ST. PAUL - The Town of St. Paul is working to create a more streamlined and straightforward policy to deal with the many requests it receives for financial support from community groups. Requests often range from support for sports tournaments and events, operational funds, special projects, and use of town facilities.
CAO Kim Heyman has been working to put together a new community grant policy, and presented an initial draft to council members during the Jan. 14 Committee of the Whole meeting, for discussion purposes.
A lengthy discussion took place on Thursday, with all councillors in attendance weighing in.
"Our current policy is rather vague and open to interpretation," said Heyman. "Administration has done a scan of our neighbours and have taken the best of their policies and created (drafts)."
The presentation of the policies at the meeting was strictly for discussion purposes, to allow Heyman to gather more input from council and ensure she is moving in the right direction with the policies.
One topic that came up was how some councillors would like to see financial statements from organizations when the groups ask for funds. This could possibly be just for requests over a certain dollar amount, or possibly when organizations are asking for funds to cover operating costs specifically.
The draft policy also included an age of '21 years and under' for the types of groups it would support, but Coun. Gary Ward said he would like it removed since the town has historically given funds to groups that include individuals who are older, such as groups that support seniors.
Discussion around which tournaments the town should or shouldn't support also took place. Heyman noted that some municipalities do not support tournaments at all.
Mayor Maureen Miller weighed in, and noted that she felt there was value in groups hosting tournaments in St. Paul, since it creates economic benefits for businesses in town.
Coun. Norm Noel agreed, saying, "If economic development is occurring . . . we should be supporting that 100 per cent."
Coun. Brad Eamon weighed in on a few topics. He noted the town should put together a few packages, with similar dollar values, to offer groups when they ask for donations for fundraisers. A package with golf passes, and another with swim passes, could be created, for example.
Another topic Eamon brought up was how he personally struggles with supporting sports teams from the St. Paul Regional High School. He said he has received phone calls from residents asking why the town does support the school's teams.
"For me, that's a tough one to approve," said Eamon. He noted that there are other "questionable" things council has approved, such as support for events that happen outside the municipality.
Miller said she would like administration to look at what other municipalities do in regards to school sports, noting she personally did support contributing funds to school teams. She acknowledged that some youth are only involved in school sports, and they are not involved in any other groups. She also noted the Regional High School does cater primarily to St. Paul students, since high schools also exist in outlying communities such as Elk Point, Mallaig and Ashmont.
Coun. Nathan Taylor recommended breaking the requests down into more categories, to allow for administration to approve some of the requests that clearly fall within the policy, rather than bringing them all to council. He also recommended the town start tracking denials, rather than just approvals, to allow for future direction on the policy.
When speaking about operational grants, Coun. Ron Boisvert said he felt it could be worth including a portion in the policy that only allows groups to apply for funds every few years. He added that the town should anticipate an increase in requests since many groups are struggling right now due to the pandemic.
As discussions wrapped up, Heyman described the policy as "the ever evolving policy."
"I think you're going in the right direction," said Taylor, when Heyman asked for council's feedback on the draft policy presented. Taylor did ask for the policy to be brought back once more to a Committee of the Whole meeting, prior to being presented to council for approval, to allow for more discussion.
"It's a great start," said Ward.
Coun. Tyson deMoissac was not in attendance at the Committee of the Whole meeting.
