The issue of third party grants once again came up at Monday night’s meeting of Estevan city council.
The grants support a variety of non-profit and cultural organizations in the community. The issue was addressed during budget deliberations in January. Council decided at the time to trim the grants to 2020 levels, saving about $100,000. A meeting was held in March with grant recipients before deciding the amount for each organization.
But in a letter and a video presentation to council at Monday night’s meeting, Estevan Art Gallery and Museum (EAGM) board chair Kathryn Gilliss and director-curator Amber Andersen spoke to council on the issue.
Gilliss noted that Andersen appeared before council on Jan. 25 to discuss how the EAGM has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic – providing insight into how the gallery has shifted to remote programming but had to cancel its fundraisers due to restrictions.
Gilliss noted that their understanding was that all third-party organizations were going to be making similar presentations to council.
But Gilliss noted the nature of the meetings with council for the other third-party grant recipients were less about the COVID-19 pandemic and more about their overall financial state and organizational needs.
“As I am sure you can appreciate, these are two very different conversations with key differences,” Gilliss wrote.
Gilliss noted that Andersen attempted to schedule a new meeting time but was advised that it would not be necessary because council had already heard from the EAGM.
“While the significant cut to the gallery's funding is of paramount concern, in that it drastically affects our ability to pay our fixed costs such as salaries and building utilities, what troubles our board is the process used to determine the funding allocations. The process as noted above lacks procedural fairness that is critical to effective municipal governance,” said Gilliss.
The EAGM board is not naïve to the difficult decisions that council is currently tasked with regarding budget allocations, Gilliss said, but they want to see decisions made in a fair and equitable manner.
Councillor Kirsten Walliser noted that the amount for each organization was based on the dollar values presented to council during budget deliberations in the fall, in addition to the January meeting.
She looked at costs such as wages, the capital repairs for the North West Mounted Police Museum and fundraising objectives, which she is confident the EAGM will meet.
“We didn’t just pick a number, we used the information that you had already presented to us,” said Walliser.
Gilliss said the comments by Walliser provided some context as to the decision-making process, but they wanted an equitable process for the organizations receiving grants.
Councillor Lindsay Clark, who is the council representative on the EAGM board, wanted to know if there were any programs the EAGM wanted to provide, but couldn’t, now that it knows how much it will receive from grants and from council.
Andersen replied by saying the $123,200 that the EAGM would have received goes to wages and utilities for the building. If the EAGM is reduced to $100,000, which is their new grant amount, they would have to fundraise to offset the amount lost.
And it was noted that the EAGM is in an okay financial position.
The EAGM isn’t the only organization to have its grant amount scaled back. It was noted during the committee reports section of the meeting that the Estevan Arts Council had their amount reduced from $40,000 to $10,000, since they wouldn’t be able to host concerts this year.
The EAGM has applied for grants that are available for organizations affected by the pandemic, and they have received those grants.
