As the City of Kamloops faces new fiscal realities because of COVID-19, it is looking to see what kind of grant funding is still available.
Grants and Awards Coordinator Jennifer Muir says in 2019 the city got about $24 million in grant funding, about 13 per cent of the total revenue.
“It includes dollars from gaming and federal and provincial gas tax funds as well as grants and incentives from other government and private sources,” she told council.
“This year as the city faces new realities from the pandemic, identifying grants to supplement spending on projects that are priorities in the five-year financial plan has become more important than ever.”
Muir says in the months ahead, the city is looking for grant funding to help pay for flood mitigation, accessibility improvements, as well as improvements to parks, transit, and active transportation.
“Since January, a number of grant applications have been submitted. Two of these have been successful and others that are currently under review could benefit the city in a variety of ways, including new or revitalized infrastructure, planning for future projects, supporting community safety, accessibility, culture, and recreation.”
She says over the past few months, the city has also been sharing grant information with community partners that might benefit as well.
City has several ‘shovel ready’ projects for when money is available
The city’s Civic Operations Director Jen Fretz says the city has an idea of what money might be available, noting there are several shovel ready projects ready to go forward.
“Pretty much anything that is slated for 2021 is shovel ready,” she said. “So that would be like the 12th Street project, Columbia Street improvements, active transportation projects. We have a number of arena upgrades that are also ready.”
“It just depends on what the grant is looking for and the specifics around can you spend money before you apply for the grant or not – all of those sorts of things. But we do have a number of shovel ready projects in the event that there is grant funding available.”
Mayor Ken Christian says the city is doing its bit to ensure that it has those shovel ready projects ready whenever there is grant funding available.
“That if we have someone in Ms. Muir’s position focused on this, then there is some efficiencies in terms of having one person do it all and best practices can be mined from other organizations,” he added.