WHEREAS many grants are very restrictive in their nature which limits the ability of local governments to use the money to service the best needs of their citizens and cause inappropriate allocation of scarce local resources: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that grant requirements be more flexible to allow for local governments to determine how the money would best be used to meet the needs of their population.
Ministry of Community, Sport Cultural Development The Province of British Columbia is committed to providing reasonable funding flexibility to ensure grant programs can be efficiently administered for the good of all British Columbians. For example, under the renewed Gas Tax Agreement, there is an expanded list of eligible project categories, giving local governments greater flexibility in how they wish to use those funds. In addition, the Province annually provides over 100 million in unconditional grant funding to local governments across British Columbia. Unconditional grants are highly flexible as there are few or no constraints on how the money is spent. They are primarily operating grants for good governance and service provision. The Province places more restrictions on grants that are earmarked for specific high-priority infrastructure projects. Many of these projects are expensive, publicly scrutinized and relate to issues of public health and environmental quality. Thus, these projects require a high level of oversight to ensure they are planned and constructed in a timely and appropriate manner in accordance with the conditions of a specific grant agreement. The Ministry is open to discussing more flexibility in grant programs. However, this must be done in the context of addressing competing concerns such as project transparency, accountability and cost efficiency.