The Village of Granisle council is waiting to hear exactly how it can spend a $616,000 grant announced by the province March 3 that’s part of the $1 billion Growing Communities Fund total being distributed to municipalities and regional districts around the province.
“At these early stages it is difficult to be specific as we are waiting for the province to announce the parameters surrounding this funding,” said Granisle mayor Linda McGuire.
She noted that the Village is also working its way through budget approvals for this year, a process that involves assessing and prioritizing the village’s needs.
Although the provincial government has said the money can be used for capital projects such as roads,` it adds that it will be providing specific instructions later on.
The $616,000 is the fifth lowest grant provided by the province. Silverton in the Kootenays received $585,000, Zeballos on Vancouver Island received $553,000, Wells in the Cariboo received $588,000 and Port Clements on Haida Gwaii received $600,000.
The grants were determined by a formula that begins with a base $500,000 going to each of the 188 municipal governments and regional districts in the province.
The final amounts were then determined by the population of each municipal government and regional district and their growth between 2016 and 2021 as calculated by the provincial BC Stats bureau.
In this area, because of the impact of the $500,000 basic grant, the Village of Granisle’s $616,000 works out to $1,974 for each of the 312 people that BC Stats calculated as living there in 2021.
The Houston grant of $1.759 million, when divided by the 3,183 resident calculated to be living there in 2021, works out to $552 per capita.
In Smithers the per capita amount is $406 while in Burns Lake it is $647.