By Barb Brouwer
Contributor
A request to amend the Columbia Shuswap Regional District Five Year Financial plan sparked comments about local costs of fighting wildfires.
In her report to the Dec. 8 board meeting, financial services manager Jodi Pierce pointed out that in accordance with the Local Government Act, a budget amendment is a requirement when planned expenditures will exceed the approved budget.
During the year, staff brought forward board reports where budgets for the applicable services have been amended to reflect the higher planned expenditures and the source of funding for these expenditures.
The increases to several budgets will be funded through operating reserves. Recently included are preliminary estimates for fire deployments, structure protection unit (SPU) deployments, incident costs within some of the fire services functions and the preliminary wildfire estimate costs.
“The costs of the fire deployments and SPU deployments are recovered from various agencies; the incident costs are being covered by deployment reserve funds and the preliminary wildfire estimate costs will largely be covered by Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness,” wrote Pierce in her Nov. 30 report.
This just incorporates all the budget changes that have been approved throughout the year, and the additional big one is to add all emergency expenses CSRD has had to incur because of the Bush Creek East Wildfire.
Pierce told directors that the finance department has budgeted the expenses and the off-setting revenue that CSRD incurred for the Emergency Operations Centre as a receivable. Some of the deployment funds CSRD receives from the province will to cover firefighter wages that were incurred during the wildfires but were not covered through a provincial program.
Pierce said CSRD firefighters were providing structural protection to save people’s homes and other buildings within the CSRD so the province does not cover those costs. However, if the Office of the Fire Commissioner requests a deployment of CSRD firefighters to another jurisdiction, such as a response to Tumbler Ridge earlier this year, the province reimburses the regional district.
In response to CSRD board Chair Kevin Flynn’s question about when the province would be covering its financial obligations following the wildfires, Pierce said it takes a significant amount of Finance Department staff time to gather and compile all the information needed in order to submit invoices to Emergency Management and Climate Readiness (EMCR).
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“We have submitted invoices for deployments and are starting to submit invoices for the labour costs incurred in the Emergency Operations Centre,” she replied.
Electoral Area E director Rhona Martin took issue with the lack of funding for CSRD firefighters.
“I find it curious that the provincial government won’t cover the cost of the firefighters,” she said, pointing out the firefighters are not paid, they are volunteers. “I think we should take this discussion to a Shuswap Emergency Program meeting to put pressure on the government to cover these costs.”
But Flynn thinks the issue goes beyond SEP and would perhaps be better brought forward to SILGA (Southern Interior Local Government Association) or the Union of British Columbia Municipalities.
Flynn also took issue with the delay in reimbursements to area businesses that supported relief efforts during the wildfires.
He referred to a hotelier who hosted many people, submitted all the necessary documentation to the province and continues to wait for payments some four months later, as are restaurant and other small business owners.
“It is not fair and it is not realistic,” he said. “And the new Emergency Management Act just came out and I would suggest the province will be downloading even more potential financial implications.”
Martin noted small businesses that operate in the bush are unable to cover the costs of fuel as well as maintenance and repairs to their equipment and will not want to respond in future because they can’t afford to.
Following the discussion, board members unanimously adopted the Five-year Financial Plan amendment.
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