General Committee
March 9, 2015
Meeting Number 9
Finance & Administrative Issues Community Services Issues
Chair: Deputy Mayor Jack
Heath Chair: Councillor Alan Ho
Vice Chair: Councillor Colin Campbell Vice
Chair: Councillor Alex Chiu
Environment
& Sustainability Issues Building,
Parks, & Construction Issues
Chair: Councillor
Valerie Burke Chair: Councillor Colin
Campbell
Vice Chair: Councillor Karen Rea Vice Chair: Regional Councillor Nirmala
Armstrong
Alternate formats are available
upon request.
Attendance
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Andy
Taylor, Chief Administrative Officer
Trinela
Cane, Commissioner of Corporate Services
Brenda
Librecz, Commissioner of Community & Fire Services
Catherine
Conrad, City Solicitor
Joel
Lustig, Treasurer
Mohammed Hosseini-Ara, Acting Director
of Culture
Andrea Tang,
Manager, Financial Planning
Alida
Tari, Council/Committee Coordinator
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The General Committee meeting convened at the hour of 1:18 PM with Deputy
Mayor Jack Heath in the Chair.
Disclosure of
Interest
Regional
Councillor Nirmala Armstrong disclosed an interest with respect to Item 1, by
nature of being a member of the Markham Arts Council Board.
1. CELEBRATE
MARKHAM GRANT
PROGRAM REVIEW (7.6)
Presentation
Brenda
Librecz, Commissioner of Community & Fire Services presented the Celebrate
Markham Grant Review process that was previously approved by General Committee
on January 9th 2015, and outlined the purpose of this workshop.
John
Matheson, Partner, Strategy Corp provided an overview of the work undertaken to
date on the Celebrate Markham grant review program and pointed out the
importance of the program. He also introduced
the areas for discussion at this workshop.
Shirley
Hoy, Project Lead, Strategy Corp delivered a PowerPoint presentation outlining
the elements of the Celebrate Markham Grant program which included the
following five major areas of focus:
Governance, Eligibility, Application Process, Reporting, and Program
Review. Each of the five areas had
proposed program options for Committee to consider and discuss.
The
Committee discussed each of the five major areas and the recommendations relative
to the Celebrate Markham Grant program:
·
Importance
of benchmarking grant programs offered
by other municipalities within York Region
·
When
comparing grant programs consider in-kind support as well as financial
·
Discussion
on options for administration – in house, committee or administered through a
third party?
·
Not
in support of having Markham Art Council (MAC) be the third party administrator
·
Groups
that have been receiving Celebrate Markham grants for many years consider
establishing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or multi year funding
commitments.
·
The
need to align this program to the outcomes of the Culture Plan
·
The
use of grant funds for intended purposes
versus providing any of surplus grant funds
to charity
·
Create
annual staff report outlining how the grant funds have been used
·
Develop criteria outlining what the grant money
should be used for
·
Need
to clearly outline eligible and ineligible criteria
·
What
level of audited financial reports
should be a undertaken
·
Supportive
of staff grants review committee to prepare staff report for Council approval
and moving the City operated grants to departmental budgets
There was
considerable discussion on methodology for setting the funding envelope,
program criteria and handling of surplus grant funds by groups. The Committee suggested that another session
be booked with Members of Council to review any past issues prior to the staff
report coming forward.
ADJOURNMENT
Moved by Councillor Valerie Burke
Seconded by Councillor Alex Chiu
That the General Committee rise from the in-camera session 4:08 PM.
Carried