City considering shuffling outside agency grants

(Newswatch Group/Bill Kingston, File)

CORNWALL – The half million dollar pot of taxpayer money given out to various agencies may go through a bit of shuffling for 2017.

The city’s outside agency committee, formally known as the Community Agencies’ Review Committee, meets Wednesday to consider rolling some of those grants into city departmental budgets.

The ones being considered – namely the SD&G Historical Society, the Seaway Senior Citizens Club and Centre Charles-Emile Claude – either have contractual obligations or need funds to access provincial money.

The proposed change wouldn’t negate the agencies from making a presentation to the budget committee.

In a report to the committee, the 2016 municipal grants program had an envelope of $544,000.

If the changes take place and provided all the numbers stay the same, the 2017 amount of money available for groups to make applications for would be just under $198,000.

The meeting of the Community Agencies’ Review Committee is at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016 at city hall.

The meeting will also see a committee chairman elected.

The committee members are councillors Elaine MacDonald, Claude McIntosh, Maurice Dupelle, David Murphy and Justin Towndale.