Questions about the qRD

I have been asked the following questions (in italics) via email from a resident. To ensure that everyone has access to my complete responses, I have placed them in this blog post.

1. Why are the topmost expenses in the LIVFD Budget called “Shared”?

   Each regional service has one or more “participating areas” (e.g. electoral areas or municipalities - Lasqueti is Electoral Area ‘E’). The participating areas of a qRD service may include all areas (e.g. regional parks), a subset of areas (e.g. house numbering), or a single area (e.g. LIVFD).

   In general, expenses for a service are combined by all participating areas and sub-services (“Shared” expenses). In some cases, expenses are separated by each participating area and/or sub-service (e.g. the LIVFD budget separates out expenses associated with each of its two fire halls from the general expenses).

    

2. Our Fire Department is a wildfire service. What are the additional expenses that make it cost more than Fire services which have the equipment and training to go into buildings?

   First: LIVFD is not a wildfire service. It provides a structure fire protection service with exterior operations training, as well as medical first responder services. That is, LIVFD can suppress fires on buildings, but is not trained for interior firefighting, according to the Office of the Fire Commissioner. The Provincial BC Wildfire Service is responsible for wildfires (forest fires), although LIVFD may cooperate with the BC Wildfire Service in the event of a forest fire.

   The qRD has 4 volunteer fire departments. The Savary Island department is also an exterior operations department (smaller service area and full-time residential population), while the other two (north and south of Powell River) are larger and provide service at an interior operations training level (i.e. firefighters in those departments have training to enter buildings during response).

   In terms of cost, the LIVFD does not cost more than the other qRD fire departments (in fact, it has the smallest tax requisition and operational budget). Here is a summary of the 2024 tax requisitions and total operational expenses:

   • LIVFD
     • Tax requisition: $364,125
     • Total operational expenses: $433,375
   • Savary Island Volunteer Fire Department
     • Tax requisition: $408,413
     • Total o perational expenses: $457,728
   • Malaspina Volunteer Fire Department:
     
     • Tax requisition: $923,955
     • Total operational expenses: $992,006
   • Northside Volunteer Fire Department
     
     • Tax requisition: $659,622
     • Total operational expenses: $736,237
        
3. When will we have an in-person Community meeting to discuss future planned major changes for our Fire Department?

   Any community member can organize a community meeting to discuss topics of importance to them. Shoshanah has organized a series of community forums to discuss any community-related topic of interest by attendees, with topics so far including fire resiliency, housing and civil discourse.

   If any significant service changes to the LIVFD service were being considered (such as increases or decreases in service levels, or new services in which Lasqueti may optionally participate), I would certainly discuss and consult with the community.

   In the Feb 2024 issue of Xwe’etay News, I wrote “at some point we will need to have some important community discussions on future needs and direction (esp. replacement trucks).” There are some potential large cost items looming on the horizon (including replacement trucks as well as long-term fire hall planning). There can and will be community discussion for us to navigate between increasing costs, taking care of our volunteers, providing the service the community wants and meeting Provincial requirements. But I used the phrase “at some point” to communicate that such a discussion should be initiated when such changes come closer. At present there are no future planned major changes to LIVFD of which I am aware.

    

4. “Administration” costs for the LIVFD just went up 20.6%. This is clearly not due to inflation. Why and how is this so large?

   The “Administration” line item in the 2024 LIVFD budget increased from $28,715 in 2023 to $34,625 in 2024. Approximately 5% was due to inflation. The remaining increase was due to increased internal administration required to operate the fire department in order to meet the requirements of the Province (there is significant administration to meet the requirements to track and report training, practices, maintenance, incident reports, etc. and the Province keeps downloading onto local governments). The administration costs for LIVFD are comparable to the 2024 level for the similar-sized Savary Island Volunteer Fire Department ($30,714).

    

5. “Grants-in-aid" for 2024 almost tripled (>180%): Why and where is this money going?

   First: Overall grants-in-aid for 2024 paid for by Lasqueti were exactly the same as in 2023.

   I have previously written about changes to the grants-in-aid process used by the qRD. In 2023, Lasqueti contributed funding to “general grants-in-aid”, “social planning grants-in-aid” and “local grants-in-aid”. There were also “economic development grants-in-aid”, but Lasqueti does not participate in the economic development service (so did not contribute). The different pots of funding, with different participating areas and different, overlapping objectives was unnecessarily complex and made it challenging to allocate grants to the different societies and groups across the qRD doing important volunteer environmental, social and cultural work (e.g. music events, salmon enhancement, trail maintenance near Powell River, Texada dragon boat races, etc.).

   I was able to gain Board support to streamline and clarify the process, which included eliminating the social planning and economic development grants-in-aid, and moving the amounts into local and general grants-in-aid. The overall amount for 2024 remained flat.

   Lasqueti groups that have received recent qRD grants include the LCA (food bank), LINC, Arts Society (Arts Fest), and False Bay PAC.