Quesnel’s Business Excellence Awards will have to go ahead this year without any money from City Council.
A request has been turned down with only Laurey-Anne Roodenburg in favor of providing some money.
Mayor Bob Simpson says the main reason is that Council has fundamentally changed its budgeting process where there is no discretionary spending and no specific line item for things that aren’t allocated specifically or requested specifically during the budget process.
He says they are also trying to put taxpayers’ money to programs and services that benefit the majority of taxpayers…
“As an example, we did find some room to help fund a temporary residence for 2 doctors that covered our emergency so our emergency didn’t have to have curtailments over the course of the summer.”
“We believe that’s a good use of tax-payers money that benefits the entire community rather than isolated groups.”
Simpson adds that Quesnel is a community in transition and they still need to find $600,000 in savings in this year’s budget.
He says a budget request can be made for the Business Excellence Awards next year.
(Files from George Henderson)