At the November 16, 2017 Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD) Board Meeting the District of Sicamous announced their intention to withdraw from the Shuswap Economic Development Service.
The following motion was then passed.
THAT: the Certified Resolution from the District of Sicamous, dated November 9, 2017 indicating that the District of Sicamous Council is serving notice of its withdrawal from the Economic Development Extended Service Bylaw No. 5268, effective January 1, 2018, be received,
THAT: the notice of service withdrawal be referred to the December 2017 Economic Development Commission meeting for discussion and consideration of the implications of the Service Withdrawal on the remaining service participants (Electoral Areas C, D, E, and F);
AND FURTHER that the District of Sicamous be advised that it should make budget provisions for 2018 in relation to the Electoral Areas C, D, E and F Economic Development Service while the CSRD is going through the service withdrawal process.
The Economic Development Officer provided three new documents to the committee (attached to the HTML version of these minutes):
- Budget documents that were developed prior to the notice from the District of Sicamous;
- Budget documents that have been modified to show the impact that taking the contributions from Sicamous out of the budget in 2018 would have at this late date;
- A budget impact analysis outlining three options for how to go forward funding the Shuswap Economic Development Service in 2018.
The documents show different scenarios and show the financial issues that would occur if the committee endorsed the withdrawal of the District of Sicamous effective January 1, 2018.
The budget impact analysis options were:
-
Status Quo – Because the District of Sicamous did not provide notice early enough, the committee may compel the District of Sicamous to stay in the service until 2019.
-
Same program without Sicamous – the four electoral areas must increase their tax requisition to replace the funds from the District of Sicamous.
-
Tax requisition without replacing contributions from Sicamous – This requires cut backs to the current program.
The Mayor of Sicamous explained the position of the District of Sicamous Council, indicating that the decision had come after years of deliberations. The Council would like to use the funds it is withdrawing from the Shuswap Economic Development Committee to create its own Economic Development Corporation. The District of Sicamous envisions this corporation working with the Shuswap Economic Development Service in a similar way to how the Salmon Arm Economic Development Society is working with the Shuswap Economic Development Service.
The committee members were generally supportive of Sicamous’ proposed approach but were concerned about the financial implications for the Shuswap Economic Development Service.
The committee discussed the options and considered additional budgetary considerations not noted in the budget impact analysis. One such impact was that the withdrawal of Sicamous from the program in 2018 would reduce the likelihood of success in obtaining monies from the Rural Dividend application. This would further exacerbate the financial impact. If the District of Sicamous were to withdraw on December 31, 2018, the Rural Dividend Application would have a much more likelihood of going through.