Summerside aims for better handle on community group grants

The City of Summerside, P.E.I., is making changes to better understand how it is spending money on community groups.

The new policy was discussed at Tuesday night's committee of council meeting. Under it, grant applications would be split into three streams.

• Regular grants that require a yearly application.
• Groups the city has made long-term commitments to.
• In-kind grants.

The first two streams would be considered separately.

Use of facilities

The third stream would include budgets for field time or use of facilities. These would be recorded as grants, rather than being absorbed into various departmental budgets.

"We've never really understood the true cost, particularly for the in-kind services, so it's all around our commitment to trying to be more accountable to the taxpayers," said Brian McFeely, chair of the governance, policy and strategy committee.

"All of them do fabulous work in the community and we really want to support that."

Intention not to reduce budget

City staff said the intention is not to reduce the budget for community group grants, just to have a better understanding of it.

The committee will bring a finalized policy to council for a vote in the next couple of months.

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