New Westminster may allow community organizations to change up their projects in response to COVID-19.
In January, the city awarded $787,076 to 114 organizations for grants for projects and event that support local youth athletics, arts organizations, environmental organizations and groups supporting quality of life improvements for local residents. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, staff recommended organizations be given the ability to make changes to the grants for which they’ve already been approved.
“No one is telling us right now that they are not going to need that money,” city clerk Jacque Killawee recently told city council. “They are just wondering if they can use it in a different way related to the current situation, or defer purchases until the fall.”
Staff recommended that organizations unable to hold an event in 2020 because of COVID-19 should not lose multi-year or event funding.
Council recently considered staff recommendations that 2020 grantees be allowed to defer their grant purchase and events until later in 2020 and that 2020 grantees be allowed to submit revised proposals that respond to COVID-19. In addition, staff recommended the city open the spring grant opportunity, which would make $34,000 in grant funding available.
Coun. Patrick Johnstone said he hopes the city will streamline the process for applicants wanting to revise their applications because of COVID-19, as the original process was quite onerous. He hopes local groups, particularly some of the arts and cultural organizations in town, can find ways to connect people in new ways.
Killawee said it’s envisioned that city staff would send out a letter to organizations already approved for grants and request a written proposal indicating how they plan to use the money.
“It will be very simple,” she said. “It won’t be an application form. It will be in the form of a letter.”
Mayor Jonathan Cote supports the idea of allowing groups to change their programs in response to the COVID-19 crisis, but thinks the revised proposals need to be looked at individually and shouldn’t automatically be approved.
“We are going to be having to face some really tough decisions,” he said of financial impacts COVID-19 will have on the city. “At the same time, just giving a blank cheque to whatever, without giving some thought to that, I do find that problematic.”
Cote said he’d also prefer to hold off the spring grant program until the city has a better handle on its financial situation, in light of the current health-care crisis.
“We as an organization are going to have some tough things to deal with here. The reality is, whether it is this year or next year’s budget, the grant program might not be exactly the same as it has been in past years,” he said. “I think we need to be open and upfront about that.”
Council approved motions allowing 2020 grantees to defer their grant purchases and events until later in 2020, and to submit revised proposals that respond to the COVID-19.
“I would move that we postpone the spring grant opportunity until a later date when we have a better sense of our financial situation,” said Coun. Mary Trentadue, “and that 2020 grantees that are asking to change or revise their proposal, that those are brought forward to council before approval.”
Trentadue said she’d like council to see what groups are proposing to use the money for before the revised grants are approved.
Coun. Jaimie McEvoy said the city has done good work to depoliticize the grants process by putting it in the hands of staff.
“I think it is a mistake frankly to bring discussions of grants back into the political arena,” said McEvoy, the lone councillor to oppose the motion.
While he was “one of the champions of depoliticizing the grants process,” Cote said he thinks council should have a sense of the scale and types of projects being proposed by local organizations.
“This is not a business-as-usual type of situation here,” he said. “There are other decisions council is going to have to make in the coming months related to budget challenges here. I don’t want to take out any of our tools to look at those challenges.”
Trentadue told council it’s not her intention at all to politicize the grant process in any way.
“It’s much more related to managing the financial challenges that we are going to be faced with,” she said. “I think, frankly, the community would understand that.”
