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Most of the people who spoke at Thursday’s community and protective services committee were looking for money.
But Dianne Urquhart was there to dole some out.
The head of the Social Planning Council of Ottawa, which essentially operates as a research and development arm for the city’s voluntary sector, put up $100,000 to help create a new fund that would give seed money to grassroots organizations and initiatives that don’t currently qualify for municipal grants. She hoped the city would match the dollars.
Dozens of social-services agencies under the Making Voices Count banner had asked the city to include such a fund, worth $500,000, in its draft 2018 budget to help address “new and emerging needs.”
But the $3.42-billion draft budget, which council will vote on next week, didn’t include money for the fund.
“If we’re each bringing to the table what we have to offer, we can get somewhere,” Urquhart said in an interview.
“There’s no magic bullet here. There are a lot of needs. We need to all come together.”
Calling it a “fantastic offer,” Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Tobi Nussbaum asked the city’s number-crunchers to identify money within the department that could form the basis of the city’s share of the matching funds, meaning the fund would at least be $200,000.
Of all the city’s standing committees, community and protective services is responsible for the largest chunk of the budget.
It oversees firefighters, paramedics and bylaw services, as well as parks, recreation, cultural and social services.
The draft 2018 budget outlines an operating budget of $1.328 billion and a capital budget of $48.9 million.
It includes a three per cent increase for social service agencies. Recreation fees would increase by two per cent.
The budget would fund the hiring of 14 new paramedics in mid-2018 and buy some new ambulances. It would also cover the provincially mandated hike to the minimum wage.
Nussbaum said a $100,000 contribution to the new fund would represent less than 0.01 per cent of the CPS budget.
“That’s why I have confidence in staff’s ability to identify that small amount of money, which we can then leverage (to) start (to) address the needs we’ve been hearing for weeks now,” he said.
Perhaps the strangest thing about the committee is how it pits arts and culture aficionados, cross-country ski enthusiasts and frontline homelessness workers against each other for what feels, to many, like an ever-diminishing slice of Ottawa’s budgetary pie.
The committee heard from more than 40 public delegations, the sheer breadth of which reflected the committee’s wide span of responsibility.
But many converged on city hall to ask for the same thing — money to support grassroots groups in Ottawa, who, despite their small size, have a big impact on the people they serve.
Many of them get by on shoe-string budgets funded largely by generous donors. They struggle to secure renewable funding that pays for rent, staff salaries and allows the organization to focus on its mission, not constantly applying for grants off the side of someone’s desk.
That it fell to her organization to kickstart the creation of a new on-ramp fund didn’t particularly bother Urquhart.
“We live in the real world, right?” she said. “There’s growing demands and what we want in the city is every component in the city stepping up to the plate to make this a great place.”
With the support of 80 agencies, Making Voices Count also asked the city to restore $4 million in capital funding to the Action Ottawa housing budget as per the city’s 10-year housing and homeless plan.
The city first moved the funds from capital to operations in 2015 and has yet to restore it. The money had been allocated to develop new affordable housing in Ottawa.
Ultimately, the committee approved the draft budget as presented. Council will have the final say on Wednesday.
mpearson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/mpearson78
查看原文...
But Dianne Urquhart was there to dole some out.
The head of the Social Planning Council of Ottawa, which essentially operates as a research and development arm for the city’s voluntary sector, put up $100,000 to help create a new fund that would give seed money to grassroots organizations and initiatives that don’t currently qualify for municipal grants. She hoped the city would match the dollars.
Dozens of social-services agencies under the Making Voices Count banner had asked the city to include such a fund, worth $500,000, in its draft 2018 budget to help address “new and emerging needs.”
But the $3.42-billion draft budget, which council will vote on next week, didn’t include money for the fund.
“If we’re each bringing to the table what we have to offer, we can get somewhere,” Urquhart said in an interview.
“There’s no magic bullet here. There are a lot of needs. We need to all come together.”
Calling it a “fantastic offer,” Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Tobi Nussbaum asked the city’s number-crunchers to identify money within the department that could form the basis of the city’s share of the matching funds, meaning the fund would at least be $200,000.
Of all the city’s standing committees, community and protective services is responsible for the largest chunk of the budget.
It oversees firefighters, paramedics and bylaw services, as well as parks, recreation, cultural and social services.
The draft 2018 budget outlines an operating budget of $1.328 billion and a capital budget of $48.9 million.
It includes a three per cent increase for social service agencies. Recreation fees would increase by two per cent.
The budget would fund the hiring of 14 new paramedics in mid-2018 and buy some new ambulances. It would also cover the provincially mandated hike to the minimum wage.
Nussbaum said a $100,000 contribution to the new fund would represent less than 0.01 per cent of the CPS budget.
“That’s why I have confidence in staff’s ability to identify that small amount of money, which we can then leverage (to) start (to) address the needs we’ve been hearing for weeks now,” he said.
Perhaps the strangest thing about the committee is how it pits arts and culture aficionados, cross-country ski enthusiasts and frontline homelessness workers against each other for what feels, to many, like an ever-diminishing slice of Ottawa’s budgetary pie.
The committee heard from more than 40 public delegations, the sheer breadth of which reflected the committee’s wide span of responsibility.
But many converged on city hall to ask for the same thing — money to support grassroots groups in Ottawa, who, despite their small size, have a big impact on the people they serve.
Many of them get by on shoe-string budgets funded largely by generous donors. They struggle to secure renewable funding that pays for rent, staff salaries and allows the organization to focus on its mission, not constantly applying for grants off the side of someone’s desk.
That it fell to her organization to kickstart the creation of a new on-ramp fund didn’t particularly bother Urquhart.
“We live in the real world, right?” she said. “There’s growing demands and what we want in the city is every component in the city stepping up to the plate to make this a great place.”
With the support of 80 agencies, Making Voices Count also asked the city to restore $4 million in capital funding to the Action Ottawa housing budget as per the city’s 10-year housing and homeless plan.
The city first moved the funds from capital to operations in 2015 and has yet to restore it. The money had been allocated to develop new affordable housing in Ottawa.
Ultimately, the committee approved the draft budget as presented. Council will have the final say on Wednesday.
mpearson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/mpearson78
查看原文...
