Elliot Lake's non-profit Renaissance Active Living Centre put out a pitch to Elliot Lake City Council for $40,000 emergency funding to cover their operating expenses.
The request came at Council's Committee of the Whole (COW) virtual session Monday night.
In her written presentation to the meeting, Renaissance Centre President Val Spencer stated the emergency money is needed to pay the recreational centre's operating expenses since the next cheque from their annual federal grant allotment isn't due until January 2021.
Part of the problem is the centre was forced to close by provincial COVID-19 order for three months, re-opening last July. But their bills still had to be paid.
Councillor Norman Mann wanted more information.
"You know, not that I don't want to assist the Renaissance Centre," he said. "You know this year is a very difficult year for more than just that centre.
"In reviewing their numbers today, clearly I think there's a couple of omissions that potentially change their net income position at the end of September, which I have some concerns about," Mann continued.
"We are already funding them approximately $29,000 per year with the property tax rebate as well as the grant, which they use to leverage additional funds. This ($40,000) would be over and above that.
"Some of the calculations I did today, if those numbers are included in what I was referring to in the statements for 2020, they're not showing the $25,000 grant from the municipality or the additional rebate for taxes. So if we assume that it's still around the same amount, that's an additional $29,000 of income, which then would put them actually in a positive position of just over $29,300 for the year, which shows that they'd be in a better position than last year over the same period by approximately $5,000.
"So I think we need to have a larger discussion with the Renaissance Centre. I have no issue in moving it to budget (the 2021 Elliot Lake Budget process). But I think clearly this is something that it could potentially open the floodgates for other businesses in town. We have another facility that does assist seniors in town, which, to my knowledge, on my tenure has not come forward ever for funding.
"So I think we just need to be very cautious on how we start to look at this," Mann concluded.
Elliot Lake CAO Daniel Gagnon said the solution might also be found through COVID relief funding from the Province of Ontario.
He added there are precedents "regardless of the COVID funds, Council may want to just refresh your memory that it was in 2019 Council approved a community grant program where we're able to provide grants to non-profits for various fairly wide ranging subject matter. That program still exists so the apparatus is already there.
"It had a very shoe string budget if you recall. I think it was originally $10,000 but it may have been increased to $20,000. But the apparatus is there. We don't need to worry ourselves with the budget.
"The concept for that grant program was to advertise it and admittedly we haven't done a very good job of advertising. But advertising it in the late summer or early fall, and then have those requests flow into the budget process, there's still time to basically just use the program that already exists. And then just deal with the requests once we get them so we will be talking about establishing a deadline and and getting the word out on that program, and then see where that takes us.
Gagnon concluded, "Then you can use the COVID money in the back of your mind."
In the end, COW referred the Renaissance Centre's emergency funding request to the city's Ad Hoc Budget Committee. That decision is expected to be formalized at the next regular meeting of City Council on Oct. 26.