Council hears recommendations for 2023 Municipal Grant Funding

January 26, 2023 · 0 Comments

Written By Paula Brown

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A subcommittee tasked with managing the 2023 Municipal Grant Funding allocations has submitted its recommendations to Shelburne Town Council.

During their meeting on Monday (Jan. 23), Town Council received a memo from the Municipal Grant Funding Committee detailing the adjusted suggestions for funding allocation and the organizations selected.

Through the 2023 Municipal Grant Funding program, Shelburne Town Council received requests from 14 organizations for $67,800 in cash and $18,700 in kind. Staff proposed a budget of $41,300 for the 2023 community funding grant.

Last year, the budget for municipal grant funding was $37,300.

As the Town faces increasing funding asks and budgetary constraints, council opted at their last meeting of 2022 to create a subcommittee to manage the allocation of their 2023 community grant program. The subcommittee consisted of three members of council; Deputy Mayor Shane Hall, Coun. Walter Benotto, and Coun. Kyle Fegan.

The Municipal Grant Funding Committee held a meeting on Jan. 12 to review and discuss the applications received for consideration. The committee recommended that 13 of the 14 applications be selected for the 2023 community grants.

“The funding process was extremely difficult this year and was based on all the pressures, most notably inflation,” explained Deputy Mayor Shane Hall.

While the committee supported the funding to nearly all organizations that applied, they also made cuts to the amount of money allocated.

Shepherd’s Cupboard Food Bank, which requested $20,000 in funding and was approved for $12,000, was one of the organizations to see a significant change in their funding request.

“The committee is also recommending that council requests the Shepherd’s Cupboard Food Bank apply for grant funding to surrounding municipalities within the County of Dufferin in order to obtain additional funding and that the foodbank provide the additional funding information in conjunction with their 2023 grant funding application, and report back to Shelburne Council on their progress,” read the memo provided to council at Monday’s meeting.

According to the memo, it is requested that the Town also have at least one council member to a maximum of two, be actively engaged with the Rotary during the Heritage Music Festival planning committee event discussions.

The recommendation for the Heritage Music Festival was to allocate $5,000 in cash and $3,432 in-kind.

The committee also recommended that any grant over $5,000 that does not have a ‘set event date’ be dispersed in four installments throughout the calendar year in the months of February, May, August,
and October.

A surplus of $4,500 has been left in the Municipal Grant Funding program for requests that come forward throughout the year.

The recommendations from the subcommittee will be included in the 2023 draft budget discussions, which will begin on Jan. 30.