in that they would be able to do

[2:20:13] Voice 2: the one exception to that may be the piece around the kind of engagement process i think it's the

[2:20:20] Voice 2: ten thousand dollar line item we could potentially have the new person do that that just means that

[2:20:24] Voice 2: that work is going to be further delayed and deferred

[2:20:28] Voice 2: once we would recruit that person and bring them in line

[2:20:31] Voice 2: and get that into their work plan.

[2:20:34] Voice 2: Thank you.

[2:20:36] Trustee Fast: Thank you, CAO.

[2:20:38] Trustee Fast: That's really helpful, staff, when you help us

[2:20:40] Trustee Fast: with our interpretation of these big documents

[2:20:44] Trustee Fast: and the recent changes.

[2:20:48] Trustee Fast: Does that help you, Trustee Getty?

[2:20:51] Trustee Gedye: Yeah, I wasn't expecting, you know,

[2:20:53] Trustee Gedye: somebody that $95,000 salary to stand in front of the photocopier and print off the posters or go

[2:21:01] Trustee Gedye: around to all the telephone poles. But in terms of just figuring out if we're having a full-time

[2:21:09] Trustee Gedye: position, is there any of this other... Again, I'm trying to squeeze a little bit of money out

[2:21:14] Trustee Gedye: for some of the unfunded ones.

[2:21:18] Trustee Fast: Thank you. I think we got a hint that you might look to that

[2:21:20] Trustee Fast: that $10,000 consultant piece.

[2:21:26] Trustee Fast: But I don't know.

[2:21:28] Trustee Fast: If folks don't mind, I'm going to put myself on the list here,

[2:21:31] Trustee Fast: as I did.

[2:21:34] Trustee Fast: And that's just to introduce the topic before we break for lunch.

[2:21:39] Trustee Fast: And this is some info I have been digging into for Bowen Island

[2:21:46] Trustee Fast: Municipality contribution to the budget.

[2:21:49] Trustee Fast: And I was also interested in the reconciliation work. We all know that that work is important and needed and for so many reasons.

[2:22:03] Trustee Fast: And so I asked municipal staff, have we been collaborating staff to staff with reconciliation work?

[2:22:14] Trustee Fast: And from the response from our CAO, in answer to my question, it sounds like Bowen Island Municipality is doing what the province directed, which is engage in reconciliation and relationship building staff to staff.

[2:22:33] Trustee Fast: So Bowen Island staff are doing that separately, and I wondered, and this is a question for Director Mobs, whether within our protocol agreement that we've got, whether we can reduce the budget item for the Indigenous Relations Director that would next year go up to $140,000, I think,

[2:23:02] Trustee Fast: whether we can reduce that to 20% from 100% for the bone contribution, because not only are our staff, multiple staff, working directly with staff of other nations, but I wonder, and the CAO wondered whether we might actually be tripping over ourselves.

[2:23:31] Trustee Fast: Not that we don't want to. I mean, I'm all for having a federation. I just think that here is one area that may be overlap, like with GIS mapping and some of the other things. And could we, Bowen Island Municipality, reduce our contribution to that particular role? Director Mobs?

[2:24:01] Voice 3: Thanks for the question, Chair.

[2:24:02] Voice 3: So the determination of what percentage Bowen Island contributes to any particular cost

[2:24:09] Voice 3: comes from the Islands Trust Act and is codified in our municipal tax levy policy.

[2:24:14] Voice 3: So this position is a position of trust counsel.

[2:24:18] Voice 3: It fits in the Trust Area Services, likely will land in the Trust Area Services Department,

[2:24:25] Voice 3: which is a department that Bowen Island contributes to at a rate of 100%.

[2:24:29] Voice 3: So this year, because of the distribution of property value within the trust area, Bowen

[2:24:34] Voice 3: Island is contributing, I think it's 16.5% towards trust council costs.

[2:24:41] Voice 3: So their contribution is 16.5% towards all of trust council costs or 100% of trust council

[2:24:48] Voice 3: costs.

[2:24:48] Voice 3: And because this position actually falls under trust council services, they are contributing

[2:24:53] Voice 3: to 100% of the cost of that position.

[2:24:56] Voice 3: If we start to look at, you know, what distinct work is each position in the organization doing, we would really run into some trouble. So, for example, my position at Bowen Island only helps pay for 34.5% of my position. About 90% of my position is actually directed to regional work.

[2:25:20] Voice 3: But we've structured the allocation in the Act and in the policy based on groupings of staff and it's a methodology that is fairly accurate. It won't be perfect, can't be perfect.

[2:25:35] Voice 3: You know, I think maybe some more conversation could be had with the CAO to understand sort of specifically what the work program might be for the position in the first year

[2:25:47] Voice 3: to see if the allocation to have that position under trust area services where it is right now

[2:25:52] Voice 3: makes sense so there's possibility to look at it i'm not super confident that we would be

[2:25:58] Voice 3: making a change for a particular position as of course it opens can of worms

[2:26:01] Trustee Fast: thank you i'm more

[2:26:05] Trustee Fast: that's really helpful i didn't realize that that it was groupings of staff and i don't understand

[2:26:11] Trustee Fast: those uh location codes and the things it was the same policy the municipal tax calculation it's

[2:26:18] Trustee Fast: It's just also seen in the – I went through a different portal,

[2:26:21] Trustee Fast: which is the protocol agreement.

[2:26:25] Trustee Fast: It's Schedule D in there, and so I was trying to understand it.

[2:26:30] Trustee Fast: So that's helpful, and I only kind of pulled it out as an example

[2:26:36] Trustee Fast: of something where there may be overlap or as the organizations

[2:26:46] Trustee Fast: and the work change.

[2:26:48] Trustee Fast: You know, Bowen Island also has a $9 million operations budget

[2:26:54] Trustee Fast: and lots of staff and lots of activities

[2:26:57] Trustee Fast: that they're carrying out sometimes in the same areas

[2:27:02] Trustee Fast: like the reconciliation relationship building.

[2:27:05] Trustee Fast: So, okay, so I'm hearing that that is not in place yet.

[2:27:08] Trustee Fast: It's probably too early to think about that.

[2:27:10] Trustee Fast: And I know there's some things we get that Bowen doesn't contribute to

[2:27:14] Trustee Fast: that we get from the Islands Trust.

[2:27:16] Trustee Fast: like the groundwater mapping and things like that.

[2:27:19] Trustee Fast: So it's not all clear cut, I totally understand that.

[2:27:22] Trustee Fast: And I just wanted to open the possibility

[2:27:26] Trustee Fast: of thinking about it and trying to understand it better.

[2:27:30] Trustee Fast: Director Mops.

[2:27:33] Voice 3: Thanks Chair, I mean, it's a great question to ask.

[2:27:36] Voice 3: Just while we're focused on the Bowen Levy in particular,

[2:27:38] Voice 3: I thought I would just highlight that approximately $74,000

[2:27:42] Voice 3: of the total increase for Bowen,

[2:27:45] Voice 3: so it's just under half of the increase for Bowen,

[2:27:47] Voice 3: again is a result of our lost revenue streams so Bowen also feels the impact of lost grant revenue

[2:27:53] Voice 3: lost investment income and reduced draws from surplus and so you know the same principle that

[2:28:00] Voice 3: applies to local trust areas is felt by Bowen as well.

[2:28:03] Trustee Fast: Okay thank you I'm going to ask a question

[2:28:07] Trustee Fast: about grants later as well. Okay that sounds like a not very useful line of inquiry there

[2:28:17] Trustee Fast: I'm going to suggest now that we take a break for half an hour and have some

[2:28:22] Trustee Fast: lunch come back with their thoughts in order any more motions and have a look

[2:28:30] Trustee Fast: at the closed meeting agenda if you haven't already and then I believe we're

[2:28:35] Trustee Fast: we going to be losing trustee Boland you can't stay with us okay thank you for

[2:28:40] Trustee Fast: letting us know and but let's take a break now come back together at one

[2:28:45] Trustee Fast: o'clock. Does that sound good? Or do people want longer? Okay, I'm seeing one thumbs up. Okay,

[2:28:55] Trustee Fast: let's break until one o'clock then. Thank you very much, everybody. Good discussion.

[2:59:46] Trustee Fast: Hello, those quickly returning from lunch. Thank you.

[3:00:07] Voice 7: okay all

[3:00:15] Trustee Fast: right calling us back to order after our lunch break hope everybody got a look outdoors

[3:00:26] Trustee Fast: and maybe even a breath of the beautiful air out there beautiful sunny day and here we are talking

[3:00:33] Trustee Fast: about the budget so i um think we've lost uh trustee boland had to leave the meeting

[3:00:42] Trustee Fast: and uh the rest of us being mostly back there's david thank you david and uh i'm assuming most

[3:00:49] Trustee Fast: other just trustee maude are you there i

[3:00:55] Voice 15: am there thank you very much very

[3:00:57] Trustee Fast: good okay thank you so

[3:00:59] Trustee Fast: now we know who's with us who's part of the meeting uh let's continue um i'll put myself

[3:01:05] Trustee Fast: back on the list eventually but maybe uh the time has come to either um uh talk trusty getty about

[3:01:16] Trustee Fast: your the ten thousand dollars or we can go on to toby's list just the elliot's list that she had

[3:01:25] Trustee Fast: sent who would like to go first i'll

[3:01:32] Trustee Gedye: just i'm puzzled what are you talking about in terms of

[3:01:35] Trustee Gedye: the 10 000 well i

[3:01:37] Trustee Fast: think we i had a little circle i don't know whether it's real but the um uh when

[3:01:43] Trustee Fast: you were asking about page 134 the um trust area services engagement and communications league

[3:01:50] Trustee Fast: lead right uh

[3:01:52] Trustee Fast: you also mentioned the consultant for the ten thousand dollars and could that be

[3:01:56] Trustee Fast: folded in did you want to recommend trust council remove the ten thousand dollars sure

[3:02:03] Trustee Gedye: i was just

[3:02:03] Trustee Gedye: working on something else but yeah i can um uh move that financial planning committee recommend

[3:02:10] Trustee Gedye: to trust council that the um budget item under the engagement and communication lead um for the

[3:02:19] Trustee Gedye: ten thousand dollars for the consultant uh be removed from that thank

[3:02:27] Trustee Fast: you that's on the screen

[3:02:28] Trustee Fast: there thank you robert the 10 000 contractor support and uh thank you for the motion i'll let

[3:02:37] Trustee Fast: robert catch up with that meanwhile we'll hear from director bombs go ahead uh

[3:02:43] Voice 3: thanks chair for

[3:02:44] Voice 3: any resolutions directing budget change i would just recommend the resolution be phrased that fpc

[3:02:50] Voice 3: remove x from the budget and then that will um shape the budget that you are recommending to

[3:02:57] Voice 3: trust council so that's

[3:02:58] Voice 3: just the standard language minor point

[3:03:01] Trustee Fast: thank you director mobs i was looking

[3:03:03] Trustee Fast: for that standard language i think uh later on and the budget uh sorry later on towards the end

[3:03:12] Trustee Fast: of the meeting we we might need to discuss a motion like we passed at this time last year

[3:03:16] Trustee Fast: that fbc forward the budget materials contained in item 7.1 as amended or other motions whatever

[3:03:22] Trustee Fast: whatever, to Trust Council for the upcoming Committee of the Whole, as it's recommended

[3:03:27] Trustee Fast: 2026-27 budget to Trust Council, right? Something like that. So we're recommending a budget through

[3:03:33] Trustee Fast: our work today?

[3:03:36] Voice 3: That's correct. The final budget, of course, is going to be a recommendation from

[3:03:41] Voice 3: Committee of the Whole, because they're taking a look at it next.

[3:03:46] Trustee Fast: Very good. Committee of the

[3:03:48] Trustee Fast: Whole of Trust Council. So I didn't know how to write that exactly. But we can wordsmith that

[3:03:53] Trustee Fast: that when we get to that point so there is a motion thank you um robert financial planning

[3:03:58] Trustee Fast: committee removed from the draft budget the item under communications lead for the 10 000 for the

[3:04:02] Trustee Fast: contractor support is that what you were meaning trustee getty sure yep okay and um is that clear

[3:04:12] Trustee Fast: enough here we go for staff director mobs seeing no concerns there okay and any discussion go ahead

[3:04:24] Trustee Fast: Trustee Getty.

[3:04:25] Trustee Gedye: Sorry. So the recommended wording is that FPC directs staff to remove

[3:04:35] Trustee Gedye: the $10,000 for contractor support under the rest of it. Thank you.

[3:04:48] Trustee Fast: Okay. Will that work the same,

[3:04:52] Trustee Fast: Director Moffs?

[3:04:56] Voice 3: Completely fine from my perspective with that language. I'd ask

[3:04:59] Voice 3: maybe our communications to look at the language under communications lead that's not clear to me

[3:05:06] Voice 3: okay

[3:05:08] Trustee Fast: the item under communications lead page 60 or page 134 the business case it's the business

[3:05:19] Voice 4: case for communication if I might share it could read within TAS communications or trust area

[3:05:24] Voice 4: services communications budget okay thank

[3:05:40] Trustee Fast: you claire now we've got wording um trustee patrick

[3:05:48] Trustee Fast: oh our

[3:05:50] Voice 10: has it been seconded or are we in debate

[3:05:52] Voice 10: no okay sorry i'm i'll wait till debate okay i

[3:05:56] Trustee Fast: was just trying to get wording that everybody was clear on and uh i think we're at that point i did

[3:06:02] Trustee Fast: ask for discussion earlier but i forgot um so we're uh looking now for a seconder for trustee

[3:06:09] Trustee Fast: Getty's motion. Anybody want to second this motion? Not seeing hands flying up, I'm going to

[3:06:17] Trustee Fast: put mine up. Okay. I second that motion. Oh, Trustee Elliott did have her hand up. I'm sorry,

[3:06:24] Trustee Fast: I missed that. Whichever. And now I'm open for discussion. Trustee Elliott?

[3:06:34] Voice 9: Yeah, thank you, Chair. I had put something similar forward. So thank you, Trustee Getty.

[3:06:39] Voice 9: i just wanted to ask about the impacts um refresh me again and i'm sorry if i um you already said

[3:06:46] Voice 9: this director freighter um would the full-time equivalent engagement lead be able to do this

[3:06:54] Voice 9: work um

[3:06:57] Voice 4: certainly that answer depends on the skill set of the person we recruit into the role

[3:07:01] Voice 4: and um it would mean that the work will be somewhat delayed um at this time so a little

[3:07:07] Voice 4: uncertain on answering that certainly if we were to bring in some external expertise it might

[3:07:12] Voice 4: um result in a more robust product for trust council's consideration but you could certainly

[3:07:17] Voice 4: you know delay the work or have it done in a future year this is you know it's been something

[3:07:21] Voice 4: we've been you know trying to work towards for quite a number of years now thank you

[3:07:26] Voice 10: thank you

[3:07:27] Voice 4: trustee patrick yeah

[3:07:30] Voice 10: this is my concern is we have antiquated um engagement techniques and

[3:07:37] Voice 10: And we've been needing to do this for years.

[3:07:39] Voice 10: I know Bowen gets their own processes and perhaps maybe this shouldn't be covered by

[3:07:44] Voice 10: Bowen, but within our side, support for local trust committees and so forth, we have a lot

[3:07:51] Voice 10: of work to do to modernize our engagement, just looking at every other community and

[3:07:55] Voice 10: how they're doing it, what they're doing.

[3:07:57] Voice 10: We are lagging and it's hurting us.

[3:08:00] Voice 10: And so that's my concern.

[3:08:04] Voice 10: While it's $10,000, it sounds like a tiny little bit.

[3:08:07] Voice 10: Does this set us back further?

[3:08:09] Voice 10: And that's not okay.

[3:08:14] Trustee Fast: Putting myself on the list, I would love to be able to fund the secretariat services,

[3:08:27] Trustee Fast: because as far as I can see from over here, and I'll get somehow sound,

[3:08:34] Trustee Fast: around uh that um local government round table and the other um biosphere and ocean watch kind

[3:08:46] Trustee Fast: of work that happens in conjunction with that uh some of which i'm appointed to as a bowen member

[3:08:51] Trustee Fast: of council and some of which i volunteer as a sort of placeholder for islands trust uh as a trustee

[3:08:59] Trustee Fast: although it's the other people are all staff i am full disclosure i um i don't see that cutting

[3:09:11] Trustee Fast: this will necessarily restore that i don't um i don't see that the secretariat services are going

[3:09:19] Trustee Fast: to be saved by this and i uh i agree that the islands trust needs to do more and i know from

[3:09:26] Trustee Fast: from the graphics skills side of things and the design and some of those skills are not all found

[3:09:35] Trustee Fast: in the ideal person. And so I kind of want them to have the ability to get the contractor support,

[3:09:43] Trustee Fast: partly for the speed, which has been outlined. And I mean, the Secretariat Services, just to

[3:09:53] Trustee Fast: To speak to that for a moment, it covers a lot of communication, intergovernmental communication, reconciliation, relationship building, and better future for the sustainability of Howe Sound and its ecology, all those things.

[3:10:12] Trustee Fast: But by removing this, I'm not sure that it will save the Secretariat of Service.

[3:10:19] Trustee Fast: So I think I'm going to be voting against this.

[3:10:23] Trustee Fast: Okay. Anybody else? Trustee Getty?

[3:10:31] Trustee Gedye: Well, I've got other suggestions as well in terms of trying to sort out this.

[3:10:37] Trustee Gedye: But, you know, if we're going to talk about secretariat services in particular, I'm curious, and I don't know that we've got the insider information,

[3:10:47] Trustee Gedye: But I can't imagine any of those organizations that are counting on administrative support for their services having any other, other than possibly memberships, funding.

[3:11:00] Trustee Gedye: And it is a very small item.

[3:11:02] Trustee Gedye: It's, you know, in this budget, in the past years, it's been 17,000.

[3:11:07] Trustee Gedye: It's been divided up into by five or six different organizations and some staff time in terms of organizing contracts and whatever.

[3:11:14] Trustee Gedye: And that is a relatively small donation that has a lot of payback.

[3:11:22] Trustee Gedye: So I think it's money well spent.

[3:11:24] Trustee Gedye: The $10,000 for the contractor for support, you know, that may be something that if we end up hiring somebody that's, you know, I don't know, fantasize,

[3:11:37] Trustee Gedye: a former CBC producer that, you know, can handle our communications beautifully, but they don't have

[3:11:45] Trustee Gedye: skills with Adobe or something around it, then, you know, this is something that is relatively

[3:11:51] Trustee Gedye: small that we can reconsider. But I think that in terms of trying to figure out the basic budget

[3:11:58] Trustee Gedye: at this point, that I'm not sure if that's a direct tit for tat, but I think that,

[3:12:03] Trustee Gedye: But, you know, if you've brought it up in terms of making the link, then, you know, further talking about the secretariat functions, I think, is basically more bang for the buck.

[3:12:18] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. Any more discussion on this topic?

[3:12:25] Trustee Fast: OK, I'm going to call the question. All those in favor of removing the 10,000 from contractor from the communication.

[3:12:31] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. Three, I see. Lower your hands. And all those opposed, raise your hands. Four. Okay. Thank you. That motion fails. Close. Okay.

[3:12:58] Trustee Fast: On to the next ones. Trustee Elliott, are you ready to go through your list?

[3:13:08] Voice 9: sure I can chair but they are all such small um numbers that uh I don't know if it will make any

[3:13:17] Voice 9: you know sizable impact so um I did send it to everybody sorry just trying to find it

[3:13:26] Voice 9: oh did I lose this already proposed budget reductions okay um Robert do you think you

[3:13:37] Voice 9: could bring up the list or in the email that i sent so we could sort of oh yeah i think let's do

[3:13:45] Voice 9: the laptops um because i know that's a um that's been a discussion before and i believe it was

[3:13:53] Voice 9: raised well trustee getty raised it about election expenses um we debated this at executive committee

[3:14:00] Voice 9: Committee, I'm wondering if, so I'll put the motion on the floor and then, yes, that laptop

[3:14:09] Voice 9: one would be great, that using Julia's wording, Financial Planning Committee reduce the number

[3:14:26] Voice 9: of new laptops for incoming trustees from 15 to 8 and that the associated amount for

[3:14:31] Voice 9: imaging for laptops be adjusted accordingly.

[3:14:37] Trustee Fast: Thank you. I see Trustee Getty, are you seconding the motion?

[3:14:42] Trustee Gedye: No, I had a question, whether this was entered twice in the budget.

[3:14:48] Trustee Fast: Oh, that's a different question.

[3:14:52] Trustee Fast: We're, we're, okay, I guess we can all do our searches for the word laptops.

[3:14:59] Trustee Fast: Anybody got a, I'll ask people to look and see where they can find that.

[3:15:05] Trustee Fast: Well,

[3:15:06] Trustee Gedye: it's mentioned, if I may, it's mentioned on page 115 with respect to, I believe, new, it's a separate item.

[3:15:16] Trustee Gedye: And then it's also mentioned on 203 as the information that's in their larger definition of their budget request.

[3:15:28] Trustee Fast: Okay, so I think this is a question for the director.

[3:15:32] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Director Moffs.

[3:15:35] Voice 3: So this would be a question for Director Marler, who oversees the Information Services budget.

[3:15:40] Voice 3: Certainly, you know, when we are inputting the budget all together and consolidating the numbers,

[3:15:46] Voice 3: we're not referencing the material that's in the agenda, we're referencing background documents,

[3:15:50] Voice 3: so I don't think it's included twice, but I would look to the Director to confirm.

[3:15:57] Voice 3: Director Marler?

[3:15:58] Voice 1: Yeah, no, it should just be in here once.

[3:16:03] Trustee Fast: Okay. So it's just referred to in a second place. Is that what you're suggesting? Page 115 and page

[3:16:11] Trustee Fast: 203? It's the same item?

[3:16:14] Voice 1: Yeah, it will not be double counted.

[3:16:17] Trustee Fast: Thank you for confirming that. Okay.

[3:16:20] Trustee Fast: And then I'm going to go to my speakers list here. Trustee

[3:16:24] Trustee Fast: Yates.

[3:16:26] Voice 18: Thank you, Chair Fast. I just want to remind everyone, if we get into this little bit

[3:16:31] Voice 18: bit of snipping here, teeny bits at a time, that we have to get up to $92,000 if we want to make a

[3:16:40] Voice 18: 1% decrease in the tax budget. So just keeping that in mind.

[3:16:49] Voice 18: Thank you.

[3:16:54] Trustee Fast: I'm just looking here. Trustee Elliott.

[3:16:58] Voice 9: Thank you, Chair. Yeah, we've had a lot of discussion about this. I don't know how sensible

[3:17:05] Voice 9: it is uh to reduce the number but we're guessing anyways we do not know how many trustees will need

[3:17:12] Voice 9: laptops so um i know it makes more sense to err on the side of over planning rather than under

[3:17:20] Voice 9: um so i'm just supposing that there's more trustees than eight who need them wondering if

[3:17:32] Voice 9: if we could find the money after the elections

[3:17:39] Voice 9: when we know the exact number.

[3:17:44] Trustee Fast: Director Marley.

[3:17:47] Voice 1: I can only speak for the budget.

[3:17:50] Voice 1: So we can go over budget, obviously,

[3:17:53] Voice 1: but then we'd have to find savings elsewhere to do that.

[3:17:57] Voice 1: So we tend to budget based on what we've experienced in the past.

[3:18:01] Voice 1: That's why 15 was recommended.

[3:18:03] Voice 1: recommended so it might be a struggle if we have to find additional budget and we don't actually

[3:18:10] Voice 1: have a budget for it it is more than eight thanks thank

[3:18:15] Trustee Fast: you and I know we're going to be bringing on

[3:18:19] Trustee Fast: 26. uh Trustee Peterson yeah

[3:18:23] Voice 13: on a similar

[3:18:24] Voice 12: vein um I recall uh I believe it was at the end of

[3:18:30] Voice 12: the previous term similar discussion about laptops um if i'm not mistaken the decision at that time

[3:18:39] Voice 12: was to not fund them um however uh we did end up funding a certain number of director marler might

[3:18:48] Voice 12: have that information but um i just think the notion that um we're going to

[3:18:57] Voice 12: to jig the numbers down with an expectation that we can um overspend and make up the shortfall

[3:19:07] Voice 12: later is just i don't think that's to me that's not good budgeting um so i do have concerns with

[3:19:15] Voice 12: that type of approach um yeah obviously

[3:19:21] Voice 12: it's it's an unknown how many new trustees will be coming in

[3:19:25] Voice 12: how many will require laptops but to me the approach of budgeting um for what we think we

[3:19:35] Voice 12: might need is better than uh putting out a number that's low and then saying oh we'll make up the

[3:19:41] Voice 12: shortfall if we need it i just i not

[3:19:46] Trustee Fast: good practice gotcha okay thank you um any more um uh discussion

[3:19:56] Trustee Fast: discussion about this one. Did anybody want to? I don't think we've seconded this. I'm

[3:20:03] Trustee Fast: looking for more. Anybody want to second this motion? No? Okay, thank you. I'm going to move

[3:20:17] Trustee Fast: on then and see, Trustee Elliott, is there anything else you want to bring forward? Or do

[3:20:24] Trustee Fast: you want to bring forward the one about reduce the number of in-person meetings again? Or,

[3:20:29] Trustee Fast: Or, you know, I'm trying to find significant ones.

[3:20:32] Trustee Fast: It's very challenging, isn't it?

[3:20:35] Trustee Fast: I'm going to put in the chat just the,

[3:20:38] Trustee Fast: I've been looking at provincial grants to local governments

[3:20:41] Trustee Fast: and Islands Trust has its own little section in there.

[3:20:45] Trustee Fast: And I'll just send it out.

[3:20:46] Trustee Fast: But I don't think provincial granting is like on the upswing or anything here.

[3:20:51] Trustee Fast: But just for reference, since I was looking at it,

[3:20:54] Trustee Fast: in case anybody wants the link.

[3:20:57] Trustee Fast: Anybody got any more motions?

[3:21:01] Trustee Fast: Trustee Elliott.

[3:21:03] Voice 9: Well, we have some very smart and capable staff, and I know they're always talking about, you know, how they can do the work with the resources available.

[3:21:16] Voice 9: level could we not ask each department director to um take another look at their operations budget

[3:21:23] Voice 9: and um potentially identify any savings and return that in time for the committee the whole

[3:21:32] Voice 9: discussion so that we just you know if there's anything that shifts in the meantime if

[3:21:39] Voice 9: software licenses magically become cheaper um that really taking a second look at the

[3:21:45] Voice 9: departmental operations um requests uh we leave that in the hands of the directors would that be

[3:21:52] Voice 9: a good move anybody i

[3:21:56] Trustee Fast: think we sort of already have done that but that's my take on it and i'm

[3:22:01] Trustee Fast: going to uh remind everybody we at trust council we paid attention to the operational review

[3:22:07] Trustee Fast: go ahead cao brownie thank

[3:22:11] Voice 2: you chair yeah just to uh trustee elliott's point um certainly that's

[3:22:15] Voice 2: something that we can do. And I would say, generally, we do do as we work to finalize

[3:22:20] Voice 2: the budget. I wouldn't place too much hope on software licenses getting cheaper. And I do think

[3:22:28] Voice 2: so there may be room there. I think whatever savings might be identified, though, would likely

[3:22:36] Voice 2: be less significant than savings you've identified through some of the more significant

[3:22:42] Voice 2: pieces that you have before you. So certainly if FPC wants to ask us to do that, we can do that

[3:22:48] Voice 2: and look at the operational budgets, recognizing that, you know, every dollar does matter. But I

[3:22:54] Voice 2: wouldn't anticipate it's going to result in a significant amount of money to make a material

[3:23:00] Voice 2: difference. You know, I think there are other options to look at some of the pieces that you

[3:23:05] Voice 2: that you have before you

[3:23:07] Voice 2: that might result

[3:23:09] Voice 2: in a more significant reduction.

[3:23:12] Voice 9: Oh, do go on, CAO.

[3:23:15] Voice 9: I

[3:23:16] Voice 2: mean, well, I think

[3:23:17] Voice 2: I think all the, you know,

[3:23:20] Voice 2: all the items that are kind of

[3:23:21] Voice 2: in that discretionary category

[3:23:23] Voice 2: are up for consideration.

[3:23:24] Voice 2: You know, I put forward

[3:23:27] Voice 2: recommendations to you

[3:23:28] Voice 2: at Trust Council in the ops review

[3:23:30] Voice 2: that added to the budget.

[3:23:31] Voice 2: And I fully appreciate

[3:23:33] Voice 2: Trust Council's endorsement

[3:23:35] Voice 2: of those recommendations.

[3:23:37] Voice 2: recognizing, though, that that was going to add to the financial pressure.

[3:23:40] Voice 2: So, you know, there are steps that you could take.

[3:23:43] Voice 2: For example, you could, for those two new positions,

[3:23:46] Voice 2: they're budgeted for this upcoming fiscal with a start date of June 1st.

[3:23:51] Voice 2: If you asked us to, we could delay that start date by a few months,

[3:23:55] Voice 2: and that would result in, my quick math on both,

[3:23:58] Voice 2: if you deferred both of those positions to October 1st,

[3:24:01] Voice 2: it would probably reduce the budget by around $60,000.

[3:24:04] Voice 2: dollars so obviously again not without an impact right it means whatever work we were hoping that

[3:24:11] Voice 2: those positions would do would be just delayed that much further the flip side is the challenges

[3:24:18] Voice 2: that exist that we propose those positions to help start trying to solve have been long-standing

[3:24:25] Voice 2: challenges and they also wouldn't be resolved in three more months either way you know you

[3:24:31] Voice 2: You could defer those recommendations, you know, further if you wanted.

[3:24:35] Voice 2: The problems won't go away.

[3:24:36] Voice 2: It would just defer our ability to start addressing them.

[3:24:39] Voice 2: But I think it's those kinds of considerations.

[3:24:42] Voice 2: And I suspect just that one example would likely generate, that $60,000-ish would likely generate, would be more than what we would find out of smaller reductions across the operational budgets for most departments.

[3:24:59] Trustee Fast: Thanks.

[3:24:59] Voice 2: Thank

[3:25:02] Trustee Fast: you. So do we want to push these issues further down the road to save a percentage of tax increase now? Or do we leave it to the next council, who might be a very different council? We don't know. Anyway, Trustee Peterson.

[3:25:21] Trustee Fast: Yeah,

[3:25:24] Voice 12: thank you. And thank you, CAO, because I've sort of been mulling this over this morning. When we're looking at trying to substantially reduce the budget, as you identified, these little bits, we need an awful lot of them to get a percentage drop.

[3:25:42] Voice 12: And so much as it pains me to suggest it, I have been thinking about, you know, here we've, via the operational review, which of course Trust Council endorsed, but that doesn't mean we can't delay the implementation of some of these new positions.

[3:26:00] Voice 12: And that was precisely what I was considering is around the impact of doing so.

[3:26:10] Voice 12: I recognize that we need those positions, but I also recognize that there's not a lot

[3:26:18] Voice 12: of availability for us to tinker in the existing budget without having a good hard look at

[3:26:25] Voice 12: some of those budget lifts that are implications of acting on the operation review in the short

[3:26:34] Voice 12: term. So again, it's not an easy decision, but I have been thinking about potentially

[3:26:44] Voice 12: deferring one of those positions. And I mean, I don't think anyone really wants to defer

[3:26:52] Voice 12: those and put things off further but if we if it's important to this committee and to trust council to

[3:27:00] Voice 12: significantly reduce the tax raise then i think we at least have to consider

[3:27:05] Voice 12: those pieces trustee

[3:27:11] Trustee Fast: getty you

[3:27:15] Trustee Gedye: know brony's got his hand oh sorry different color please go ahead

[3:27:20] Voice 2: trustee getty was was ahead of me but i think maybe just if i may thank you chair just to

[3:27:24] Voice 2: respond to trustee peterson's point my only request though is that if we defer investment in those

[3:27:31] Voice 2: new positions um that we all and you know we reduce that that that also requires trust council

[3:27:38] Voice 2: to reduce this equally moderate its expectations around our ability to significantly improve the

[3:27:45] Voice 2: work that we're doing around reconciliation or engagement um you know that's that's the

[3:27:49] Voice 2: the fundamental rationale for those two new positions in particular is to help us

[3:27:53] Voice 2: improve our ability to deliver on those streams of work. And so if we defer the investment in

[3:27:59] Voice 2: those, that's fine, but it means we will not, we shouldn't expect much improvement in our ability

[3:28:05] Voice 2: to deliver on that work until we're ready to make that full investment. Thank you.

[3:28:10] Trustee Fast: Thank you. And one clarification, I see three positions with the word new beside them. Can

[3:28:15] Trustee Fast: Can you just confirm which two you were talking about?

[3:28:19] Voice 2: I was referring to the Manager of Indigenous Relations

[3:28:22] Voice 2: and the Engagement and Communications Lead.

[3:28:26] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:28:28] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:28:28] Trustee Fast: Because there's also a permanent halftime one and an extension.

[3:28:33] Trustee Fast: So just making sure I was on the same two.

[3:28:36] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:28:37] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Trustee Getty.

[3:28:44] Trustee Gedye: I guess Bowen Island's got this magic number of 34 or something.

[3:28:52] Trustee Gedye: percent which is um i you know i still think that we can sell that in terms of all of the services

[3:28:57] Trustee Gedye: that we obtain and i don't know that fifty dollars per household or average household is you know

[3:29:04] Trustee Gedye: going to make it or break it um but um you know i find myself in the position of agreeing with the

[3:29:10] Trustee Gedye: writer of the friends of the gulf islands society which is a little bit frightening but um

[3:29:17] Trustee Gedye: But nevertheless, it's, you know, we've given up on some other things.

[3:29:23] Trustee Gedye: So I'm not looking to find little bits and pieces that add up to a percentage.

[3:29:30] Trustee Gedye: I'm looking to find bits and pieces or things that will help us get back into some of the things that have been unfunded.

[3:29:37] Trustee Gedye: And I realize that's another argument in terms of trying to refund them.

[3:29:40] Trustee Gedye: But, you know, in terms of the motion that I've put forward, I'm not sure if Robert's got it at this point, is to recommend that we remove from the budget, the draft budget, the reconciliation action plan, which is $150,000, and that that

[3:30:00] Trustee Gedye: instead be added specifically to the job description for the manager of indigenous relations.

[3:30:06] Trustee Gedye: So that reads now that the manager will lead the design and implementation of a coordinated and

[3:30:11] Trustee Gedye: collaborative approach to intergovernmental relations among Islands Trust bodies and First

[3:30:16] Trustee Gedye: Nations in the Islands Trust area, as well as regional districts and provincial and federal

[3:30:21] Trustee Gedye: agencies. I might add island municipalities, but the manager of indigenous relations also plays a

[3:30:28] Trustee Gedye: a key role in the development of productive relationships and innovative reconciliation

[3:30:31] Trustee Gedye: and engagement strategies. So that seems to me to get back to the reconciliation action plan.

[3:30:39] Trustee Gedye: If there's a whole lot of that that's been done, and what Claire was describing earlier

[3:30:45] Trustee Gedye: was that a whole lot of that has been done. It hasn't been finalized. It hasn't come

[3:30:49] Trustee Gedye: to trust counsel. It's something that is by definition deferred because we don't have

[3:30:54] Trustee Gedye: all of the the work that's been done and it's something that could and should be in the skill

[3:31:01] Trustee Gedye: set of this new person and it could be we're looking for somebody that can polish it to

[3:31:08] Trustee Gedye: give us their expertise in terms of where it's you know got some flat sides and and where it

[3:31:15] Trustee Gedye: could be improved and maybe some background and information and experience in terms of

[3:31:19] Trustee Gedye: of working with a lot of the Indigenous governing bodies

[3:31:23] Trustee Gedye: that are in our area.

[3:31:24] Trustee Gedye: So I think that that budget item needs to be deferred

[3:31:29] Trustee Gedye: in effect or become built into the job description

[3:31:33] Trustee Gedye: for this new position.

[3:31:35] Trustee Gedye: And that, if that's possible

[3:31:37] Trustee Gedye: in terms of jigging things that way,

[3:31:39] Trustee Gedye: that would give us, you know, 150,000.

[3:31:43] Trustee Gedye: That's not a small little piddly thing.

[3:31:45] Trustee Gedye: and I think we can have both.

[3:31:49] Trustee Gedye: Thank you.

[3:31:51] Trustee Gedye: Wait for comments.

[3:31:54] Trustee Fast: Yeah, I've got two staff with their hands up.

[3:31:57] Trustee Fast: I'll go to the CAO first.

[3:31:59] Voice 2: Thank you and through the chair,

[3:32:00] Voice 2: I just want to clarify that of that $150,000,

[3:32:04] Voice 2: $100,000 of that was the $100,000 for capacity funding

[3:32:08] Voice 2: for the operational review.

[3:32:10] Voice 2: So that's not work that the other person can do.

[3:32:13] Voice 2: In fact, it may actually, our ability to provide capacity funding may be important to support the work that that individual will be able to do.

[3:32:22] Voice 2: So that $100,000 is not work that can be reassigned.

[3:32:25] Voice 2: It's an investment in building those relationships with nations.

[3:32:30] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:32:31] Trustee Fast: Follow up on that?

[3:32:33] Trustee Fast: Okay, but I also, oh, I see Claire's hand is up as well.

[3:32:37] Trustee Gedye: So is that in addition to or different from the $110,000 that's capacity funding?

[3:32:44] Trustee Gedye: for the Conservancy Engagement Project?

[3:32:47] Voice 2: It is. It is separate from, yeah, when we had the operational review discussion in December,

[3:32:52] Voice 2: yeah, we clarified. So the Conservancy felt that they needed that money to support the

[3:32:57] Voice 2: engagement around and capacity funding to support five-year plan and the Conservancy's work. And

[3:33:03] Voice 2: this $100,000 was in addition to support the broader relationship building for other work

[3:33:08] Voice 2: for the Islands Trust.

[3:33:11] Trustee Fast: Thank you. You know,

[3:33:13] Trustee Fast: don't sometime we might want to think about color coding parts of this um agenda or something else

[3:33:20] Trustee Fast: to help make it clear to all of trust council what's conservancy and what's uh other trust

[3:33:28] Trustee Fast: islands trust stuff uh director freighter do you have something to add um

[3:33:33] Voice 4: yes i just think it might

[3:33:34] Voice 4: be helpful to clarify um as per page 189 on your agenda the costs for the reconciliation action

[3:33:41] Voice 4: plan or to support its implementation. So it includes costs like some contractor advisors,

[3:33:46] Voice 4: it would be legal costs around review of agreements, signing ceremony costs where

[3:33:51] Voice 4: we've achieved an agreement, trustee and staff travel to various meetings related to relationship

[3:33:58] Voice 4: building, general legal costs that might arise during the year. It can be like speaker honoraria,

[3:34:04] Voice 4: that sort of thing. So generally it's hard costs. These are not things that could be

[3:34:08] Voice 4: supplemented by having an additional staff person and indeed if we are to

[3:34:13] Voice 4: have additional staff resources it might be expected that we're going to have

[3:34:15] Voice 4: even more meetings that require that generate some of those hard costs so

[3:34:19] Voice 4: just bring that to your attention that said we will be refining this as we

[3:34:23] Voice 4: bring forward the the draft Reconciliation Action Plan for review

[3:34:26] Voice 4: over the next month or so so we'll have more detail for you in the coming months

[3:34:31] Voice 4: thank you a

[3:34:35] Trustee Fast: lot of complicated uh material here trustee yates thank

[3:34:42] Voice 18: you jeff aspen i think

[3:34:43] Voice 18: actually cio brawny answered my question um about you know how that money is divided up

[3:34:52] Voice 18: and how some of it will be needed for something quite different than the other part of it so

[3:35:00] Voice 18: So, yeah, I was kind of looking, I was thinking along the same lines as Trustee Getty, actually, but then now I'm not so sure.

[3:35:06] Voice 18: So I'll just wait to see what other people say. Thank you.

[3:35:10] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you.

[3:35:15] Trustee Fast: I'll put myself on the list and just say, I think, as much as it would be nice to lower the 30 something percent that Bowen Island municipality will be faced with.

[3:35:37] Trustee Fast: I think it's important to take this step now that CAO Brony has ripped the Band-Aid off with his operational review.

[3:35:47] Trustee Fast: And now we have fresh advice and we discussed it at Trust Council.

[3:35:54] Trustee Fast: And I don't want to delay it or dilute it.

[3:36:02] Trustee Fast: uh at this point i i think we should go forward with uh uh finding the best budget to support

[3:36:10] Trustee Fast: uh that important um uh work so i don't know if i'm going to be in favor of uh uh any of the

[3:36:20] Trustee Fast: smaller ones either except maybe fewer in-person trust council meetings but anyway that's uh that's

[3:36:29] Trustee Fast: just a joke i'm um wondering if uh there are more uh motions coming forward toby have you um stopped

[3:36:44] Voice 9: yeah thank you chair there is nothing yeah that's gonna substantially change the budget and what

[3:36:51] Voice 9: i'd suggested thanks okay

[3:36:52] Trustee Fast: thank you for your effort in the everybody's care of putting things

[3:36:57] Trustee Fast: together. I think I may have heard that Trustee Peterson or Trustee Getty might be putting

[3:37:03] Trustee Fast: something forward. Are there any other motions that you've got there, Robert? He's checking.

[3:37:12] Trustee Fast: Oh, I can't hear him. Trustee Getty?

[3:37:17] Trustee Gedye: Well, I put one in in terms of removing

[3:37:20] Trustee Gedye: reconciliation action plan. But given the discussion that we've just had, I don't think

[3:37:25] Trustee Gedye: that's going to fly very far.

[3:37:27] Trustee Fast: Okay. Okay. We're not going to make that one. Robert,

[3:37:32] Trustee Fast: Robert, do you have anything else pending our attention there?

[3:37:37] Voice 15: Well, Chair, there are a number of emails.

[3:37:41] Voice 15: I'm not sure if you wanted to go through them.

[3:37:44] Trustee Fast: No, that's okay.

[3:37:45] Trustee Fast: As long as nothing new has come, I think Trustee Elliott has stopped.

[3:37:50] Trustee Fast: It sounds like Trustee Getty has stopped.

[3:37:53] Trustee Fast: Trustee Peterson, how about you?

[3:38:01] Trustee Fast: Go ahead.

[3:38:03] Voice 12: So I guess my thought would be, again, around implications of delaying implementing all of the actions in the operational report.

[3:38:21] Voice 12: report, but I don't know. I mean, I think CEO Broney sort of gave us a look at a couple

[3:38:32] Voice 12: scenarios sort of off the top of his head, which I think is helpful. I don't know that I really want

[3:38:37] Voice 12: to request an actual report on that because, of course, this committee, it's hard for us to know

[3:38:46] Voice 12: how Trust Council feels and whether it's worth bringing forward a resolution to get reporting

[3:38:55] Voice 12: that may or may not be relevant to the majority of Trust Council as we go into the next round

[3:39:03] Voice 12: of budget discussions.

[3:39:04] Voice 12: So I think I'm not going to put a motion together, but it just occurred to me, you know, the

[3:39:11] Voice 12: The financial budgetary implications of that, of implementing those recommendations are significant.

[3:39:19] Voice 12: And if we're truly looking, if Dress Council truly wants to reduce the budget, then we have to at least be prepared to consider whether we need to do all of those things in this coming budget cycle or whether we can consider staging those costs.

[3:39:35] Voice 12: So that's it for me.

[3:39:37] Trustee Fast: Okay, thank you.

[3:39:39] Trustee Fast: I'm going to not do any editorializing.

[3:39:42] Trustee Fast: sorry, it's very tempting. Go ahead, CAO Brownie.

[3:39:46] Voice 2: Thank you, Chair. I think just to simplify,

[3:39:51] Voice 2: from the perspective of budget, the three recommendations within the ops review that had

[3:39:56] Voice 2: budget implications were the two positions, the engagement lead, the manager of Indigenous

[3:40:01] Voice 2: relations, and the $100,000 for capacity funding. And so the other recommendations that you endorsed,

[3:40:09] Voice 2: First, we would, unless we received different direction from Trust Council, didn't necessarily have, didn't have a budget ask attached to them. And so those would continue. So really, it's those three recommendations that have the city budget impact.

[3:40:23] Voice 2: impact. So as I said, you could defer the hiring of those two new positions to a later date. And

[3:40:30] Voice 2: you could, if you chose, reduce the $100,000 for capacity funding. And so, you know, the implications

[3:40:37] Voice 2: of those are we would have less of a pool of money for capacity funding, which may limit our

[3:40:43] Voice 2: ability to engage with some nations. You know, I don't, $100,000 in itself is probably, as I said

[3:40:49] Voice 2: of the time is probably long-term not going to be sufficient either. I've had engagements with

[3:40:54] Voice 2: other CAOs within the Capital Regional District as recently as last week, where they have talked

[3:41:00] Voice 2: about they're in similar boats. And on the two positions, the implication is just that it will,

[3:41:06] Voice 2: as I said, continue to sort of defer our ability to really take a more strategic approach in those

[3:41:12] Voice 2: two streams of work. You know, staff will continue to do the best that they can with the capacity

[3:41:17] Voice 2: that we have and and if we are able to recruit those two positions even if it's some later date

[3:41:23] Voice 2: that will help but until then it would be on those two files largely a status quo thank

[3:41:30] Trustee Fast: you very much

[3:41:31] Trustee Fast: director mobs thanks

[3:41:34] Voice 3: jerry i just wanted to comment on trustee peterson's reference to

[3:41:40] Voice 3: sort of how fdc plays at the council table and sort of maybe not understanding sort of what

[3:41:44] Voice 3: council's desires might be and hesitating to put something forward in light of that

[3:41:48] Voice 3: this body is entrusted with and tasked with putting forward a budget that it recommends

[3:41:53] Voice 3: and it can support the council table everybody here sits at council you know each of you has a

[3:41:59] Voice 3: enough of an understanding of council's feelings as any other trustee um and you know you are

[3:42:06] Voice 3: tasked at this table with doing the hard work and the analysis of looking to see can something be

[3:42:12] Voice 3: reduced without significant impact and therefore do we suggest does council take that action

[3:42:18] Voice 3: So, I suggest deferring decisions to Trust Council is not necessarily the best approach.

[3:42:25] Voice 3: There's often limits of time at Trust Council when you've got 26 trustees.

[3:42:28] Voice 3: It's also much tougher for staff to respond to questions on the fly if they come up at that point, as opposed to if they come up in a meeting and we have some time between now and Trust Council to investigate and put together some analysis or reporting for you.

[3:42:40] Voice 3: So, I just encourage you to be bold in your recommendations to Trust Council.

[3:42:44] Voice 3: And sometimes we do see that Trust Council will not take the recommendations of Financial Planning Committee. Financial Planning Committee may remove things, Trust Council adds them back. And that's just the nature of the way we work and that's perfectly acceptable. But I'd suggest getting some of those budget changes earlier rather than later is certainly helpful from the staff perspective.

[3:43:05] Trustee Fast: Very good. Thank you very much. I've got Trustee Getty and then Peterson. Go ahead, Trustee Getty.

[3:43:13] Trustee Gedye: Thanks. All right. I'd be interested if Julia could give me, sorry, Director Mobs could give me sort of a ballpark off the top of her head, all of the unfunded programs that we've been talking about.

[3:43:28] Trustee Gedye: So the resiliency assessment, I mean, the background material that's in the agenda says that in March of 2019, the Trust Council decided that we were in a climate emergency.

[3:43:43] Trustee Gedye: And I don't think that's changed. And if anything, it's worse. And for whatever reason, if that work hasn't been done over the years in terms of staff availability or resources or capacity or whatever, however we phrase it, I think that's a problem.

[3:44:00] Trustee Gedye: And that's a question that isn't necessarily being addressed, either possibly in part in the operations review, but I think that, you know, we have to figure out what the priorities were around that and why we're, you know, we've got new flavors and new colors and, you know, whatever the Pantone color of the year that's come up on terms of with all due respect to the operations review.

[3:44:26] Trustee Gedye: few um you know these things that have become new priorities and i think that that is potentially a

[3:44:34] Trustee Gedye: problem if we if we're probably if we don't have the capacity we don't go ahead with projects that

[3:44:39] Trustee Gedye: are important then you know why do we flip it into something brand new um the same with the

[3:44:45] Trustee Gedye: electronic records management you know we've i hate using our website it's really really difficult

[3:44:51] Trustee Gedye: to find any documents, and I'm always using up staff time getting help trying to find something.

[3:44:56] Trustee Gedye: You've heard me about the Secretariat. I also think the position of the biologist, if we're

[3:45:01] Trustee Gedye: looking at environmental protection and we need science-based information, that that is

[3:45:08] Trustee Gedye: unimportant. And the funding that we got from grants proved that it was helpful and an important

[3:45:16] Trustee Gedye: position. So, and the same with the positioning analysis with the GIC. So, I guess if one of the

[3:45:29] Trustee Gedye: biggest problems to all of this budget angst that we're going through is the fact of the income and

[3:45:37] Trustee Gedye: the revenues, you know, I think we shot ourselves in the foot with that letter to the province

[3:45:42] Trustee Gedye: asking for, you know, a complete review.

[3:45:45] Trustee Gedye: And we keep tabling the whole thing

[3:45:47] Trustee Gedye: about the province's donation or grant to us.

[3:45:55] Trustee Gedye: And I think that that's, you know,

[3:45:57] Trustee Gedye: $100,000 would be huge for us

[3:46:00] Trustee Gedye: in terms of the $115,000 for the biologist.

[3:46:03] Trustee Gedye: And it's like a drop in the bucket.

[3:46:05] Trustee Gedye: Even if they're billions in deficit,

[3:46:07] Trustee Gedye: you know, they could come up with pocket change

[3:46:11] Trustee Gedye: basically to help out something that's starving.

[3:46:14] Trustee Gedye: Bowen Island is paying almost four times as much as the province is.

[3:46:19] Trustee Gedye: And, you know, when I tell people that it's been $118,000

[3:46:24] Trustee Gedye: for however many years, they're surprised and they're appalled.

[3:46:27] Trustee Gedye: And I think that figuring out the strategy in terms of having,

[3:46:35] Trustee Gedye: getting a little bit more money from the province

[3:46:38] Trustee Gedye: would make a big effect on this organization.

[3:46:40] Trustee Gedye: I also think that with grants specifically, we've got a position that is, I think it's two days a week in terms of somebody that's looking at all the grant opportunities, and we get good information from that person, and I pass that on to various staff here in terms of whether or not we've got projects that would fit.

[3:46:59] Trustee Gedye: And I'm not sure if our grant income has fallen from $600,000 down to $182,000, that maybe we're not funding that position well enough in terms of figuring out and writing grants and trying to increase that revenue, which would balance out some of these impossible positions that we're in.

[3:47:22] Trustee Gedye: so um you know if we had everything that we actually need to have in terms of all of these

[3:47:31] Trustee Gedye: projects what would all of those unfunded projects amount to and it's uh you know what is it three

[3:47:39] Trustee Gedye: thousand three hundred thousand dollars a little bit more um and i don't i guess that's a three

[3:47:47] Trustee Gedye: percent increase i don't know but um i think those are the the points that um are not recommendations

[3:47:54] Trustee Gedye: from this committee but i think that it's something that we need to um think about as a

[3:47:59] Trustee Gedye: larger group thank

[3:48:02] Trustee Fast: you thank you for that i've got a bunch of hands up now i put myself on the list

[3:48:07] Trustee Fast: uh peterson yates and then me please go ahead tim yeah

[3:48:13] Voice 12: thank you sure i just wanted to um

[3:48:14] Voice 12: just clarify, the chair had named me asking if I had a motion and I didn't. And I do understand

[3:48:25] Voice 12: that the responsibility of this committee is to make recommendations to trust counsel.

[3:48:31] Voice 12: But that said, I haven't sorted through what I think I'm ready to bring on the operational

[3:48:40] Voice 12: pieces to the point that I have a motion that I'm prepared to advance today.

[3:48:45] Voice 12: So I just wanted to make that clear.

[3:48:46] Trustee Fast: Thank you for the clarification.

[3:48:49] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Trustee Yates.

[3:48:51] Voice 18: Thank you, Chair Fast.

[3:48:53] Voice 18: Just in response to Trustee Getty's mentioning of the unfunded projects, we can add that

[3:49:01] Voice 18: up ourselves.

[3:49:02] Voice 18: It's on page 28 and 29.

[3:49:08] Voice 18: Oh,

[3:49:09] Trustee Fast: she's frozen.

[3:49:10] Trustee Fast: Oh, something's happened.

[3:49:14] Trustee Fast: we

[3:49:14] Voice 7: lost we lost

[3:49:16] Trustee Fast: you for about 20 seconds there you

[3:49:21] Voice 18: said yeah my internet connection is bad i

[3:49:23] Voice 18: think i'll turn the video off right now okay thank you and if

[3:49:27] Trustee Fast: you could go on

[3:49:27] Voice 18: in referring to

[3:49:29] Voice 18: yeah yeah if i did have a motion it would be the same one i've been thinking about for

[3:49:36] Voice 18: the last 10 years and it's the fact that you know the province's contribution the grant from the

[3:49:42] Voice 18: the province is less than two percent it's the same amount that we've had for about 12 years

[3:49:49] Voice 18: and yet the province is demanding and we know we need to do reconciliation and it if you look at

[3:49:57] Voice 18: all these projects and the positions that we need to fund a lot of them the really costly ones

[3:50:03] Voice 18: relate to reconciliation and so it's too late now because yeah we did we kind of shot ourselves in

[3:50:10] Voice 18: the foot by asking for that review when we really probably should have just asked specifically for

[3:50:16] Voice 18: funding for specific reconciliation um i forget what else i was gonna say but um

[3:50:25] Voice 18: i'm just i just find it really distressing that a lot of this work we need to do

[3:50:32] Voice 18: um we need help from the province i'm just saying that maybe the next council will be braver

[3:50:40] Voice 18: Thank

[3:50:41] Trustee Fast: you. And I've got you on the list, Trustee Patrick. I'm just going to put my little two bits in here, too, which is I think that the reconciliation and relationship building work, which kind of are the two new positions and the $100,000, I think that's an investment, not a cost.

[3:51:04] Trustee Fast: I think that those relationships are going to help us with all the other tasks I expect over time.

[3:51:14] Trustee Fast: Just looking locally here, Squamish Nation has a climate action plan, for example, that's inspiring.

[3:51:24] Trustee Fast: firing and um uh and i think um by working together i uh uh hope that we may be even

[3:51:34] Trustee Fast: advancing the work of protecting and preserving uh the magnificent ecologies and uh uh humanity in

[3:51:46] Trustee Fast: in in the islands and communities and um so i just um i think it it'll advance all the work

[3:51:54] Trustee Fast: I don't think it's a separate kind of cost. That's my take on it. I think society will not lose. Islands Trust communities won't lose. Over to you, Trustee Patrick.

[3:52:09] Trustee Fast: Patrick, I

[3:52:13] Voice 10: don't know where to begin anymore, but I just want to remind you that the operational review did factor in some of the decisions that we're looking at about building our base, I guess you can say, our systems, our way of working and the work toward reconciliation.

[3:52:30] Voice 10: We can't do the resiliency indicators if we don't have good relationships with First Nations who need to participate in developing that work.

[3:52:37] Voice 10: So we've made decisions because of the timeliness and investment. This is not the investment. I think if you recall in December, we had Islands Coastal Economic Trust talk to us about the process they went through. That was millions of dollars. So there are asks still coming from us, but it's getting ourselves and building these basic processes so that we're continuing to move forward.

[3:53:04] Voice 10: So we have made decisions. And I think what we still are missing here is, okay, we heard some hints from CAO Broney of you could delay things, you could do things to reduce budgets. There's no motion on the floor here. Do we need a motion on the floor to ask for those things? What can we get if we delay some of these things and get some reductions?

[3:53:24] Voice 10: I think we all know 13.9%, let's say at 14% budget increase, is going to go over like a lead balloon in your community. So we need to make some efforts. What can those be? Yes, they're sacrifices, but as a committee, we've got to move forward. So we need a motion along those lines that sort of hint back from what we were given some ideas about earlier.

[3:53:45] Voice 10: earlier that's

[3:53:54] Trustee Fast: the question i've been asking and this is your chair saying are there any motions

[3:54:00] Trustee Fast: on the floor should we move to that closed meeting that's still on the agenda trustee getty so if we

[3:54:13] Trustee Gedye: made some sort of a motion that was directing staff to uh come in with you know only 11 percent

[3:54:22] Trustee Gedye: or only 12 percent or whatever the magic number that would you know to bring it down um that would

[3:54:30] Trustee Gedye: force the staff to try and figure out the pros and cons of whether it's

[3:54:39] Trustee Gedye: deferral or whether it's you know dropping it and is is that what we're

[3:54:47] Trustee Gedye: we're thinking of in terms of trying to get that kind of information if we're

[3:54:51] Trustee Gedye: looking at the percentage and that's going to be hard to sell and we're

[3:54:56] Trustee Gedye: We're trying to find ways of cutting back

[3:54:59] Trustee Gedye: and we're not able to do it

[3:55:03] Trustee Gedye: in terms of making recommendations.

[3:55:05] Trustee Gedye: Do we ask the staff to do that hard work

[3:55:08] Trustee Gedye: and then see whether or not

[3:55:10] Trustee Gedye: that's something that we can support?

[3:55:12] Trustee Gedye: Is that the process?

[3:55:19] Trustee Fast: I'm seeing Director Mob's hand up.

[3:55:23] Voice 3: That's certainly something

[3:55:24] Voice 3: that this committee can ask for.

[3:55:26] Voice 3: It's something that has been asked of staff in the past

[3:55:29] Voice 3: and we always make our best efforts

[3:55:30] Voice 3: to come back with a list of potential reductions.

[3:55:34] Voice 3: The earlier motion that was passed did request

[3:55:36] Voice 3: that a list of discretionary spending items

[3:55:38] Voice 3: do come forward to committee as a whole.

[3:55:40] Voice 3: So that might cover off some of this exercise,

[3:55:45] Voice 3: although discretionary items might,

[3:55:47] Voice 3: a list of discretionary items might not necessarily be

[3:55:49] Voice 3: what staff would recommend.

[3:55:50] Voice 3: So they are related, but are slightly distinct.

[3:55:54] Voice 3: I would suggest, you know, if this committee really feels

[3:55:56] Voice 3: that they don't want to recommend a tax increase

[3:55:58] Voice 3: that decide it's just council

[3:56:00] Voice 3: but you're struggling with where to cut

[3:56:02] Voice 3: that it would be a good idea

[3:56:03] Voice 3: to ask staff for their thoughts

[3:56:04] Voice 3: and suggestions on budget reduction.

[3:56:06] Voice 3: And we can bring that forward

[3:56:08] Voice 3: to the committee of the whole.

[3:56:09] Voice 3: Of course, you know,

[3:56:10] Voice 3: financial planning committee

[3:56:11] Voice 3: won't be looking at the budget again.

[3:56:12] Voice 3: So that would go to committee of the whole.

[3:56:14] Voice 3: They would make the final changes

[3:56:15] Voice 3: and recommendations to council.

[3:56:20] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much.

[3:56:21] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[3:56:22] Trustee Fast: I'm going down my list here.

[3:56:24] Trustee Fast: Trustee Peterson.

[3:56:26] Voice 12: Yeah, just related to this question.

[3:56:29] Voice 12: My preference would be to

[3:56:33] Voice 12: rather than specifying a percentage for staff to work on,

[3:56:38] Voice 12: ask staff to work on identifying potential areas

[3:56:43] Voice 12: rather than trying to work to a specific percentage reduction.

[3:56:50] Voice 12: Just my thoughts.

[3:56:53] Trustee Fast: Trustee Yates.

[3:56:58] Voice 18: Yeah, I would say the same thing,

[3:57:00] Voice 18: but I also remember this came up at December Trust Council,

[3:57:04] Voice 18: the very same thing oh let's ask staff if they can come up with a certain this is I really I

[3:57:11] Voice 18: really dislike having to do that I it is not staff's job to do that it is our job and as hard

[3:57:18] Voice 18: as it is to

[3:57:20] Voice 7: to

[3:57:21] Voice 18: one defend a really big budget or to make essential cuts that's our job it really

[3:57:28] Voice 18: is not staff's job to have to do that um and um i guess the other thing i can say is we're doing

[3:57:36] Voice 18: an eight-year catch-up here with you know deferrals and using surplus budget and

[3:57:41] Voice 18: emergency funds and all sorts of stuff that past council has done to enable a certain budget

[3:57:52] Voice 18: by taking um you know to make it look like we're oh we're only having a seven percent increase only

[3:57:58] Voice 18: a six percent increase well now it's catch-up time and that's part of it too so it's not just

[3:58:04] Voice 18: a 3.1 percent that's kind of you know that's all we have to play with really and truly that's all

[3:58:10] Voice 18: we have to play with here it's it's more than that it's the fact that we're doing catch-up

[3:58:16] Voice 18: from about eight years of not asking for an adequate budget and now we don't want to look

[3:58:22] Voice 18: look bad either. But then I get back to the speaking notes that we've asked for to defend

[3:58:29] Voice 18: the budget. I'm prepared to defend it, but I'll just leave it there. Thank you.

[3:58:35] Trustee Fast: Thank you very much. Trustee Graham.

[3:58:40] Voice 11: Thank you, Trustee Yates. And we've heard this before. We're here because of past decisions that

[3:58:47] Voice 11: we as Financial Planning Committee members had made in the past. We used our surplus.

[3:58:51] Voice 11: us. We soften the blow each year, and I am prepared to move forward with the budget that

[3:58:58] Voice 11: has been presented to us as is and take the hit that we may get. We'll get some people who love

[3:59:04] Voice 11: us. We'll get some people who hate us. Nothing will change. That is the day. That's the world

[3:59:08] Voice 11: we live in.

[3:59:10] Trustee Fast: Yeah. Thank you, Trustee Graham. I put myself on the list here. I agree. I think we have

[3:59:17] Trustee Fast: I have to accept the operational review

[3:59:24] Trustee Fast: and the decisions that Trust Council made

[3:59:26] Trustee Fast: and stick to it.

[3:59:29] Trustee Fast: And these things cost,

[3:59:31] Trustee Fast: and I think the world is changing.

[3:59:34] Trustee Fast: And I think by taking these,

[3:59:38] Trustee Fast: anyway, I'm prepared to defend it too.

[3:59:41] Trustee Fast: Not seeing any more motions.

[3:59:46] Trustee Fast: Last call before we go to a break

[3:59:49] Trustee Fast: and then to the closed agenda.

[3:59:51] Trustee Fast: agenda come back quickly for that unless people want to go straight to the closed

[3:59:55] Trustee Fast: trustee patrick i

[3:59:58] Voice 10: still think as you know

[4:00:01] Voice 10: Do you really want to go into the committee of the whole without some guiding suggestions from staff?

[4:00:10] Voice 10: That's really what I want this committee to think about, that we can either have structured guidance of things that staff, you know, everything's going to hurt.

[4:00:18] Voice 10: But if there's some staff analysis behind it, that it might stop us from making decisions in the committee of the whole of making decisions that are wrong or ill-informed, I guess is the word.

[4:00:30] Voice 10: We want to have informed decisions.

[4:00:36] Trustee Fast: Go ahead, Trustee Graham.

[4:00:39] Voice 11: I hear you, Trustee Patrick, but we have asked the heads of the various departments to look at their budgets to make those decisions.

[4:00:47] Voice 11: In the past, we are at the not quite the 12th hour, but we're at the 11th hour of the budget cycle.

[4:00:55] Voice 11: And I tend to agree with Trustee Yates.

[4:00:58] Voice 11: I, too, cringe every time we ask staff to go back and do this.

[4:01:04] Voice 11: At the same time, we want them to do the work that they're doing.

[4:01:06] Voice 11: At the same time, we want them to pick up the work that they shouldn't be doing, but

[4:01:10] Voice 11: are doing anyway.

[4:01:11] Voice 11: And then we complain that we're not getting anything done.

[4:01:14] Voice 11: So we are also responsible for some of the reasons we don't get as much productivity

[4:01:18] Voice 11: out of our staff as we think we should.

[4:01:23] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Graham.

[4:01:25] Trustee Fast: And I'll just say, I think we've had a lot of good advice from staff, and we're at the

[4:01:31] Trustee Fast: the point where we've also just today asked for the islands trust conservancy to reconsider we've

[4:01:38] Trustee Fast: got work that uh various directors have told us is still coming to um uh committee the whole

[4:01:45] Trustee Fast: and uh not to mention all the work that staff are behind on too that we've been talking about

[4:01:52] Trustee Fast: so i support uh going forward with this budget can i um if we were going to pass a motion now

[4:02:02] Trustee Fast: I might move something like, and maybe this isn't needed, but the FPC forward the budget materials contained in 7.1 as amended. Did we amend it? No, I don't think so. And other motions passed, which was the one about the asking Islands Trust Conservancy to reconsider for the for Trust Council for the upcoming committee, the whole as it's recommended 2026-27 budget.

[4:02:29] Trustee Fast: it. I'm going to move that motion then seeing no hands fly up. And I think I can just send this to

[4:02:42] Trustee Fast: Robert. There we go. Taking my hand down. Did you get that, Robert? Yes,

[4:03:00] Voice 15: I've just now received it.

[4:03:03] Voice 15: I need to collect it.

[4:03:05] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you. While Robert's doing that, let's take a break. It's

[4:03:09] Trustee Fast: 203. And so let's come back at 215. Sound good? Okay, see you all at 215.

[4:14:10] Voice 5: Robert, quick question before we go live again. Is there anything I have to bring up for this

[4:14:18] Voice 5: closed meeting?

[4:14:20] Voice 15: The closed meeting agenda.

[4:14:23] Voice 5: Is it in the FPC folder?

[4:14:28] Voice 15: It's in governance restricted

[4:14:30] Voice 15: restricted in edm oh

[4:14:33] Voice 5: i don't think i have access to that do i i

[4:14:37] Voice 15: don't know are you i think you've

[4:14:40] Voice 15: shown it before if not i can show it i have access it

[4:14:44] Trustee Gedye: is in the uh web dev oh

[4:14:48] Voice 5: it is in the

[4:14:49] Voice 5: web dev too okay i'll just go find it then you

[4:14:51] Voice 7: would need i

[4:14:53] Voice 10: will uh we are live just so to speak

[4:14:56] Voice 10: can live streaming yeah

[4:14:58] Trustee Gedye: oh

[4:14:59] Voice 5: okay right thanks you'll

[4:15:03] Trustee Gedye: need the password robert

[4:15:09] Voice 5: in that case

[4:15:09] Voice 5: you're gonna have to bring it up don't have that yeah

[4:15:15] Voice 15: as i said that's fine i can show the

[4:15:17] Voice 15: in-camera agenda at the appropriate moment

[4:15:19] Voice 5: okay great thank you chair

[4:15:46] Voice 18: fast before we go into the

[4:15:48] Voice 18: closed meeting i have one question that i just need to ask director mobs about the unfunded

[4:15:53] Voice 18: requested requests sure

[4:15:55] Trustee Fast: we're going to come back into open meeting and i've got a draft motion that

[4:15:59] Trustee Fast: we've you can help me figure out did we pass any other motions and my

[4:16:05] Voice 18: notes are uh i think we did

[4:16:08] Voice 18: we passed a motion to ask um staff to give us some speaking notes oh

[4:16:13] Trustee Fast: yeah that's right thank you

[4:16:15] Trustee Fast: but not to adjust the budget that's great okay thank you okay let's see if we've got everybody

[4:16:33] Trustee Fast: anybody back? And there's Trustee Elliott. Okay. All right. Trustee Maud, are you there?

[4:16:48] Voice 13: I are here.

[4:16:50] Trustee Fast: Okay. Thank you. And I see Trustee Graham. Everybody's there. Okay. And so I've

[4:16:59] Trustee Fast: sent a motion to staff, but I see Trustee Peterson. You've got your hand up?

[4:17:05] Voice 12: Yeah. I just want to identify that I sent a motion into the FPC email for consideration.

[4:17:14] Voice 12: related to what Chair Patrick was speaking of

[4:17:17] Voice 12: just shortly before the break

[4:17:18] Trustee Fast: around

[4:17:20] Voice 12: options.

[4:17:21] Voice 12: Happy

[4:17:22] Trustee Fast: to consider that one before mine.

[4:17:29] Trustee Fast: Would

[4:17:29] Voice 13: you like me to just say what the text is?

[4:17:33] Trustee Fast: Actually, if you could hang on one second,

[4:17:35] Trustee Fast: I think maybe, Trustee Yates,

[4:17:37] Trustee Fast: you've got just a question for the director?

[4:17:40] Voice 18: Yes, I did.

[4:17:41] Voice 18: Thank you, Chair Fast.

[4:17:42] Voice 18: um in we have a nice list here of unfunded projects on page 28 and 29 of our package

[4:17:50] Voice 18: and for me i sort of use that as like well here's what we didn't fund um and there was one thing

[4:17:57] Voice 18: that i that i think might be missing from the unfunded projects it was something we discussed

[4:18:02] Voice 18: at an earlier either fpc or council meeting and it was the freshwater sustainability strategy

[4:18:10] Voice 18: strategy and there was a review and there was implementation. And I'm pretty sure we said yes

[4:18:16] Voice 18: to the review, the external review, but then we said no to the implementation, which was $10,000.

[4:18:23] Voice 18: And would that also be part of our unfunded projects? Can't hear you, Julie.

[4:18:38] Voice 3: There was a

[4:18:39] Voice 3: $10,000 reduction made to the freshwater sustainability project. And so that is

[4:18:44] Voice 3: partially unfunded we will include in the committee the whole agenda a list of all of the

[4:18:51] Voice 3: funded and unfunded projects on a single page it is

[4:18:54] Voice 3: included on that list apologies that it was

[4:18:56] Voice 3: missed in the report okay

[4:18:58] Voice 18: that's really helpful thank you

[4:19:00] Trustee Fast: thank you uh good eyes okay um let's

[4:19:04] Trustee Fast: hear your motion trustee peterson if you're still up for that sure

[4:19:10] Voice 13: so i

[4:19:11] Voice 12: move that financial planning

[4:19:12] Voice 12: committee request staff to prepare options for further budget reductions for consideration at

[4:19:17] Voice 12: the february committee of the whole meeting

[4:19:20] Trustee Fast: that's pretty wide open okay thank you and uh

[4:19:28] Trustee Fast: oh there we go thank you i was reading the wrong one i'll

[4:19:33] Trustee Gedye: second okay

[4:19:34] Trustee Fast: trustee giddy

[4:19:37] Trustee Fast: and uh did you um want to speak to your motion now that it's been set sure

[4:19:45] Voice 12: sure just briefly um

[4:19:47] Voice 12: Earlier, there was a discussion about identifying a target percentage, and I did share my reservations about doing that.

[4:19:59] Voice 12: And this obviously leaves considerable staff discretion in this motion, but that was my intent.

[4:20:08] Voice 12: Thank you.

[4:20:13] Trustee Fast: Options.

[4:20:14] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[4:20:16] Trustee Fast: Any more questions or discussion?

[4:20:22] Trustee Fast: on this motion i'll put my hand up here just to say um i don't like giving staff more work when

[4:20:38] Trustee Fast: we've already given them more work and we uh are at this point having had the big review and uh i

[4:20:47] Trustee Fast: i just think we should move ahead so i'll be voting against this probably unless i'm

[4:20:52] Trustee Fast: persuaded otherwise uh trustee patrick well

[4:20:59] Voice 10: i encourage you to think of this as potentially

[4:21:00] Voice 10: we might be giving them a heck of a lot more work if we cut things incorrectly. So I think

[4:21:05] Voice 10: this is giving us some guidance. And when I say we, that's Trust Council. So, you know, I think

[4:21:12] Voice 10: having guidance to Trust Council for consideration so that they make good decisions and that having

[4:21:18] Voice 10: staff's input helps reach good decisions. Okay. Thank you.

[4:21:24] Voice 9: Trustee Elliott. I'm sort of with

[4:21:28] Voice 9: trustee yates on this that um our job is to give direction on and specifically on priorities so it

[4:21:35] Voice 9: would probably help if we gave you know we're asking for advice um what kind of advice and

[4:21:43] Voice 9: what direction do we want to go do we want to protect um you know capacity funding and

[4:21:49] Voice 9: reconciliation action plan or is it targeting um you know small savings that aren't going to

[4:21:56] Voice 9: impact strategic plans projects um i do think it would be helpful if we gave a little more

[4:22:04] Voice 9: direction than just options options

[4:22:10] Trustee Fast: are sorry i don't have my hand up it seems to me staff are

[4:22:20] Trustee Fast: probably wading into political territory here i mean there could be many many many options

[4:22:28] Trustee Fast: and um i i like your point trustee elliott about uh direction although we did um are we asking them

[4:22:40] Trustee Fast: to reduce like that's what we asked islands trust council again to do is to reduce in particular

[4:22:47] Trustee Fast: to consider reducing in particular this cement this area over trustee peterson yeah

[4:22:57] Voice 12: so um the

[4:22:58] Voice 12: The reason that I haven't identified specific areas is because I don't feel like this committee kind of got there and I don't have any that I am, you know, strongly thinking this is where we need to do it.

[4:23:12] Voice 12: However, my intent was to sort of direct staff to have some thoughts essentially prepared for when we get into the larger group so that, because I feel confident there will be discussion about reducing the proposed tax increase that we're looking at in today's document.

[4:23:37] Voice 12: So I'm sorry, I don't have more specifics.

[4:23:41] Voice 12: If there's specifics that people want to insert into the motion, I'd certainly consider that.

[4:23:47] Voice 12: But I felt this was better than doing nothing.

[4:23:51] Trustee Fast: Thank you, Trustee Peterson.

[4:23:53] Trustee Fast: Trustee Getty?

[4:23:55] Trustee Gedye: I think this is similar to the process that we go through on Bowen in terms of asking staff to, you know, look at their wish list and come up with their own priorities.

[4:24:07] Trustee Gedye: And that helps us if we have to make some hard decisions.

[4:24:11] Trustee Gedye: So, you know, we're all struggling with this, with the budget, and we'll do that every single year. And it's, you know, we are between a rock and a hard place in terms of the income and all of the expectations and the good ideas.

[4:24:27] Trustee Gedye: is so if we can get a little bit more help we've had all of today's discussion and um you know

[4:24:33] Trustee Gedye: we've got all the directors here and they're listening and taking notes and paying attention

[4:24:38] Trustee Gedye: so you know they they'll i think we'll be able to give us if there's any wiggle room at all they'll

[4:24:44] Trustee Gedye: be able to help us find it thank

[4:24:47] Trustee Fast: you um i'm gonna go to director bobs first and then i'll come to

[4:24:50] Trustee Fast: you trustee elliot can't hear you really

[4:24:58] Voice 3: struggling with the mute button today sorry

[4:25:00] Voice 3: Sorry. Just to offer my two cents from my personal perspective as a staff member, I'm not tossed with this resolution.

[4:25:09] Voice 3: I mean, we've read the room at Trust Council or reading the room here today.

[4:25:13] Voice 3: I think we understand that there likely will be some desire to at least consider options for reduction at Committee of the Whole and perhaps at Trust Council.

[4:25:21] Voice 3: So we're likely going to be doing some of those that work in the background anyway.

[4:25:25] Voice 3: way um not having a set target gives us a little bit more flexibility and make sure we're not

[4:25:31] Voice 3: putting things forward that actually you know maybe are are not really achievable just to hit

[4:25:36] Voice 3: a set target any options for reduction that we bring forward we always talk about the impact

[4:25:41] Voice 3: of removing that funding from the budget so there will be an understanding at community

[4:25:46] Voice 3: the whole and council if you remove this this is the impact um and you know the fallout of that

[4:25:52] Voice 3: decision um so from my perspective i'm fine with the resolution as it is uh we can work thank you

[4:25:59] Trustee Fast: very

[4:25:59] Voice 9: much trustee elliott great that gives me great peace of mind director mobs i appreciate

[4:26:05] Voice 9: that very much um i personally and and i don't know if i'm speaking for everyone else but

[4:26:10] Voice 9: i really want to see the structural issues that were identified in the operational review

[4:26:15] Voice 9: review addressed so if staff can focus on um you know what is the what is going to create a better

[4:26:25] Voice 9: um islands trust performance model um rather than you know and if yeah so i i think following the

[4:26:34] Voice 9: lead of the operational review and then let's consider things that are maybe outside of that

[4:26:41] Voice 9: could be targets for reduction. So I think let's look at the structure and keep improving. Thanks.

[4:26:48] Trustee Fast: Thank you. Okay, see no more hands. I'll just say, I've been convinced. Okay. I'm going to

[4:26:58] Trustee Fast: check. Oh, yes, Judy seconded it. Okay, so we've got a motion that's been moved and seconded,

[4:27:04] Trustee Fast: Tim Peterson and Judy Getty. And it's on the floor in front of us here. I'm going to call

[4:27:10] Trustee Fast: all the question all those in favor raise your hand okay thank you lower your hands and any

[4:27:21] Trustee Fast: opposed one opposed thank you very much uh everybody okay and then um let's move on to the

[4:27:35] Trustee Fast: uh chair

[4:27:37] Voice 15: yeah if i may would you mind just making a statement as to the outcome of that vote for

[4:27:44] Voice 15: For the audience, please.

[4:27:46] Trustee Fast: Of course, certainly.

[4:27:47] Trustee Fast: That motion passed with one opposed.

[4:27:51] Voice 15: Thank you.

[4:27:52] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[4:27:53] Trustee Fast: And now let's move on to the other motion there,

[4:28:01] Trustee Fast: which is very sketchy, that I sent in.

[4:28:08] Trustee Fast: This was the one.

[4:28:11] Trustee Fast: Yeah, we're going to forward the budget materials.

[4:28:15] Trustee Fast: The other motions passed.

[4:28:17] Trustee Fast: I think we can take that out now.

[4:28:18] Trustee Fast: Now, that was because I wasn't sure at the time.

[4:28:21] Trustee Fast: So if you remove the part about the as an and I don't think we did any amendments, did we really?

[4:28:30] Trustee Fast: We didn't. So remove the as amended.

[4:28:36] Trustee Fast: Thank you. So this is my motion.

[4:28:42] Trustee Fast: Will that work, Julia?

[4:28:47] Voice 3: That's fine. I would actually suggest keeping the as amended because there's a few places I need to make some corrections.

[4:28:54] Voice 3: and of course we'll be including some of the new material that's been requested

[4:28:58] Voice 3: you know the list of discretionary items etc okay

[4:29:02] Trustee Fast: thank you so if we could leave the as amended in

[4:29:05] Trustee Fast: okay i'm never quite sure what to do with these big ballpark kinds of wrapping ups of discussions

[4:29:11] Trustee Fast: here um everybody okay with

[4:29:14] Voice 3: the word yeah i made sure i'd look to director marler but i don't think

[4:29:18] Voice 3: we need to reference council here i think just forwarding it to the committee the whole is what's

[4:29:22] Voice 3: appropriate yeah

[4:29:23] Voice 1: through a chair yeah that's that's totally fine okay

[4:29:26] Trustee Fast: so leave off the last

[4:29:29] Trustee Fast: three words of the motion yeah right

[4:29:39] Voice 3: oh i was referring to um it says other motions passed

[4:29:45] Voice 3: to trust council oh yeah and

[4:29:48] Voice 3: committee the whole it can just be forwarded to committee the whole

[4:29:51] Trustee Fast: right and should i leave and other motions passed in there because we've got as amended

[4:30:00] Trustee Fast: something took that out either works i think it's fine okay um okay so we've got to the committee

[4:30:08] Trustee Fast: of the whole in there twice one after the other robert if you could take out one of those word

[4:30:21] Trustee Fast: sets that says to the committee the whole for the upcoming committee the whole meeting

[4:30:26] Trustee Fast: as it's recommended oh i guess it's fine okay do i have a seconder okay thank you trustee getty

[4:30:42] Trustee Fast: and uh any discussion on this motion or do we nope okay then i'm going to call the question

[4:30:53] Trustee Fast: all those in favor raise your hand thank you and lower your hands please oops that's me

[4:31:06] Trustee Fast: all those opposed okay thank you that motion carries unanimously and then um thank you

[4:31:21] Trustee Fast: everybody for your attention to this big item susan yates you've got your hand up no i think

[4:31:27] Trustee Fast: I

[4:31:28] Voice 18: just wanted to make a quick comment, hopefully give us a little bit of heart.

[4:31:33] Voice 18: When I was adding up the numbers for the unfunded projects, and keep in mind that these were all

[4:31:38] Voice 18: projects that we all thought at some point really needed funding, the total comes to about $344,000.

[4:31:46] Voice 18: And I know Director Mobs will give us a more accurate number for our committee of the whole

[4:31:51] Voice 18: meeting. But it's not like we haven't tried to make cuts. We have tried to make cuts. And some

[4:31:57] Voice 18: of these were really important to people or local committees or um you know so we try i think i think

[4:32:07] Voice 18: we really try that's a big number 344 000. um obviously it would be ridiculous if we hadn't

[4:32:14] Voice 18: made those cuts but there we go thank you trustee yates just uh director

[4:32:19] Voice 3: mobs uh just on that note

[4:32:23] Voice 3: when they actually include the removals of a couple of staff positions that were made as well

[4:32:28] Voice 3: as some of the programs that were removed, we're looking at close to $550,000 that's been removed

[4:32:36] Voice 3: from the original budget. So that represents almost 6% of the tax increase.

[4:32:42] Trustee Fast: Thank you. And

[4:32:43] Trustee Fast: if that could be included in some of the communications or an agenda somewhere that

[4:32:47] Trustee Fast: we could refer to, that would be really helpful. Thank you. Okay. Now, going back to our agenda,

[4:32:57] Trustee Fast: Amanda, we're down at business, new, no new business.

[4:33:05] Trustee Fast: Next meeting, February the 18th.

[4:33:08] Trustee Fast: That's before the Committee of the Whole.

[4:33:10] Trustee Fast: We've got an audit committee, I believe, and maybe a quick –

[4:33:18] Trustee Fast: did we have a meeting on that day of the Financial Planning Committee?

[4:33:22] Trustee Fast: Yes.

[4:33:25] Voice 3: Yes, on the

[4:33:26] Voice 3: 18th, Chair.

[4:33:27] Voice 3: We'll have a short audit committee meeting.

[4:33:30] Voice 3: it's you know typical is our planning session with the auditors and then there'll be a very

[4:33:34] Voice 3: short financial planning committee meeting to tackle some of the usual uh around financial

[4:33:38] Voice 3: reporting and then we'll move into committee the whole to talk about budget items right

[4:33:41] Trustee Fast: thank you

[4:33:42] Trustee Fast: okay very good and then uh with that um can i have a motion as on the page here to move into

[4:33:50] Trustee Fast: a closed meeting if anybody has their agenda open at number 10 uh trustee getty do

[4:33:55] Trustee Gedye: you want it read

[4:33:56] Trustee Gedye: it out yeah

[4:33:57] Trustee Fast: i

[4:33:58] Trustee Gedye: move that the meeting be closed to the public in accordance with the community

[4:34:01] Trustee Gedye: charter part 4 division 3 section 90 sub f law enforcement as the financial planning committee

[4:34:07] Trustee Gedye: considers disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the conduct of an investigation under

[4:34:12] Trustee Gedye: or enforcement of an enactment and that the recorder and staff attend the meeting thank you

[4:34:19] Trustee Fast: do i have a seconder thank you trustee peterson i think won that little race and uh uh

[4:34:28] Trustee Fast: Any discussion? All in favor, raise your hand, please. Digital hands. Very good. Thank you. Lower your hands, please. Any opposed?

[4:34:44] Trustee Fast: Okay, the motion to go into a closed meeting carries unanimously. Thank you to members of the public who may be watching. And please join us again on February 18.

[4:34:54] Trustee Fast: and we'll go into close so the staff will um shut down the streaming and recording or whatever

[4:35:01] Trustee Fast: you need to do thank you go ahead robert when you're ready

[4:35:06] Voice 15: yes um with your permission i will

[4:35:09] Voice 15: i have to do a half dozen things um so bear with me as i go through that first is um stopping

[4:35:16] Voice 15: Stop being

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
January 21, 2026 ADOPTED Page 1 of 6 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
 
Date of Meeting:  
Location:  
January 21, 2026 
Electronic Meeting 
 
Members Present:  
 
Sue Ellen Fast, Bowen Island Municipality (Chair) 
Mairead Boland, Saturna Island Local Trust Area (Vice Chair) and  
 Regional Planning Committee Representative 
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, Islands Trust Conservancy  
 Board Representative 
 
Staff Present: Rueben Bronee, Chief Administrative Officer 
Julia Mobbs, Director, Financial and Employee Services 
Stefan Cermak, Director, Planning 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 10:01 a.m. and acknowledged that participants in the 
meeting were on many Coast Salish territories.  
 
2. AGENDA 
 
2.1 Review of the Agenda 
 
The following additions to the agenda were presented for consideration: 
• Briefing from Islands Trust Conservancy Board: “Trust Council motion re Islands 
Trust Conservancy Board proposed 2026/27 budget”- to be included under agenda 
item 7.1.3.3 in the agenda package, Islands Trust Conservancy Board Projects, and 
to be discussed as item 7.0. 
• Briefing from staff: “Budget Changes Since Last Review” – to be included as 
agenda item 7.1.1.1, under “Budget Overview Briefing” 
 
2.2 Approval of the Agenda 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
January 21, 2026 ADOPTED Page 2 of 6 
 
By general consent the Committee approved the agenda as amended. 
 
3. PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD 
 
No member of the public was present. 
 
4. DELEGATIONS 
 
4.1 Friends of the Gulf Islands Society – Maxine Leichter 
 
The delegate spoke to the material provided to the Committee, indicating no support 
for continued increases in the number of staff positions and the budget without 
demonstrably clear increases in protection of the Trust Area; support for full costing of 
projects that includes estimates of staff resources required to complete the project; 
support for a full-time biologist position; and support for a review of the water 
sustainability project. 
 
5. CORRESPONDENCE 
 
5.1 From Brian Milne, dated 2025-12-19 
 
The Committee reviewed and discussed the above noted letter which requested the 
Committee to consider reducing funding for Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement work 
and legal opinions. 
 
FPC-2026-01 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee request staff to return the correspondence 
from Brian Milne to the correspondent. 
CARRIED 
 
6. ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATION 
 
6.1 Minutes of Previous Meetings 
 
6.1.1 Financial Planning Committee Minutes of November 12, 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. 
 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
January 21, 2026 ADOPTED Page 3 of 6 
7. BUSINESS - WORK PROGRAM ITEMS 
 
7.0 Late item: Briefing from Islands Trust Conservancy Board (ITCB) 
 
Director Frater indicated that it is expected that ITCB will continue to discuss this 
topic.  Committee discussion: 
• there is a significant increase to the ITCB budget request 
• there is an impact to the budget as a result of the completion of the Species At Risk 
federal grant  
 
FPC-2026-02 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee receive this correspondence from ITCB. 
CARRIED 
 
7.1 2026/27 Budget: Draft 2, Version 1 
 
7.1.0 Changes to the Draft 2026/27 Budget - Briefing 
 
Director Mobbs introduced the late item Briefing highlighting key changes made 
to the budget since the previous Financial Planning Committee meeting. 
 
7.1.1 Draft 2026/27 Budget Overview – Briefing 
 
Director Mobbs introduced the Briefing, noting that a substantial portion of the 
draft tax increase is a result of lost revenue streams, expenses for election, 
base staff wage increases, and inflation. 
 
Committee discussion included: 
• a brief summary describing how the budget is impacted by the above 
factors would be of value for trustees in explaining the budget 
• Reconciliation Action Plan expenses  
• information process to support Trust Council budget decisions 
 
FPC-2026-03 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee request staff to provide speaking 
notes for trustees on the proposed 2026/27 budget explaining budget 
changes as per the second and third paragraphs of the draft 2026/27 
budget overview presented to Financial Planning Committee on January 
21, 2026. 
CARRIED 
 
Committee discussion continued in regards to how Financial Planning 
Committee can assist Committee of the Whole budget discussions. 
 
Committee recessed at 11:12 a.m. and resumed at 11:27 a.m. 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
January 21, 2026 ADOPTED Page 4 of 6 
 
FPC-2026-04 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee request staff to prepare a summary 
of budget requests which represent the +3.1% (discretionary 
spending/inflation) for the February 18, 2026 Committee of the Whole 
meeting. 
CARRIED 
 
Committee discussion continued in regards to: 
• potential reserve fund specific to supporting elections 
• election costs have increased significantly 
• there is a lack of policy in regards to reconciliation capacity funding 
expenses 
• a potential overview of legislation, policies, Trust Council direction, and all 
staff positions involved with reconciliation 
 
FPC-2026-05 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee request Islands Trust Conservancy 
Board to reconsider the request already asked of them by Trust Council 
to review their budget, with a view to reducing it, and to look at in 
particular the part-time Indigenous Relations Advisor. 
CARRIED 
 
Committee discussion continued: 
• Bowen Island Municipality’s contribution to the budget is set by the Islands 
Trust Act and codified in Trust Council Policy 7.2.6 (Municipal Tax 
Requisition Calculation) 
 
Trustee Boland left the meeting at 12:30 p.m. 
Financial Planning Committee recessed at 12:30 and resumed at 1:00 p.m. 
 
FPC-2026-06 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee direct staff to remove the item under 
the Trust Area Services communication budget for the $10,000 for 
contractor support from the draft 2026/27 budget. 
DEFEATED 
 
Committee discussion continued: 
• possibility of requesting staff to make suggested amendments to the draft 
2026/27 budget 
• possibility of delaying the start time of new potential staff positions 
• the provincial contribution to Islands Trust has remained the same for 
several years yet the Province has increased responsibilities for Islands 
Trust to undertake, such as reconciliation actions 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
January 21, 2026 ADOPTED Page 5 of 6 
 
The Committee recessed at 2:04 p.m. and resumed at 2:17 p.m. 
 
FPC-2026-07 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee request staff to prepare options for 
further budget reductions for consideration at the February Committee 
of the Whole meeting. 
CARRIED 
 
FPC-2026-08 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee forward the budget materials 
contained in item 7.1 of the January 21, 2026 agenda, as amended, and 
other motions passed, to the Committee of the Whole for the upcoming 
Committee of the Whole meeting as it’s recommended 2026/2027 
Budget to Trust Council. 
CARRIED 
 
7.1.2 2026/27 Budget Guidelines Assessment 
 
No comments. 
 
7.1.3 Funding Requests 
 
No comments. 
 
7.1.4 Operating Budgets Increase Justifications 
 
No comments. 
 
7.1.5 Unfunded Requests 
 
No comments. 
 
8.  BUSINESS – NEW 
 
None. 
 
9. NEXT MEETING 
 
Wednesday, February 18, 2026, from 10:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. 
 
10. CLOSED MEETING 
 
10.1 Motion to Close the Meeting 
 
FPC-2026-09 

ADOPTED 
Financial Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
January 21, 2026 ADOPTED Page 6 of 6 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that Financial Planning Committee close the meeting of January 21, 2026, to 
the public in accordance with the Community Charter, Part 4, Division 3, 
s.90,(f)law enforcement, as the Financial Planning Committee considers that 
disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the conduct of an 
investigation under or enforcement of an enactment; and that the recorder and 
staff attend the meeting. 
CARRIED 
 
The Committee closed the meeting at 2:35 p.m. 
 
11. RISE AND REPORT 
 
None. 
 
12. ADJOURNMENT 
 
By general consent the Committee adjourned the meeting at 2:35 p.m. 
 
 
 
_________________________ 
Sue Ellen Fast, Chair 
 
Certified Correct: 
 
 
_________________________ 
Robert Barlow, Legislative Services Clerk/Recorder